Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow . . .

As a graduate assistant at the University of Arizona Libraries Special Collections, my appointment lasts for one academic year; thus, I have a few more months to wrap up the projects that I am working on. In addition to receiving mentorship and experience through this role, I am also finishing up the requirements for an archival studies certificate which I will obtain alongside my MLIS degree in May.

Already the semester has been busy as ever. Last month, Special Collections hosted a poetry reading by Simon Ortiz, Acoma Pueblo poet and scholar, who read from his newest book of poetry printed by UA Press called Light as Light; which was followed by an interview conversation with Ofelia Zepeda, Tohono O’odham poet and scholar.  This event is an example of the kinds of outreach that SpecColl holds to serve the local community.

In addition, I have been focused on finishing processing the TCE groundwater (Lemmon) collection, which includes writing an abstract, scope and content note, and a biographical note for the collection’s finding aid on ArchivesSpace. To accomplish this task, I referenced different finding aids for science-related collections and papers of scientific researchers within the repository. I also needed to input the file names along with the corresponding box containers. Because the collection had several overlapping subjects, I decided in conjunction with my supervisor, a processing archivist, that the collection should be organized in alphabetical order by file name.

Last week, I reached another milestone: my first exhibit case. For my student pop-up exhibit, I had to team up with another student to curate two exhibit cases: one based on general interest, and another based on University of Arizona history. Initially, we wanted to utilize the James E. McDonald papers, which contains materials from his UFO investigations. The collection consists of photographs and reports of flying saucer sightings, correspondence, interviews, and cases.  With the recently renewed interest in UFOs and extra-terrestrials, we were excited to display these fascinating materials and inspire discussion on this supernatural topic.

However, this plan fell through when we realized that one of our esteemed colleagues at the archives was planning to curate an exhibit from the McDonald papers as well next semester. In the interest of keeping things fresh and not wanting to step on the toes of our colleagues, we decided to shift our focus to another general interest topic.

So, the next thing to do was to look for materials for another general interest topic, as well as for the topic from University of Arizona history. While it may seem rather tedious, I took to scrolling through the collections online, skimming the titles and abstracts, trying to find something that stood out as intriguing. I came across the Movie poster collection, which consists of movie posters of various sizes and other promotional ephemera. Most of the films represented in the collection were set in the Southwest. We decided to make ‘Movies set in the Southwest’ our exhibit topic.

I took to the same strategy in order to find a University history topic; after bookmarking a couple of interesting collection finds, I conferred with my exhibit curation partner. We decided to pull materials from the University of Arizona opera theatre collection, which contained stage photographs, photographs of performances, programs, schedules and more. Finally, with the help of our marvelous preservation team, we installed the materials in the exhibit cases last week.

~Mary

“Movies of the Southwest” exhibit case

“University of Arizona Opera Theatre” exhibit case

Archival Processing and Digital Project

After an All Halloween Summer, the desert temperatures in slow decline, the archival basement is always cold.

Since my last entry, I have successfully submitted my processing proposal, and thus far I have processed five boxes in total. There are now four new boxes filled with freshly filed material, meaning that the collection has now been reduced by 1-2 boxes. The next steps are to finish processing the remaining boxes, arrange and order the materials into separate series, and then create the finding aid. As mentioned before, I had thought about organizing the collection into four different series, Reports, Surveys, & Maps, Correspondence, Research Materials, and Literature. However, in the interest of the respect des fonds principle, as I have been processing the materials, I have been taking special consideration of their original order and grouping, which means that different types of materials will be gathered around the same topic. In other words, a folder originally titled, “Phoenix Landfill” may have reports, correspondence, and various literature such as brochures, manuals, and the like, all having to do with the same specific topic.

I have also been working on a digitization project since September for the Papers of Morris K. Udall collection. This project involves providing metadata descriptions for audio cassettes and reels to make the digital access copies available to the public on the Special Collections online repository. This task is completed by utilizing a metadata dictionary prepared by SpecColl faculty to fill in an Excel spreadsheet template with all of the required (and optional) elements. This project has been more interesting than one may expect: a component to completing the metadata is writing a short abstract for each tape, which most often means I have to listen to enough of the audio in order to glean what it consists of. These particular audio tapes were created during Morris Udall’s 1976 democratic primary presidential campaign against Jimmy Carter, so they consist of mostly addresses (speeches), a few interviews, and also endorsements from other politicians and leaders. Hearing Mo Udall’s platform campaign in his own words gave insight to his own work as well as the political culture and climate from a time that I was not around for. One of the most exciting discoveries was finding a Udall endorsement from Rosa Parks herself.

Happy (barely) autumn everyone!

-Mary

Paper Trails

Beginning in August, I have been surveying this TCE (trichloroethylene) Groundwater Contamination (Lemmon) collection for processing. This collection is notable for its environmental significance; the “Lemmon” in question is James Lemmon, hydrologist (not to be confused with the Lemmons of Mt. Lemmon, or Jack Lemmon). Lemmon’s work concerning groundwater and contamination tells a both dark and fascinating narrative from the history of the water supply in the Sun Corridor.

The first thing to do was open up each of 17 cardboard boxes one by one and take notes on its contents in order to understand the collection, determine preservation concerns, and consider the order arrangement of the materials for processing. I took my notes on a yellow legal pad, writing small and in cursive to preserve paper and time. The collection contained all sorts of materials, from typewritten correspondence to handwritten notes, interoffice memoranda, newspaper clippings, telephone message slips, restaurant menus, hydrological equipment order forms, office supply catalogs, conference poster presentations, symposium agendas, course syllabi, employee evaluation forms, brochures of all kinds, and more.

A quintessential responsibility for archivists and their apprentices is the interpretation of materials in the archives; how the items are described serves the accessibility of collection for the community. So, for this collection, I am thinking about suggesting four series in the processing proposal: Reports, Surveys, & Maps, Correspondence, Research Materials, and Literature. Considering the kind of researchers that may seek this collection, I thought that these categories would be useful (the most important/relevant category should come first).

Moving forward, the decisions may change. There is also the question of what materials will be discarded, in order to weed the collection. While there are lots of interesting materials, space is limited, and so we must interpret and decide what is important. Indeed, there is a great amount of value in this collection concerning water resources that is not documented elsewhere.