An Archival Conundrum

I am nearing the finish line. At least, the finish line of uploading our backlog of photographs onto the baltimoreuprising2015.org website. When the Maryland Historical Society (MdHS) originally put out the call for photographs, they received an overwhelming response, but they had nowhere to put the astounding contributions. Contributors were instructed to send images to MdHS via dropbox. When I arrived on the scene, the Historical Society dropbox had over a thousand images shared to their account. The first things I had to do when I began my work, was download the files off dropbox to a physical hard drive and catalog each person's contributions and corresponding metadata. In a couple of days, I was able to do this. The Hard drive contained every contribution and were organized into files for each contributor. Once all of the images were stored offline and documented, I had to start uploading those images to the baltimoreuprising2015.org website.

The baltimoreuprising2015.org site is built using Omeka. Omeka is a Content Management System (CMS). Collections, series, and exhibits can all be constructed through Omeka, but it all starts with a digital archive of “items” stored on the Omeka site. For each photograph on the hard drive, I had to upload it to the website and provide the necessary metadata such as description, title, creator, date, etcetera. Making sure each image, audio file, or video is uploaded correctly, has the correct provenance information, and is organized within the archive in a way that it can be retrieved by users has been my most time consuming task.

I am pleased with the number of contributors and the magnitude of the contributions. The size of the archive is larger than my most optimistic projections at the start. It is not enough, however, for the archive to simply be large. It also must be usable. Most descriptions, titles, and subjects for items that were provided by contributors were vague and confusing. There was little continuity from one collection to the next, which made it difficult for the whole archive to be searched. Although we wanted to preserve the artistic intention of the content creators, we also want the site to be a resource. Our compromise has been to keep the title and description of photos how the creator indicated, but to limit the subjects of items to a controlled vocabulary. Now, when users contribute to the archive, they have to select from a limited list of subjects. What this means for researchers is that they can click on the subject of any one item, and be able to see all the items with that same subject.

Our decision to limit subjects at first might seem minute, but it actually represents a continuous struggle for archives both digital and physical. What is the right balance between preservation and accessibility? In one sense, the item subject could be seen as an important interpretive component that needs to be preserved to reflect the contributors complete artistic vision. On the other hand, the purpose of preservation is almost always to ensure long term usefulness for future generations. Consistent categories and labels are the only way a repository of almost 2,000 items can be made searchable for future users. Ultimately, we tried to find a balance between the two ideals, but tended to favor access.

Interning at the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

This summer I am working as an intern at the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. (HSW). I began the internship on May 26 and have worked most Tuesdays through Fridays since then. I share intern duties with a student from George Washington University who is working on her Master’s in Archaeology. Neither of us is an archivist or a librarian, so we are both learning quite a bit about the workings of a research library. The Research Services Librarian left on maternity leave at the beginning of July; as a result, we interns are discovering all of the skills and knowledge that are required to serve researchers and the general public at a city historical society by jumping right in. I  have I become more familiar with the standards of archival practice through pulling and re-shelving items for research requests, preparing research guides, and responding to inquiries. I have also built up muscles hauling Hollinger boxes and emptying dehumidifiers. In a small organization like HSW, everyone has to pitch in.

A privately run organization which was formed in 1894 and called the Columbia Historical Society until 1989, the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. has recently come through a tumultuous time of financial challenges and public outreach adjustments.  In 2003, HSW opened a City Museum in the newly-renovated 100-year-old Carnegie Library at Mount Vernon Square.  Within two years, the exhibits closed; although the innovatively designed galleries were intended to interpret the “place-based history” of the capital city for local, national, and international visitors, the museum was unable to attract a large enough audience to sustain the necessary expenses and staff.[1] The Society continued to operate in the historic building, renting out the former exhibit space for special events while operating the research library and archive. Like many historical societies throughout the country, the HSW had wrestled throughout its tenure with maintaining its relevancy in an evolving cultural landscape while also remaining solvent, a condition that is complicated by its position as the home of the federal government and national museums.[2] In 2011, HSW closed its doors temporarily because, despite a 99-year lease of the Carnegie Library from the District of Columbia for one dollar a year, the organization could no longer afford to maintain the grand building. Later that year, HSW was able to negotiate an agreement with the Washington Convention and Sports Authority, now known as EventsDC, which took over maintenance of the property and the exclusive rights to the space as an events venue; the Historical Society reopened in 2012.[3] HSW now controls a small portion of the upper levels of the building, including office space, the research library, and two exhibit halls. Because of the recent difficulties, the staff of HSW are ever mindful of building positive relationships with the local community.

From its inception, an important role of the Society has been the publication of historical research. In the early days of the Columbia Historical Society, the creation and sharing of scholarship among members was the main function of the group.[4] Today, HSW publishes the peer-reviewed journal, Washington History; its contributors often use the collections and archives of the HSW to produce their work. For instance, Jessica French, a Public History Ph.D. student at Middle Tennessee University, contributed “’Practical Club Work’: The Women’s Bindery Union and Twentieth Century Reform in Washington, D.C.” to the most recent volume; the article includes her research of the District of Columbia Federation of Women’s Clubs Records housed in the HSW archives to chronicle the story of Washington women in the labor movement.[5]   Anne McDonough, the Library and Collections Director at HSW (and the intern coordinator), explained to me that historians often do not fully appreciate that their scholarship begins with the work of the archivists who are responsible not only for preserving collections but for knowing the contents thoroughly in order to assist researchers. According to Anne, it is deeply satisfying to archivists to see their collections put to use and interpreted.

I have enjoyed learning about the mechanics of accessioning, storing, retrieving, and researching collections held in archives. This deeper understanding will surely help me become a better researcher. The work on my internship has also made clear to me that my career path will not likely include work as a collections director or research librarian. It would not be enough for me to acquire collections with the hope that a researcher will use them someday. My satisfaction comes from the interpretation of the historical artifacts. Fortunately, I have had the opportunity to put my public history skills to work as well this summer, which I will discuss in my next post.

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[1] Barbara Franco, “The Challenge of a City Museum for Washington, D.C.” Washington History 15, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2003),6, 19; Franco was the President and CEO of the City Museum and the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.; Trescott, Jacqueline, “City Museum to Close Its Galleries,” Washington Post, 9 Oct 2004, A1.

[2] Franco, 6-7, 12, 15-17.

[3] John Mueller, “New Hope Emerges for the Historical Society,” Greater Greater Washington, 9 Sept 2011, http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/11922/new-hope-emerges-for-the-historical-society/ ; EventsDC, “Carnegie Library at Mount Vernon Square,” http://www.dcconvention.com/Venues/CarnegieLibrary/OurHistory.aspx ; Franco, 9.

[4] Franco, 6.

[5] Jessica R. French, “’Practical Club Work’: The Women’s Bindery Union and Twentieth Century Reform in Washington, D.C.,” Washington History 27, no. 1 (Spring 2015), 37-49.

Baltimore Uprising Project

I have had the good fortune to work on the Baltimore Uprising project this summer. The project is a digital archive of photographs and stories from the Baltimore Uprising, www.baltimoreuprising2015.org. The website is built using Omeka, a free platform developed and supported by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.

Some readers might not be familiar with the Baltimore Uprising, at least as a term. I am linking a thorough explanation of the term here. In brief, after Freddie Gray, a 25 year old Baltimore man, died in police custody, many people took to the streets in protest. They spoke out against systemic racism and police violence. Media coverage monikered the events the Baltimore riot, but on twitter, the hash-tag #baltimoreuprising arose to counter the inappropriate national characterization of events transpiring in the city.

All too often, the history of events can only be accessed through the lens of bureaucracy and official reports. This is problematic to say the least. Michel Rolph-Trouillot spoke to this struggle in his book Silencing the Past.  Trouillot proposed that power, in the form of silence, influences the production of history at multiple stages. Although historians can alter the power dynamics in the historical record through source selection and interpretation, they are usually limited by the kinds of sources that exist. In her article “Seeing Yourself in History”, Michelle Caswell equates a communities absence in the archives as “symbolic annihilation.” With this in mind I am sure, Dr. Denise Meringolo quickly responded to the Baltimore Uprising by creating an Omeka based website where people could upload their own photographs and stories from the Uprising as primary sources for future researchers to access. The site could be a digital repository, recording the grass-root voices of the social movement. The Maryland Historical Society (MdHS) had a similar idea and eagerly made a public call for photographs. They were flooded with submissions, but did not have a prepared infrastructure to handle the submissions. Fortunately, the Historical Society heard about the Baltimore Uprising site and proposed a partnership between Meringolo and the Society. So, like any inspired Public History venture, the project grew.

Next, I was brought on as an intern to process the backlog of photos that MdHS already had and upload them to the website. I was also enlisted to collaborate on developing the website as an archive and a useable resources. So far, the site has over 1,500 items and is still growing. The number of institutional partners has grown and the project is still thriving and expanding nearly 3 months after the most tense moments of the Baltimore Uprising.

Michel Rolph-Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995).

Michelle Caswell, “Seeing Yourself in History: Community Archives and the Fight Against Symbolic Annihilation” The Public Historian, Vol. 36, No. 4 (November 2014), 26-37.