10:31:50 Yes. All right, go ahead and get started john
10:31:58 john stuff here.
10:32:00 Okay.
10:32:02 All, all go ahead done.
10:32:06 So hello everyone and welcome to session 17 one step back and two steps forward.
10:32:14 This is approaches to processing and did for access and digital assets.
10:32:20 First off, we have a few points to cover Merrick would like to thank the sponsor of this session, digital transitions and pixel acuity for sponsoring this session, and making the virtual conference possible.
10:32:34 Digital transition transitions pixel acuity has an exceptional reputation for providing the finest quality efficiency and flexibility in the digitization service bureau community.
10:32:47 So, also for this session we will be utilizing the live transcript for the entire session for accessibility purposes.
10:32:55 If you would like to hide the subtitles, simply click the live transcription button at the bottom of your application, and then select hide subtitle.
10:33:06 If your zoom application is not maximized. you may need to click the three dots, the more icon to turn off the subtitles.
10:33:15 Also please remember to visit our pre recorded poster sessions on YouTube through the way found in your conference program during this session.
10:33:25 Please use the q amp a to pose questions to the panel will we will relay those questions to the panelists, and at the end of the session close out the session with a discussion.
10:33:40 So I'm excited to introduce our panelists today. We have Aaron Baker from the National Archives and Records Administration.
10:33:50 Amanda friends from George Mason University who unfortunately will not be able to join us today. We want to acknowledge and thank her for all of your hard work on this on this session.
10:34:02 I'm Renee brown from the University of Maryland Global Campus.
10:34:06 Also Ashley ideas, and Felicity knocks both from Towson University.
10:34:17 So, as, as we've said today's session focuses on reprocessing function that many of us will either eventually encounter or already have encountered on the job.
10:34:33 Most of us. When we learn about processing while we're in school, most of us have a pretty good understanding of how to do that.
10:34:39 But reprocessing is a slight variation that just does not always come up.
10:34:45 It isn't discussed quite as often, and it leaves a lot of us with a little bit of a knowledge gap and a little bit of an experience gap as well if we've, you know, learned about and process collections in our internships are in classes but this word reprocess
10:35:01 just hasn't come up.
10:35:04 So that's part of where the session came from idea and a chance to discuss and help each other sort of learning through all of these different pieces and moving parts of reprocessing.
10:35:19 So there are many reasons that reprocessing can become necessary, And there's more than one way to do it.
10:35:25 It depends, like most things in archives.
10:35:28 So we're hoping that this will be a helpful tool for those of us, attending to learn about and prepare for our next few processing projects.
10:35:43 Your processing can in many ways, be more complicated than just regular processing, you have to know a lot of ways think why past decisions were made, how you can work off that already existing framework, and what to do next.
10:35:59 That often requires us to consider the many moving parts of the Legacy Collection or legacy practices. In addition to new, new expressions, and even new digital materials that are being added to collections.
10:36:14 So today, again, we hope that you enjoy the theory and case studies that we've presented here, and we hope that it will help you with your own projects.
10:36:24 And with that, I will hand it off to Deborah to get us started here please just say next slide when you're when you're ready for me to move along. All right, thank you so much.
10:36:35 Thank you so much for putting together the panel. I'm sorry I can't see what I presume are friendly faces out there.
10:36:44 Um, so for those of you who know me, my name is Dr. Baker, I currently serve as the digital format specialist at the National Archives. I've had a very career working for the federal government, working to for the US Navy working for the Export Import
10:37:00 Bank and started out as a historian, and I get to do the think, sort of like think take a piece of this I took on the question of how on earth are we supposed to think about digital reprocessing when most of us haven't really had the chance to work with
10:37:19 digital collections at all. Next slide please.
10:37:28 So, first, the contents of this presentation represent my own words and personal opinions and should not be considered to represent the opinions or positions held by my employee organization, state, local or federal government entity.
10:37:40 Next slide please.
10:37:43 So, my career started actually with more reprocessing and processing.
10:37:51 I came into a Legacy Collection. As a pure on Lone Ranger, and had been asked to look at the organization of a collection.
10:38:01 And when I looked at what seemed to be a really fantastic outline for the paper records when I got to the page that dealt with the emergent internet and internet.
10:38:12 They had their own line in how I was supposed to collect them and that didn't see really feasible.
10:38:19 So, I've been thinking and spending a lot of time in my current work, and my other work to help the community and help all of us sort of get our, get our not get our feet wet but really understand the differences between processing work, and the digital
10:38:38 world.
10:38:41 So, all of this is new to us every single one of us who probably at some point, except for those of us who started out as digital natives thought we were probably going to be working with paper.
10:38:51 Those of us who have transitioned into the digital have had days of What on earth are we doing, trying to take into account that massive amount of information we can now keep, and the multiple ways in which we can keep it.
10:39:08 And then, particularly for those who are working on archival federal, state, and local side, working with materials that are probably old when we get them.
10:39:19 So,
10:39:22 and then also the consequences both positive and some of them less positive, of the more product less process for processing.
10:39:30 Next slide please.
10:39:34 So we all know sort of the concepts of processing and reprocessing right so first is get intellectual control. Second is determine how you're going to have a physical representation of that and what order, and then the ways in which you're going to provide
10:39:51 public access. There are some additional pieces to this that are required for digital content. So, obviously, at the point of establishing intellectual control.
10:40:04 Getting you're accessing a technical metadata in an understandable format that you can move along with your material, right in your physical sort of getting the physical material setup, rather than, in addition to sort of like thinking in terms of what
10:40:20 would a folder have been making sure that you have best practices for digital file formats for digital free formatting and that you're able to keep track of all of that.
10:40:32 And then on the public access side which is something that I'm really interested in is trying to leverage user experience and future proof and imagine what future users are going to want to use with this content, and how that might differ from how current
10:40:49 users, work with our collections. Next slide please.
10:41:02 So, I was curious as to where the state of the field was on this as Laura said, There hasn't been a ton of work done on reprocessing it's something that sort of come up in the last 10 years.
10:41:15 I know I've been talking about it for a while, and it's been nice to have a sort of bigger group of people acknowledging This is something that the field needs to spend some time, regular rising and standardizing, um, you know, looking back sort of the
10:41:32 earliest article in here goes back to 2012, there was some more work in 2017 2018, that is sort of moving us in this direction, and then the sort of field of digital collections and processing which we all know is new and exciting and we've got some frameworks
10:41:55 and some other work that's been coming out.
10:41:58 Um, I do think sort of the the last article on the right to do the archives have the future in the digital age.
10:42:06 I will go on the record to say, a kind of wish we'd stop asking that question and accept that we may have to rethink how we interact with people, but we are going to have, and we have a massive presence on the digital stage, our capacity to understand
10:42:22 and to give shape to data is something that is going to be really significant going forward. Next slide please.
10:42:32 All right, I'm the most important and difficult part I think about thinking about digital reprocessing is like everyone else who started out in archives, when you teach processing when you work in processing.
10:42:48 The most important thing is to be able to get intellectual control of your content.
10:42:51 And I don't think that that's going to be feasible with digital collections in the same way, and figuring out how to navigate that space is partly where our case studies in this presentation on digital and reprocessing will take us in terms of that legacy
10:43:08 legacy and some of those other things that Laura mentioned.
10:43:21 But there, and there are a number of tactics that can be undertaken to address and mitigate the challenge of not knowing everything you have. Um, it's important for us to think in terms of how will these materials be able to be accessed in five years,
10:43:29 rather than our ability to always access a piece of paper, unless the incubated most current technical product and preservation metadata derived from an analog or paper based systems, we may want to think about adjusting how we collect that metadata,
10:43:49 and what kind of system we keep it in, and how to make it accessible. Um, I'm sure that some places have an abundance of accessing metadata that probably would be considered more administrative or technical with electronic.
10:44:04 And in these cases some of my work in particular is looking at and these are all listed here the digital five file formats for the originals, but any information on preservation copies that are created, digital preservation actions that are taken any
10:44:17 decisions specifically made for public access.
10:44:22 These could include both sort of like the legal and copyright questions but it could also be whether or not you decided to create lower quality derivatives for some reason and making sure that people remember why.
10:44:36 And then, providing a lot of information about what I've started calling digital identity so whether something is born digital or digitized, And then the extent and the scope.
10:44:47 So when somebody goes to download a file, or does their computer have the capacity to download that file format the size of the file and did they have enough information to be able to work with it.
10:44:58 Um, some of these everybody who works with digital are, you know, they're thinking about now. So a lot of this is common sense and kind of pulling it together but we all know that processing is a large chunk of common sense.
10:45:10 And then the last point that I have on here is to embrace unique identifiers and link data and linkages and to be comfortable with iterative development, I think one of the great things in the profession.
10:45:26 Our embrace of connecting collections together putting collections together and sort of virtual environments and I think that's something that we can leverage going forward.
10:45:32 Next slide please.
10:45:35 Alright so, um, how do we approach, digital reprocessing and for me, sort of this concept those I was thinking through is the best way to think of digital content reprocessing would be like a parasympathetic system, it must always some function for the
10:45:54 organism to thrive, but it only has to be noticed some of the time.
10:45:59 It has to be checked on a regular basis, sort of like your annual checkup, but rather than being able to put the box on the shelf and come back to it when the one person looks at 25 years later, that's not something we can really count on.
10:46:11 So, user adapt to what we're familiar with to address what seemed like brand new problems.
10:46:17 I think we've all come across this in terms of. I have no idea how to work with a collection that had a online material that had a CD, it had drive and then it had some kind of, you know, virtual old school MySpace, right, is the question do you treat
10:46:38 all of those is different formats or do you treat it as a whole collection so that's a similar question for separating photographs versus separating text documents digitization priorities can be repurposed for reprocessing of digital collections.
10:46:53 I think this is a great way to think about the things that are most important for your public are probably the ones you should think about reprocessing first as well.
10:47:03 digital preservation is not the same as reprocessing, but can be related or combined.
10:47:16 Adding reprocessing into your work when, when your workflows when you have to check your formats for obsolescence i think is a great place to do that. You can scale up. I'm using smaller Digital Collections as a model or selecting one content and using
10:47:34 Many organizations have familiarity with for more process more product less process. And then repurposing user centric processes such as digitization on demand.
10:47:40 And then repurposing user centric processes such as digitization on demand. As part of our process as well. So I think we have a lot of raw pieces that we can pull together. Next slide.
10:47:49 All right.
10:47:53 The tried and true, I mean, we're never sure what's true these days and the new so archivist and staff and process and reprocess Digital Collections should have a grounding in both archival theory, and the practice of digital preservation.
10:48:05 I think that this is something that is coming out more in library schools I think in a lot of the certificate programs.
10:48:12 And something that we really should be encouraging.
10:48:15 We should the field in general, particularly those of us who have more input on the tech based side should be determining At what point machine enabled search, machine learning and other search strategies, but then systems are sufficient to support staff
10:48:30 knowledge and public access to sort of enable us to leverage the machines to help the people.
10:48:40 Obviously we need to be aware of newly emerging vocabularies around diversity community identity and
10:48:47 to assess inclusion for existing finding aids, this applies especially to collections with bypass LGBT Q. And historically accurate but demeaning language which we, which is everywhere and I think this is something that digital reprocessing and particularly
10:49:03 machine learning and language, maybe able to help if directed correctly.
10:49:09 And just recognizing the digital content processing is seldom a one and done reprocessing exists on a continuum. There is going to be a constant need to do continual small improvements to assess new file types file formats file extensions, and to really
10:49:24 become comfortable with the language and the differentiation in file format file type file size file extension and get those vocabulary words down, and then to choose where crowdsourcing best supports your processing efforts.
10:49:38 Next slide.
10:49:41 And here, make the best of your digital assets.
10:49:46 So reprocess to keep file format and or content available and reprocess to improve find ability and public access so recognize that there are really two types of reprocessing for electronic or digital material one is associated more closely with the ongoing
10:50:04 work and the really well developed work for digital preservation, and the other is more on our content side.
10:50:12 So, looking at increasing linkages providing search terms adding values through technology.
10:50:20 Protecting our hierarchies with Parent Child sibling relationships and spending some time looking at our new and emerging users to see what they're going to need.
10:50:30 Next slide.
10:50:32 Thank you very much, everybody. So, we're all here. Um, I really enjoy sort of the intellectual side of this and talking through and I am happy to talk to anybody about this slides will be made available and I am always accessible for conversations or
10:50:49 questions. Thank you.
10:50:56 Good morning, everyone. My name is Renee brown I'm the archivist for the University of Maryland Global Campus, and today I'm going to be airing some of my dirty laundry, aka the big sort.
10:51:09 So next slide please.
10:51:12 A little bit of background, first of all, that is my cat Doom, and she is laying on archival material, because that is what we do now. During coded lockdown.
10:51:22 We turn around and our animals are in our stuff.
10:51:26 But this also kind of leads into what I'm going to talk about a little bit, because when uh before I came on as the archivist the previous archivist had left someone in charge of the intake of records, who had zero archival experience.
10:51:43 So what happened was, she would take donations in, she would wait until the box was full, and then go upstairs put the box in the archives, without next session record, even a content sheet, nothing.
10:51:58 There was no processing done of any sort, and or descriptions attached. We didn't know where a majority of the stuff came from there was no order. And, you know, many of the records weren't even in folders, they were just stacked together in one big box.
10:52:13 box. This ended up being about 60 boxes, worth of information. Yeah. And so this became our largest largest artificial collection, and my greatest shame and our biggest backlog.
10:52:28 So when I took over in 2013 from the previous archivist to to retired was put into a split position where I did 20% in archives and 80% in reference so as you can guess.
10:52:45 I was a lone ranger I was the only person working in the archives and not much got done. So that meant that a significant portion of our collection was not only and discoverable by our researchers but I'm discoverable by me.
10:53:03 And it just sort of languished in this thing that I dubbed the step 101,000 series. So, yeah.
10:53:12 Next slide please.
10:53:15 Finally I was given a full time position in 2017, and a year later years later here and a half later, I was given permission to hire an assistant, yay help was arrived, and she was an awesome assistant Her name was Megan Wilson, and she had been previously
10:53:34 been one of our Student Assistance, and so she kind of knew what she was getting into.
10:53:41 And one day she, and this is her quote directly. She was sitting in the frozen tundra of the archives and she'd had enough. And I vividly remember this she walked into my office and she said we have to do something about that 1000 series I can't take
10:53:57 it anymore. And I started thinking, Well, why aren't we taking care of it, like we've got the help now why don't we do it, I had done only her but I had a student assistant as well.
10:54:08 And so I was like yeah I think this might be possible in the US, the big sort was born. Next slide please.
10:54:16 So we had 60 boxes, give or take this picture on the right is a picture of part of the shelves that were emptied during the big stork, and you can see on the far end how tall they had been piled.
10:54:35 And that actually that that shelf on the far end is now empty as well.
10:54:41 But we had to open every single box and go through it and go through them, bit by bit. And while we were playing with the project we realized that we would never be able to do this alone or in one sitting.
10:54:56 So, Megan and Alex and I all decided that we would spend time every week, trying to work through this so every Monday morning from August 29 to January 2019.
10:55:11 We all had it down to the archives, we would pull the boxes out and we would go through them until our minds turned to mush, which is about two and a half hours.
10:55:21 So that means we spent roughly 60 hours over the course of six months trying to get through these boxes heard me.
10:55:32 So while we were going through it, we were using the index of the archives, which contains a list of every record group, and we were trying to sort the contents of each into specific a specific collections within the index.
10:55:48 But you, you just have no idea what you're going to come up with, right, I, we, we found. Um, let's see, we came across Pinot flags cassette tapes CDs and and a crazy VCR tape that what is an old TV tape so it's this big probably about a foot long and
10:56:12 about a foot tall.
10:56:15 And it doesn't go into regular VCR and we had no idea what it was, we do a bunch of research to find out what was binders full of contracts.
10:56:26 Diversity posters commercial materials random newsletters that we'd never heard of Service Award information. We even found no i a new york police evidence box full of UMGC materials.
10:56:42 We also found stuff we didn't want to keep. We found 21 boxes of PII. And I'm not talking about just, you know, somebody's name and address.
10:56:56 I had people's names their addresses their SS IDs, and I had some other information, every once in a while I would have a mother's maiden name.
10:57:06 I would also find information on where they were originally born, I would have their full birthdate, I could have been any of these people.
10:57:17 And we, we, we tried it all 21 boxes of those, but we also found really interesting thing is like wide swathes of the internet had just been printed off and put in our archives handwritten notes that we couldn't read from a from things that we're not
10:57:47 MTC related. And we decided that if it was outside our policy we were going to put it in a shirt ready Ben. Okay, many surety bins.
10:57:47 Multiple shredded men's The, the people who did the, the recycling for us we got tired of hearing from us.
10:57:55 After we finished sorting for the day though we take the records and we placed them in their correct record group which meant, we would take whatever we decided went in a specific record group and we would physically take it to where it needed to be in
10:58:09 the room.
10:58:10 But that caused another problem which we'll discuss.
10:58:17 On the next slide. So can we go to the next. Next slide, please.
10:58:21 Look what I've done in my archives. Oh no.
10:58:25 So, during this project we found that not only did we have a lot that went into these previously created collections.
10:58:37 We found new collections, before we began, for whatever reason, and this, this was in place before I ever came on record group nine was empty.
10:58:48 Don't know why it had no title, and it had nothing in it. So now, record group nine it pertains to off campus programs because we found a ton of information about programs that we ran, but that were off campus so now record nine is filled makes me so
10:59:09 happy.
10:59:17 So our next step is to actually fully process the material into the existing collections. Some collections are going to take more time and effort than others.
10:59:26 The one on the left is going to take a lot of work going on the right, not so much. When all the new material will have to have metal fasteners removed binders thrown away it'll have to be re folder. It will have to property but properly labeled ordered,
10:59:36 and then Boston as a free boxes and labelled again.
10:59:40 Then appropriate descriptive descriptions and finding aids will have to be made and then made available.
10:59:46 It's just the usual processing. But the biggest thing is the final thing which is we're going to have to find a room for everything we have discovered in reprocessing, We have a lot more stuff than we thought.
11:00:00 And we were supposed to start in April of 20 God, but of course that didn't happen. But that's okay that the archives will be there when we reopen. Next slide, please.
11:00:13 There is that New York City Police Department evidence box I took a picture of it before we recycled it.
11:00:27 The first impact I want to talk about the impact of the big sword, is that a considerable amounts of non archival material, were found switched between records, I mean just epic amounts.
11:00:33 Um, we found an entire box of of things that have flyers for things that have nothing to do with you MTC, they were something we had no i no idea where this came from, we are assuming someone who worked at the MTC was working to put this conference on
11:00:55 and then they just sent us all their extras had nothing to do with us, did not belong there so we got rid of that.
11:01:03 Additionally, our collection policy states that we own only keep two records of each of each record two copies of each record three if it's really important.
11:01:14 We have contracts, massive binders of contracts that came in triplicate, we had five copies of conference proceeding materials, 10 copies of the same marketing pamphlet and one banker's box filled with 1997 commencement booklets.
11:01:32 Can you imagine how much space we were able to free up. I mean the amount of space that we discovered, just by getting rid of what was not within our collection policy was massive.
11:01:43 Another major impact.
11:01:45 We were working on this.
11:01:48 We were working from this index that had been created prior to my arrival. And we were realizing just how inaccurate it was, I walked in expecting it to be accurate and good.
11:02:02 And it just wasn't so we we had to throw out a few collections, we had to bring in a few collections, it was just, I mean, I feel so much more confident in my index now, and I feel like I also feel like you can't trust anyone you do when you come in,
11:02:19 you have to look at things and go over them with a fine tooth comb.
11:02:25 The next thing is while our collection development policy informed our decisions about the big sort of the big sort also informed our collection development policy.
11:02:34 There were many many times, when we had to pause and and actually think and talk to one another about whether or not this belonged in the archives. Does this really belong and and Megan and Alex and I had these huge, huge wonderful conversations about
11:02:55 does this belong here. And sometimes we would argue it, I mean sometimes we didn't come to a solution so we ended up leaving it in with kind of a red flag on it saying we have to come back to this later.
11:03:07 So it was really an awesome opportunity.
11:03:10 It also informed our actions going forward.
11:03:14 We are more informed about how the materials and collections should be integrated into our current collections, how they should be a session and and from this point forward forward, we can create the least mass possible.
11:03:29 So it's not just doing the normal processing, but adding all that other information that we discovered like using our index, having an in depth conversation about whether or not it should be added.
11:03:44 And then finally, adding it to the archives. And the amazing thing is during the big sort there was not a single record group that did not have something added to it every single collection was impacted by the sort that is 36 record groups that had at
11:03:59 least one folder added to it. And if that doesn't tell you the importance of sorting your miscellaneous boxes, I don't know what will be the greatest impact is access.
11:04:11 Now that we've parsed out the these random clumps of information records. These unknowable and discoverable things. Now we can actually provide access to these, these really important documents.
11:04:29 Next slide please.
11:04:34 lessons learned, doing the sword as a group was so much better than doing it alone.
11:04:41 Not only was it a team building exercise, but by not being siloed, we were able to make unanimous decisions and I feel like it really benefited the archive and made it a better archive session records session records the session records always creating
11:04:58 a session record for new material being introduced into the archive.
11:05:01 We have so many things that we have no idea where they came from, we have no history on them. We, we don't know how they relate to other parts of our of our archives that there was one particular set of records that had an acronym and I couldn't figure
11:05:17 out what it was. And it wasn't until by chance I was talking to someone who had been at you MTC for a very long time. And they were like, Oh, that is the Open Education Resource Center.
11:05:30 Thank you, that that helps so much because everybody just use the acronym and I had no idea.
11:05:38 Um, we, we also realized what a cyclical process. It is I, as much as we want to keep down on the mess.
11:05:48 We are always going to have more things coming in and there's always going to be that extra piece of paper that we just don't have time to look at.
11:05:54 We also discovered that how just how interconnected our archives is, and our student Alex was had her other project she was working on was the President's collection.
11:06:07 And we kept finding so much material with put into the President's collection that she, she swore she was going to stop working on it and because we just kept messing up your organization.
11:06:18 So it was really an awesome opportunity to see just how much these miscellaneous boxes, would go in and, and make our archive bloom and make it more 360, finally, finally, we know that the next big sword is always on the horizon, we know, like I said,
11:06:38 no matter how hard you try to put every single piece in its place, it's never going to happen. So, if we can just be prepared for that. Now that we have a way to do it, you have a, a, a, a step by step plan to attack these, you know, big sorts these dirty
11:07:15 laundry this pile of dirty laundry, then we can actually do it. So thank you so much for listening, and I'd like to hand it over to Ashley and Felicity out.
11:07:15 Good morning everybody. So my name is Ashley Todd Diaz, and I am the Assistant University Librarian for Special Collections and University Archives at Towson University, and I am joined by my colleague Felicity.
11:07:29 Hello, my name is Leslie knocks and I have been the archives, Associate at Towson University since 2009, so I'm going to get us started, and I wanted to say, Oh, that's fine.
11:07:46 I'm sorry, Laura.
11:07:48 When I first attended my first Merrick. It was in Pittsburgh and 2016 and I remember hearing someone present about how they had to make housing for ships.
11:08:00 And I like had this light bulb moment that when archivists get together we all tell our like our own personal ghost stories which you know Renee just did a really terrifying ghost story.
11:08:12 And that is what we're doing today here with our dreaded ua 50,000 haha.
11:08:19 Now, next slide. Thanks, Laura.
11:08:22 So until 2007, we didn't have a formally trained archivist into us archives. The faculty member who was in charge, it's very familiar with what Renee was facing the faculty member in charge only work there part time which meant there wasn't a lot of time
11:08:39 to process the collections, and the space itself as you can see here was way too small for all the collections that we had.
11:08:47 And then about 15 years ago, a former state governor reached out to us to see if he could leave his personal material to our school, which that was exciting so all the librarians jumped in to help condense those files and to make space for his collections,
11:09:01 but no one was taught how to do even minimal archival processing, which included a basic understanding of contacts and creators. Instead librarians were encouraged to condense the files and do their best to identify which each box contained and if you
11:09:19 click for me.
11:09:23 That means that collections were mashed together in boxes with nothing but this yellow piece of paper taped to the lid to give us any sense of provenance and you can see that smile a lot of information to go on and who knows if that's even correct right
11:09:39 next.
11:09:42 So, only. Like I said when you're putting things from all over the place into one box, you end up losing all of that provenance.
11:09:51 Next, so most of those boxes end up being identified as miscellaneous Ah, I see some folks have already guessed what that would have been so Next please.
11:10:01 So when our first archivist formal archivists started the library fast tracked of renovation which meant move removing everything from the department.
11:10:11 even gone to school yet, so I didn't know what I was doing, but I got to make an inventory of every box of not oops back. Sorry, non processed material from there when we moved everything back in we can identify those boxes that needed attention, including
11:10:35 all of those miscellaneous boxes. So one day I came into work, and this was what I saw in front of me, the archivist at the time had begun pulling all of those boxes and sorting everything by department or creator, using those file folder stands, which
11:10:51 were really nice to have and then she also started using boxes under that she put under the table for the bigger collections.
11:10:59 It was a super huge task but she really liked doing it she was super focused so she definitely spent a few weeks doing this.
11:11:08 And I was very happy to let her do it as well. However, as she worked she began to overthink, some of the files which you know we all do this to some extent but and at the time.
11:11:19 Again, I was a brand new baby archivist I didn't know what I was doing so I didn't say like, hey, maybe we should not be doing going in this specific direction.
11:11:31 So anyway, the collection.
11:11:36 So this new collection that she's created numbered over a dozen boxes with like 2500 folders or items.
11:11:44 So when Ashley started as the new head of special collections and University Archives I took on a tour of the department and said one day we're going to have to talk about the dreaded you a 50,000.
11:11:59 Next,
11:11:59 the UAE 50,000 files. Sounds again a lot like what Renee was looking at it included things like school unit, School anniversary materials commencement programs scholarship information.
11:12:11 Class Schedule booklets, you didn't newspapers which we already had as bound and digitized volumes and an entire defunct department known as the women's Athletic Association, which existed prior to the passage of Title Nine.
11:12:25 I don't know what the reasoning was for pulling many of these materials and amassing them all into one general collection. But the reality is that by creating this new artificial collection we now had a new version of miscellaneous records.
11:12:40 Next, and I'm going to pass it to Ashley he's going to tell the next part of this story.
11:12:45 Yes, so I came in, just about five years ago, and I remember, I clearly remember that tour with Felicity when she mentioned, the dreaded ua 50,000, and we had just wrapped up some of the planning for our Cisco Centennial Celebration so there had been
11:13:06 a lot of discussion about anniversaries and celebrations, which was made all the more challenging because a lot of that information was buried in UAE 50,000.
11:13:18 So it became pretty obvious to us as the archives was now on people's radar as a resource because of the sesquicentennial that if they had an upcoming anniversary or celebration.
11:13:31 They could come to us right as I'm sure many of you have experienced. So we started realizing that we really needed to dig into that collection and see more of what was there and where it needed to live permanently right in terms of provenance.
11:13:49 And about a year or so into my time at Towson a volunteer approached us and you know they were a student that they were an alumni from Tulsa and they were interested in starting an MLS program.
11:14:03 They had a background in antiques and you know they were telling me that they really wanted to get some experience they really liked problem solving and they were very you know focused on details and they like to do research and so you know Felicity and
11:14:19 I kind of put our heads together and determined, maybe this is the person we've been waiting for who could really you know dedicate time to us 50,000, and it would be an interesting learning experience to kind of untangle this this massive web, right,
11:14:36 and perhaps have an opportunity for the student to see the importance of provenance, and the importance of having materials in clear record groups rather than having this kind of miscellaneous artificial record group.
11:14:54 So, on the screen, you'll see a spreadsheet right and I think there were definitely some missteps in terms of how we approach this project overall.
11:15:06 You know one of the things that I own, is that Felicity and I both worked with the volunteer and so we probably created some confusion there in terms of how we suggested that the project, be approached.
11:15:22 But one of the things that I kind of set up when I first started talking to the volunteer was, you know, create a spreadsheet. You know what the folders you're looking at are you know familiarize yourself with them.
11:15:34 I had given them, you know, our listing of record groups and finding aids, so they had a sense of you know how the university was structured and kind of the major players.
11:15:46 And of course, you know, if I wasn't in the department for whatever reason Felicity was there as a resource, and she is our, our unofficial University historian so you know it's a great opportunity to ask questions and talk about the history.
11:16:04 But you'll notice right that within this spreadsheet.
11:16:10 Very quickly, things went sideways so there are over 2500 rows in the spreadsheet, and it became clear to us kind of early on that item level description was occurring, an item level, like analysis of provenance rather than perhaps folder level discussion
11:16:32 or folder level analysis or project level analysis. So, there was definitely again that that inclination to dive a little too deeply and to analyze things a little too much.
11:16:47 And very quickly what we got into the weeds.
11:16:51 So you'll notice you know we have this particular set of records is relating to a scholarship. But the Creator is listed pretty much as anybody that created a specific document, the volunteer did note a record group they thought that the item should go
11:17:09 into.
11:17:10 But it seems like there's some type of description going on like I my guess is that these are receipts. So, I mean, the level of detail of putting the exact amount of the receipt, or like, who have received was made out to.
11:17:26 And then you'll notice that final column transferred to somehow.
11:17:31 There was a little bit of confusion surrounding accession numbers, because every folder in this record group has an accession number on the folder itself and so Felicity and I had suggested that that accession number be carried forward into the spreadsheet,
11:17:50 because that corresponds with the master accession book that we could actually go back and see who had donated it and you know where it came from what the reasoning was right harkening back to what Renee was saying those accession records are key.
11:18:07 Unfortunately, that message got garbled a little bit and so the volunteer created their own accession numbers.
11:18:14 So, in a certain way they created new folder numbers, which we're not entirely sure how those relate to other anything else but you can see him in the picture on the top there post it notes now that kind of signify where they thought things should be
11:18:33 moved. So everything is still in those 12 boxes we haven't gotten to the point that Renee did where things were moved thankfully so we don't have to go back and recollect things in order to reprocess, but you'll notice more if you can advance the slide
11:18:50 that this was not accomplished right the collection is still quite tangled.
11:18:57 Next slide please.
11:19:00 So this is where we are now. Right. And we need to put that thing back where it came from.
11:19:07 Still, so this is kind of the pain that we have been feeling the challenge that we have been confronting for over a decade at this point is still there.
11:19:19 Thankfully, we still have accession numbers on all of the folders, we have the titles on all of the folders. So really we haven't lost anything other than this volunteers time.
11:19:31 So I mean it was a learning opportunity for them they did end up going on to a master's program, they are now employed as a reference librarian.
11:19:43 And we are no worse off, necessarily, but we do need to create a whole new box and folder list that is now tied back to those initial accession records, so that we better understand what is there, and that were set up for the future.
11:20:01 So, in terms of reprocessing.
11:20:03 We know still what we need to do it's just a matter of probably either doing it ourselves or, you know, really working with somebody very clearly to make sure that things don't go sideways again, because ultimately we still don't really know what's there
11:20:20 and we have this spreadsheet, but it's unclear right if we're looking at items if we're looking at, folders, you know what the the overall context is because things have become, in a way, at least digitally that much more convoluted.
11:20:39 So, we're coming out of it with lessons learned.
11:20:43 But we still need to reprocess. Alright. So, next slide, Laura.
11:20:48 So thank you for your time.
11:20:55 Thank you everybody that was wonderful. I apologize my mouse turned out to be a little bit more sensitive than I realized
11:21:06 if everybody could turn their video back on, we'll move into going through some of the question and answers but of this presentation, we've got a number of Q and A's ready so I'll go through them.
11:21:24 But let me just say first. Thank you all so much this if anything else I really appreciate how Felicity call this sort of ghost stories I think that's great, but it is also very much incredibly helpful just to hear about and to know that was the thought
11:21:45 process the weeds. The overthinking plus trying to understand what happened in the past like we're all in the same boat. Just like Derek said we're we're in it, and we're going through it together.
11:22:00 And I've learned so much already so thank you all.
11:22:05 All right, let's dive into some of these q amp a.
11:22:07 It looks like Renee is starting on the first one is for her.
11:22:13 It's for her. Right, it says Renee it looks like the predecessor used any sort of box packing boxes etc and not use record storage or cable boxes was that the case.
11:22:25 Yes, very much the case and it was a nightmare. And anytime we could. We tried to pull things out of boxes before we took them down to the archives. There was a point where we're funding was a little touch and go.
11:22:44 And so, packing boxes just got put in the archives.
11:22:47 I, we just didn't we didn't have the money.
11:22:53 I think the same thing the next few questions are part of your presentations.
11:22:57 Okay.
11:22:59 Keep going.
11:23:00 Yeah. So, Renee, how did you go about the accessing that the learning process when you found materials and records in your archives did not or did not need or did not fit in the mission or policies, did you contact donors and requests permissions to the
11:23:17 obsession Did you transfer or did you just read the final, we just.
11:23:23 So, let in with complete transparency here. We had no way of knowing who gave it to us. We had no way of knowing where it came from, like it was an internal was an external.
11:23:38 We had no way of knowing.
11:23:42 Like, how to end the worst very worst part was it had never been a session didn't to the collection. So it's sort of freed us up to just say, Alright, we're going to we're going to shred this stuff I'm not going to a session the men, just to do a session
11:24:00 them. So we were, we were given the opportunity to just shred them we did. There were a few things that we had, like copious amounts of copies of, and I reached out to a few other departments, specifically commencement and the president's office to say
11:24:18 hey we found extras of blah blah and blog would you like them, and flat, no from everyone. No one wanted anything back so I in as a caveat, I, one of the PII boxes I found was a box full of PII from my department with people who still work there.
11:24:40 So I walked up to my boss and I said, I could read off your SSN right now thanks to this PII Can I please have permission to share all of this, and he said please do so we when we came to shredding the PII we did get permission, so.
11:24:57 Well, yeah. Yeah, I do want to chime in on the boxes and the funding so in one of my previous jobs, we had there had been some very interesting choices in which boxes to acquire, but one of the things I did in my collection assessment and my reprocessing
11:25:14 is I discovered a lot of boxes that were only like a quarter filled. So I ended up actually like getting saving space, like, Renee said, and then actually getting boxes back, which was really helpful.
11:25:28 Yeah, so if you haven't done sort of like a look at boxes that like look heavy or look to be an odd size, take a look and see you may be surprised yourself and get like you know, 15 or 20 nice are couple boxes back.
11:25:42 So, I'm going to sort of put two questions together here and it's directed at Renee but I think, you know, this could be for everybody really was there material that was weeded that you were in your reprocessing in your reprocessing process that you were
11:25:59 able to donate to other local historical societies libraries, archives etc.
11:26:05 And while you were re reprocessing.
11:26:09 How much material,
11:26:12 how much space Did you recoup how much, how much volume was reduced during the processing.
11:26:20 Okay, so first question first. There were a couple of things.
11:26:27 Really amazing things that we found in the archives, the first one being, we found a complete.
11:26:35 We found a collection, for lack of a better word of slides that were pictures of the liberation of Dogtown, and they do not belong in your MTC, we know where they came from, we don't know how the man who had the Gotham.
11:26:55 And so we reached out to a couple of different places we reached out to the Holocaust Museum in DC, and we are talking back and forth with them. The coven is really for a wrench into a lot of things.
11:27:10 So that's on pause right now because I can't actually get to the slides, but we're eventually going to give them the slides and the slides are incredibly heart wrenching and moving they're, you know they're they're really terrible photos like the the
11:27:27 atrocities of man but then there are a few really great photos of people who've been released so I can't wait for the holocaust museum to actually get these.
11:27:38 We, there were there were six ranges, full of boxes so 60 boxes.
11:27:49 I'm actually was probably more than 60 boxes. Now that I'm thinking of it. Anyway, uh, but we condensed all of that down and we now have three ranges that are still have things in them, and those things are like boxes filled with photo albums from the
11:28:09 marketing people and we just don't have room to move those boxes into the marketing collection right now. And then we have three ginormous beautiful empty pristine ranges that we can now expand into and we're going to have to because as soon as we start
11:28:26 pulling things that are piled on top of things that are piled on top of things and putting them in archival boxes, it's going to expand and I'm going to lose that beautiful pristine space.
11:28:40 Hello.
11:28:41 Clean listening know you guys are still in the midst of reprocessing but do you anticipate that you'll eventually get to save some space.
11:28:51 I.
11:28:52 It's hard to say. I mean, I think, because we know the things that were kind of pulled out to a certain extent are kind of the the shiny moments in history right the celebrations and the big events and the anniversaries.
11:29:09 I know that we likely will be keeping everything that we'd likely won't find things that are going to be transferred, but I think it also I mean the the photo that Renee shared of folders on top of boxes that have no space I mean I think we will likely
11:29:24 be having to shift things and add additional boxes in in certain places. So my guess is we might shake out with a little bit of space depending on how things end up fitting in to other record groups.
11:29:43 Next question is specific to Derek's point but I think actually everybody could answer here.
11:29:49 It's a point about vocabularies and I see that there's been some discussion in the chat about this as well, which is, it's a great topic, it's definitely a major reason why we're processing at this point, is we're becoming more and more aware of all of
11:30:02 this, but it's a point about vocabularies or their accepted controlled vocabularies that reflect current efforts to be more inclusive and not cars, cause harm in describing archival materials.
11:30:14 And if they're consistent consensus on maintaining out of date description to facilitate discovery when adding new, more inclusive terms
11:30:26 there you're muted.
11:30:31 So, like everything else, consensus in this community can be difficult to say that there is consensus.
11:30:39 Um, what I would say is I'm starting in the spring of summer and last year with black lives matter a lot of our global organizations, put out a resources and list.
11:30:55 I was reaching for our reach for the Academy of certified archivist at the time and we pulled together a set of existing resources that were out there for discussions of descriptive practices intersection ality conversations.
11:31:11 There are a number of incredibly wonderful and active groups that seemed to have come to the forefront. So, the Black Lives Matter archival description in Philadelphia.
11:31:24 There's some fantastic work that has come out of the Native American protocols.
11:31:29 There's also a lot of work going on in the LGBT community. So if those are things that you believe that you have in your collection I would suggest that you reach out to the people working on that because they want us all to be better.
11:31:44 And to be conscious of the work that we do.
11:31:47 There's a question later on about the historically accurate for problematic.
11:31:56 Those I think I'm going to answer that one out offline because I don't think we have quite enough time, I do think that what we know is we know it when we see it when we come up with the term when we come across a term that is problematic.
11:32:09 But there are, we also have to be aware that individuals who identify themselves in a certain way at a certain time have to be respected. And the historical consciousness has to be maintained so that we don't accidentally rewrite the record ourselves
11:32:26 and unintentionally do more harm while doing good. And I think that that ethical piece of it. the community is working and catching up on the other vocabulary piece for me is that the way that we understand our digital assets, those terms are really Flexi,
11:32:45 right. So when you talk to somebody about a file type versus a file format, they may not know what you're talking about and you may have a really specific definition.
11:32:53 So I think that the technical side of working with our information services people and the way that they understand things. And the way that they talk, and the way that archivists talk about stuff we really need to make sure that we're in the same room
11:33:07 and in agreement before we write something down.
11:33:11 Um, so,
11:33:15 does anybody else want to jump in there.
11:33:23 wearable currently covered everything.
11:33:27 Those of you. So, Renee have and Ashley and Felicity since you're still working on it have had the higher ups have your administration commented, or acknowledged this work.
11:33:47 No, just that the administration likes what I do, especially when they come to me when we recently renamed from a UMUC which was, University of Maryland University College the University of Maryland Global Campus, and they wanted.
11:34:02 They wanted all the old all the old logos, any, you know, anything you could, we could find it was a picture, so that they could kind of go forward. And actually, my, my profile photo.
11:34:18 It says Global Campus underneath it, I, I can't be sure that's where they got the name from but that was one of the pictures I donated. But as for all the reprocessing they, they don't care.
11:34:30 They don't care as long as I don't ask for more funding or more space, we're good and I asked for both of those all the time.
11:34:40 So, this is one of those things where if you have the opportunity to change your statistics and statistical Reporting to Your uppers.
11:34:51 And you can make reprocessing and make the case for how it increases efficiency or save space or saves funding, do that. Don't keep it hidden.
11:35:02 I'm sure your work.
11:35:05 Highlight the word. Right. I mean, we're so morning. We just I just got an email this morning talking about metrics and I was like, Oh, this is a perfect time to talk about this because metrics are more than just what you put out there more than just
11:35:24 the questions you answer the research you've done, it's more than that. And so I went on a screen this morning.
11:35:37 Ashley and Felicity.
11:35:41 So we just got a new dean during coven, which is a interesting experience in itself, but she is much more aware of archives and the work that we do than our prior Dean was our prior Dean, I could kind of see her eyes glaze over as I was explaining things
11:36:01 to her, and I feel like our current Dean is much more engaged, she's actually taken archival coursework and and knows what I'm talking about. So, I would think that you know when we are back and we're able to be physically working on this type of processing
11:36:20 project.
11:36:21 She will see it as a benefit and we'll be happy to promote it to other Dean's and other administrators on campus.
11:36:33 I think that also sort of answers. There was a question about how your usage statistics have increased since working through backlogs and reprocessing.
11:36:44 You guys have definitely touched on that a little bit but do you want to say anything more about increased statistics or increased use where
11:36:55 I think Ashley talked a little bit about this in that we, when we work with classes, or when we're dealing with sort of knowing that we have this material making it available would be really useful, but we at this point since it's kind of hidden, it's
11:37:14 hard to share it with folks at this moment because of the way it's sort of not really well described.
11:37:28 I'm going to jump around a little bit. So Deborah brought up the pros and cons of MP LPs effects on processing.
11:37:36 But all of you maybe touch a little bit more on that regarding the MPLP philosophy for both your existing collections and for the digital collections, no school for
11:37:55 air Do you want to start us off.
11:37:58 All right, this is going to be a purely intellectual statement, I have never implemented MP LP, I have heard fabulous stories I have heard stories. Um, I think that one of the.
11:38:16 The benefit of MVP, is that more things get to people so that people can use them.
11:38:22 What we have learned, however, is that how archivists think people use our materials is not really the same way that our people use our materials. So, trying to figure out how to balance, making it available and making it understandable has been problematic,
11:38:39 particularly with
11:38:43 minimally processed materials or materials that you inherit and you think have been processed. So for me, it was, I had a whole record group, and an archive that nobody used, right, like, I tell people is really cool stuff in here, and they feel like
11:38:57 if whatever Give me the stuff we're used to.
11:38:59 So that was a collection that I put on the list to do a reprocess to see if there was a way to highlight and really sort of market and sell that collection in a way that hadn't been understood with how it was described, historically, I'm on the sort of
11:39:17 digital side, MP LP, is we're already we already have to do it so what do you do if that's what you're doing, if you have so many levels of trying to work with electronic records to understand the way that it came in the way that you have to preserve
11:39:34 it how long you have to preserve it, how you're going to make it available in the future.
11:39:40 I think that the, the, sort of core concept, there is the, the more product isn't always better in this case, it is a well packaged product. And I think that that seems to be the direction that.
11:39:58 I mean, intellectually that I think that it can be adapted and adopted. Um, I'm not going to like, say yes no on one way or another, it is really it help I think it really in.
11:40:13 It really important ways is sort of given us the mental space to actually work with electronic records in a way that may have been problematic before.
11:40:20 Um, But I do think we're going to get a lot of future researchers who are going to be very interested in our date in our records as data and not actually interested in the content and learning to live with that is going to be hard.
11:40:44 So we have been working diligently to get more classes into the archives.
11:40:53 And I would say primarily in probably like most institutions. We've been the most successful with our history classes and our history faculty.
11:41:02 But we work pretty closely with a lot of freshmen seminars and kind of the early research seminars.
11:41:12 And so we've learned in those cases that students are willing to learn a new resource right there alert they're willing to learn how to use a finding a they're willing to ask us questions and engage with the records.
11:41:26 But if they hit a wall.
11:41:30 They tend to stop. Right. And so there's another collection that Felicity and I refer to as the hot mess because it's an amazing group of records I mean historically I think the people that have have worked in the archives have focused more on administrative
11:41:49 records and not so much on student records. And so this hot mess of a record group is all of the Student Affairs material so it's the things that students want to learn about and they really engage with, but it is six boxes of.
11:42:07 I don't know what right i mean the multiple people have had their hands in it, it is not arranged and described in a way that makes any sense.
11:42:17 And so trying to I mean we could.
11:42:22 I think very easily and PLP that record group and get it accessible.
11:42:27 But we have seen the challenges that student researchers face with that and how a little bit more time could really make it a much more usable collection, and particularly as we are.
11:42:43 with the pandemic moving more things online that we didn't intend to move online at this point, I think you know as as Derek was talking about right spending some extra time and figuring out how a collection can really be utilized.
11:42:59 The most based on your audience is a really important step.
11:43:07 do also want to present it on this before but materials with foreign language materials, right, if you have people who you assign that to you as a student or a volunteer, and they don't honestly tell you that I have no idea with this is you have problems,
11:43:26 You have problems, um, you know, I worked with a collection and previous institution where material had been put into a.
11:43:49 It was Holocaust related and it was put into a section where it shouldn't have lift. And it took somebody with a knowledge of that language to say, this needs to be moved and there is a really important reason why I'm.
11:43:49 I'm one of these people I don't want to rely on crowdsourcing and my audience to tell me it's in the wrong place.
11:43:56 Um, so, doing the type of inventory to highlight the types of things that I think maybe it's our job maybe there was in here about sort of like supporting a starting a support group, pointing out the places where we have identified that Yo, this is problem
11:44:14 PII foreign language etc So when somebody else comes in, or they bring in somebody and they don't have the first archivist, and the first archivist comes on board and they're like okay I'm looking for like these six things to start with and then maybe
11:44:26 I'll be okay.
11:44:31 And no miscellaneous ever guess just want to reiterate what what Tara said, better packaged product. That's all I have to say, it's, it's so powerful, a better packaged product.
11:44:48 Like that.
11:44:50 There are a couple of questions relating to decision making, how you got to decision making processes.
11:45:02 All I think one of the slides at the very beginning there was a subtitle that said Decisions, decisions because that's really what we're doing all the time, and for reprocessing it can be tricky to find the best decision, or answer.
11:45:19 So, there are a few questions saying you know when you're when you're in the process of reprocessing.
11:45:25 How do you decide, do you enter file things do you add them to the end of the collection as an as a new series or a new grouping, do you, how do you decide about updating your location guys to keep things updated.
11:45:43 And did you change the existing arrangement.
11:45:46 How did you go about this decision making process and assuming it was difficult but if you could touch a little bit on just the experience in general I think that might answer a couple of questions out there.
11:46:05 How jump in, because I like to talk. I'm fine with that. Um, it was really difficult, and I'm see I'm all for airing dirty laundry. Uh, We.
11:46:20 So, how do I explain this.
11:46:23 We took time to look at the index and update the index. So when we found a new sub series in series, well new series and sub series in the collections, we went ahead and updated that so we knew that was going to be a new sub Siri a new series and you
11:46:42 sub series, and we would pencil it on the folder, so that we knew that is, these are the, the records that we had set aside specifically for this series.
11:46:56 We did not changed locations because the, the 1000 location, the 1000 collection never had a location so I didn't worry about that.
11:47:05 And, but I also feel really bad because, I mean, I have to just be honest and say, there was so much to do that we felt like we got to a point. And we did as much as we could.
11:47:19 And then we stopped, and there's still so much more to be done. Like, I, you know, there are there are folders to be created and boxes to be made and labels to be made.
11:47:31 And I, I honestly live in fear that one day someone is going to go down into the archives and bump up against one of the shelves and all of that stuff is going to land slide.
11:47:42 And then I'm going to have to go back to the beginning and do it all over again it's terrifying. But, you know, we as archivist, we, we only have so many hours in a day we only have so many helpers we only have so much we can do.
11:47:56 And, you know, Alex and Megan and I, we, I was like, we can't do it all. So I'm going to say we stop here. And they, they were, they were like well maybe we should stop one step farther and I was like no year, so I mean maybe they were like, Maybe I was
11:48:14 was wrong, but we'll find out when somebody goes and knocks over all of my sort of stuff.
11:48:25 I need to sign off.
11:48:29 As I said, I'm available for questions, totally on board first party starting support group. Um, I want to thank everybody this has been wonderful.
11:48:39 Thank you so much, Eric, we are getting close to the 12 o'clock mark.
11:48:45 We've had wonderful question and answer session here, if, if, do other panelists need to head out or do we want to continue for a few more moments around.
11:48:55 Okay.
11:48:57 Ashley and Felicity Do you want to touch on the previous question about making process.
11:49:06 So I think power.
11:49:09 The, the failsafe that we put in place right for decision making was the creation of that spreadsheet so that our volunteer wasn't physically taking that step of Rene's group of moving things around.
11:49:22 Because I can't even imagine if that would have been the case and be like an Easter egg hunt in the archives. Right.
11:49:33 I mean, thankfully, the expression Rutgers the accession numbers are all still on the folders, so we can step, everything back, but decisions I think ultimately will likely you know, it will probably come down to our processing archivist or Felicity and
11:49:52 I kind of putting our heads together and determining the best place for something.
11:49:59 I mean, are a large part of this project our volunteers spent about a year of coming in part time you know a few hours every week, but a lot of that was them familiarizing themselves with the records, I think, to a point of just may i mean i think they
11:50:17 just got too far in the weeds with it.
11:50:20 But I think that was you know trying to create that foundation in order to create informed decisions.
11:50:27 So it will. I support the kind of group think of really trying to understand if there's something that just doesn't seem to fit anywhere that we need to think about more like getting more input from the team
11:50:45 really think there, especially with legacy collections, but I think in general processing can really be much more of a group activities and sometimes people realize I'm making those decisions and thinking through are talking through the logic of it all
11:50:59 is a little bit daunting sometimes.
11:51:04 I would totally agree, but I think that as we all know, resources, and the number of people in your department is slim I mean Renee you didn't have anyone really for years, and for years, I was the only other person in a department I was, you know, in
11:51:21 a department of two. So to have the resources to even have those other voices, is amazing. And at this point, I mean, I think what Ashley and I would do differently with this particular volunteer is perhaps have more group discussions, instead of just
11:51:41 saying, okay, here's the thing. It's easy just make this really easy spreadsheet, because to us it really was easy, but it's also really easy as actually said to get your head sort of turned around by all that.
11:51:52 So I think group discussions, is if you can have them because you have multiple voices in a department. What an amazing blessing or Merrick group therapy sessions to bounce ideas off somebody else.
11:52:14 peers. This is an interesting question. It may be our last question I'm not sure I have any of you, or Are any of you reprocessing collections where the original processor is still in the institution or on the radar and how would you deal with them.
11:52:33 Or is that you don't we, so we're kind of lucky, like, you know, we don't have any legacy finding aids or anything like that because the original processors literally just made boxes and folders and like maybe a quick, you know, list of what was in there.
11:52:52 So if anybody's reprocessing anything It's mine.
11:52:56 I feel like I would like to think I would be you know on board with that with real discussions, but I've also felt myself becoming very territorial so I, I appreciate the danger zone that that could be for folks.
11:53:35 No, I mean it just, I worry. In my, my immediate supervisor also worried that having her come back in would cause problems because we are taking the archives in a different direction than she did.
11:53:55 So, just the way it goes. And maybe she'd be totally cool with it I have no idea. I am taking notes for when I eventually retire, that I may not be welcome the way I feel like I should be.
11:54:12 I need to have lunch with me I would be down but she wants to come down and go on a tour of the archives every once in a while and I'm just like, it's one room.
11:54:27 Like we're tiny. It's not any different than the last word eater. She misses her friends Renee, she misses her friends.
11:54:36 Oh gosh, I'm not sure if we have time for any more questions. Um, so I think maybe I'll just put it out there, does anybody have any parting words, or bits of advice that they would like to throw out to, to the group.
11:54:52 I would like to say two things number one I'm going to try and answer any questions posted to me so if you want to hang out, I'm going to keep typing.
11:55:05 And number two, you know, don't, don't be afraid to reach out, I mean reach out to any of the panelists, reach out to other people you know and say listen.
11:55:11 Here's my dirty secret.
11:55:13 I need help, and and people will help you, like, when I was so happy to have Megan because Megan was the one who pushed me to do this sort it needed to be done and I just kept going it's not there.
11:55:28 And so it was so happy I had her so feel free to to confront those things that make you uncomfortable and reach out to someone else to get support about those things and say okay I need to find a way to do this I need you to help me walk through it.
11:55:42 Don't be afraid.
11:55:51 I just want to say thank you to everybody who's leaving such great messages.
11:55:57 It is good to know we're not alone and all of this, and you know I think telling our ghost stories is is incredibly therapeutic.
11:56:10 I wanted to just thank everybody as well and reiterate what my panel friends have said that we are always happy to hear from you. Questions ghost stories I mean anything.
11:56:22 And maybe we'll, we'll try to find out if we can set up, maybe like a Slack channel or something for us to share stories and invent and whatnot.
11:56:36 That's a really cool idea of reprocessing Slack channel.
11:56:41 All right, well I will give you our merit conference leads can chime in here but maybe we will end the session there.
11:57:00 Yeah, you can go right ahead Laura.
11:57:03 Okay, just wanted to make sure.
11:57:06 All right, well thank you again everybody, and
11:57:11 in touch, definitely reach out to everyone.
11:57:14 Have a great rest of the conference.