the patriarchive

Maybe it’s because I’m now collecting a paycheck, or maybe I have a more nuanced approach to conflict in my old age, but for some reason I keep starting and deleting posts. I haven’t decided if I want to make this blog anonymous so that I can maintain the pain-in-the-ass tone I’ve developed (alright, it’s mostly disposition but also some training). Up to this point, I’ve made it really easy to figure out who I am (not that anyone cares), but now I would hate to make things awkward for myself or my colleagues.

On the other hand, I think that there’s some value in trying to document what it’s like to be a new archivist and how completely clueless I feel — especially if I can develop a readership of archivists that might be able to provide insights, or who might be able to at least sympathize. I often wish that I could find a discussion list other than the SAA listserv so that I can ask my “dumb” questions that have probably been brought up a zillion times before in the last ten years, especially since there’s probably some value in young archivists figuring it out together without having to dodge the politcal footballs that seem to be constantly kicked around ARCHIVES-L.

For instance, here’s an interesting task. We have a collection of about 30-40 78rpm records, all published materials, all totally beyond our interest or collecting scope. I have no idea how they came to us — when I ask my boss about them he gets sidetracked into another story. There’s really funny stuff like “Malawi Marimba Madness” and “The Most Popular Hawaiian Melodies” but also some totally weird shit — Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas,” etc. My supervisor is fine with getting rid of them, but I have no idea what the procedure for that is. They’re all published materials, so it’s not really archival, and I can’t think of a library that has the resources or patience or interest to deal with the format. So, it seems obvious that they should go to ebay (this collection really would be some hipster’s dream), but what’s the protocol for that? What are the possible disadvantages to selling the collection? How would I price it?

Or how about this for confusing — I just opened our accessions files to discover no new accessions numbers since 1997. Is there a good way to retroactively update accessions? Going into the future, I would like to do some kind of high-level inventory so that I can have almost everything accounted for (I’m thinking archivist’s toolkit). This way, we can get organized with our processing and web efforts (which are pretty much as unorganized as our accessions situation). How do I approach an inventory with 2.5 FTE and a handful of work-study students?

As my friend Christa would say, I’m a BABY. I’m new! Plus, the pressure of creating new systems that some future archivist will have to negotiate is overwhelming.

Maybe I should just have google scan everything and then burn it all.