Monthly Archives: November 2014

“I go home to a very different place than you”

Posted on November 30, 2014 | 2 comments

A workplace in the Federal Triangle area of Washington.

“You know, when I leave the Archives and go home to my neighborhood in Southeast DC, I go to a very different place than you do.”

The employee, an African-American archives technician, was talking to my twin sister, Eva, in the late 1980s. His comment about her and their colleagues led to a long conversation between them about those different places.

Then and in other talks with Eva, he shared some glimpses into his life outside work and what had shaped him in his youth. They also talked about employment opportunities. And about their work together in the records declassification division of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

I’ve had some similar conversations with colleagues different (in race, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation) from me, a white, heterosexual, middle class female. As with everyone we encounter in real life or the virtual world, but don’t know at deep levels, the most we get are glimpses of each other. What people choose to share. Or not.

How we treat each other, what we do with those glimpses, is “entirely up to us,” to quote President Obama’s speech after the shooting of Gaby Giffords. More and more, we see the choices the President referred to online. But if we only look at one place, we may miss what people are sharing about themselves in neighborhoods we do not enter.

In a thoughtful post in October, Kathleen D. Roe, President of the Society of American Archivists (SAA), wrote about “An archivist’s neighborhood.” She believes that “Archives have an incredible power to expand the range of people and stories we know and the experiences in which we can share through another person’s life.” Kathleen shared the story of Genevieve Hankins-Hawke. Kathleen explained,

“I got to know Genevieve through the records of New York State’s World War II War Council. Genevieve was a 30-something African-American nurse, widow and mother during the war. She saw a job posting for a nursing position at a hospital in Salamanca (that’s in western NY).

She sent her impressive resume and application letter. Travel being challenging at that time, and the need for nurses and hiring practices different, she was immediately offered a position, also by mail. When she reported for work, she was told by the hospital administrator “Oh, my, we didn’t realize you were a negro. We can’t have you working here.” She was ‘dismissed’ and returned to her home in downstate NY.”

Her post was one of many things I read this year that made me stop at think. At blogs, on Twitter, on the SAA administered Archives & Archivists Listserv, on the ~~ARMA administered~~ Recmgmt-L, a forum where some ARMA members gather.

For whom do we work? Who depends on us? How are we serving them? And each other?

How can we better communicate our goals, objectives, obligations, across related professions? Be honest and realistic about our work? Learn as well as teach? Respect differences while seeking common ground? Better understand the extent to which our perceptions of “reality” are not the same?

I’ve been thinking about that during walks in Washington. Walking helps provide me a break from work, reduce stress, mitigate against burnout, and gives me a chance to think through choices and issues.

Other coping strategies also fit with what AOTUS David S. Ferriero discussed in his thoughtful article, “Burnout at the Reference Desk.” Reading history and biography helps people understand the lives of others. Literature helps develop empathy. Thoughtful commentary on professional and workplace issues leads to insights and encourages efforts to find solutions.

Because I work in the center city, my walks are in the part of Washington tourists know best. I see beautiful scenes as I walk.

As the National Archives demonstrated in an exhibit in 1990 for which Bruce Bustard wrote the guide, there always has been and still is a “Washington: Behind the Monuments.” These images from the 1930s from the holdings of the Library of Congress show tenement dwellings near the Capitol that still were there in 1954 when my family moved to Washington.

My father, a recent immigrant–like my mother, a displaced person after World War II–supported a family of four in Washington on a mid-level civil servant’s salary. We didn’t live in dilapidated dwellings. But I saw the slum buildings in the 1950s during my childhood as I rode past the Capitol on public transit. Rode home to a different place. A home in a mixed middle and working class neighborhood. One where I grew up with a sense of limitless opportunities ahead of me. Ones not available to everyone who lived in the Washington area then. Or lives here now.

I thought about the long-ago conversation between my sister and her colleague when I saw a tweet from a records professional this year. The person observed about online messages posted by archivists who expressed differing views on the truth in archival records and on history and historiography:

“I want to weep for the future of archives ‘professionals’ & all this ‘diversity privilege’ crap. #shutupandgettowork.”

I hadn’t participated in the message thread. But I once had met the tweeter in person. I thought about the hashtag. I said nothing in reply on Twitter.

Elsewhere in my Twitter feed, an archivist on another spot on the ideological spectrum from the tweeter shared her views on the message thread. She tweeted about concerns for safety in the professional forum. Another archivist tweeted a response that her framing was unfair and hyperbolic. To her credit, she walked back some of the wording about safety in that particular setting but explained what she has experienced in other forums. She described her life experiences as reflecting privilege in some areas, marginalization in others.

I didn’t respond to the tweet that told posters to #shutupandgettowork. Or to the one expressing concern about the forum where the original discussion occurred. I thought for a couple of days about what I value and then wrote a blog post, “Free from discrimination, hostility, and intimidation.” I described the commitment to creating safe space in workplaces such as NARA.

I’ve spent a lot of time this year thinking about coded and distancing language. And the framing that encourages open communications. About barriers and safe spaces. About doors that are closed. And door that are open.

And why instead of asking “how does it look to you?” people so often say, “I am fine as I am. And I don’t see the issues you raise.” And with a shrug of “it works for me,” turn away from each other.

I’ve also thought about what records about controversies and defeats and abuses and victories and achievements tell us about what really happened and why. And about historical narratives. And the purpose of archives and museums. And about rights for the disempowered. About passionate advocacy. And why working the steps is important in considering complex historical narratives, such as those of our records of rights. And most of all, I thought about records, how they are created and why and who gets to see them and learn from them.

These questions have professional implications for those of us in library, archives, records, or history functions. We need to have conversations about going to or coming from “a very different place than you.” About education, hiring, employment and labor issues. And the challenges faced in working with records analog, digitized, and born-digitial.

To recognize that “understanding does not equal support or liking” as @crowgirl42 tweeted a few days ago. But as she observed, that understanding can represent an effort to gain insight into others’ thinking,

The functions and mission of the National Archives are easy to convey in archival settings. For whom do NARA employees work? For the American people. All of them, regardless of economic class, gender, lifestyle, politics, profession, race, or country of origin.

I cherish an archival mission based on the public trust. The public trust as it extends to those who cannot speak except through records that share parts of their stories. The notion of the public trust is fairly easy to convey to fellow archivists. So, too, why archives and history matter.

Discussing the effect of working to share knowledge with the American people in a position of public trust is more complicated outside the archival community. An information professional wrote in a LinkedIn piece about the history of records management, “The information available on the various media formats can either be helpful or harmful” to the creating organization.

Helpful or harmful aren’t terms we use in archives. As a former Acting Archivist of the United States once observed, we look at mission in terms of protecting “the records, good and bad, of the administrations of the past” in order to make the disclosable portions available to the public.

A year ago, Brad H. pointed to unresolved dynamics in the records life cycle in a blog post at the SAA records management roundtable’s blog, The Schedule. Brad observed that

“A lot of records management positions reside in or adjacent to their organization’s legal departments, particularly in private companies, because a lot of what the records manager does is mitigate risk. In this formulation of the profession, the records manager is looking to identify classes of documents that might cause harm to the organization, and to be aware of any laws that might pertain to retention of those documents. The idea, then, is to prescribe retention periods that have employees holding on to potentially damaging records for as small a time period as possible, then destroying them as soon as practical.”

He asked, “I do wonder to what extent people who are serving in the dual role of archivist and records manager are more cognizant of their historical responsibility and/or resistant to pressure to allow destruction of potentially harmful, but historically significant, records.”

To what he wrote I would add, taking an oath to uphold the Constitution as a civil servant (not a contractor), to take into account the public trust, can make a huge difference, as well. Not necessarily in outcomes. But in assessing the choices people who work with Federal records have to make and what affects working conditions.

As I read Brad’s thoughtful essay I thought about issues I once had raised. Questions about the effect of risk minimization on knowledge. Of how to balance learning from the past and vested interests in how a narrative is presented. And the effect of actions such as the removal of Henry Kissinger’s records from the Department of State.

A corporate records manager has fiduciary, regulatory, and legal obligations, among others. The employing corporation may have various shareholders, clients, consumers. But the American people aren’t affected in the same way they are in governmental decisions on which records to treat as temporary and which as permanent. In Fedland, all who want to study the story of the United States are the beneficiary clients regardless of whether the narrative in the records is tragic, abusive, sobering or beautiful, uplifting, inspiring.

Sharing knowledge is what makes the archival mission transcendent for many of us. That transcendence doesn’t come from sharing any one kind of record or story about a particular place but about as many people and places as possible. Thirty eight years ago, on December 6, I started my job at the National Archives. You see my badge from 1977, my first full year on the job. And you see me in the Rotunda of the National Archives and Records Administration a month ago, October 28, 2014.

My journey from 1976 to 2014 didn’t turn out to be what I expected. But I have experienced the wonderful joy that comes from working to preserve and open records and watching my successors share knowledge.

Sharing knowledge involves many people. We need to do better in recognizing and understanding their voices. In the records we work to preserve. In conversations where we talk about our lives. And in our professional forums. To be brave enough to ask and then listen to the answer to “how does this look to you?”

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Posted in archival issues, NARA, People issues, Workplace issues

“The ability to have my voice heard”

Posted on November 24, 2014 | Leave a comment

On Saturday I heard the results of the recent voting for Steering Committee positions for one of the Society of American Archivists’ (SAA) Roundtables. Samantha Winn, whom I first got to know on Twitter and was delighted to meet this past summer, won election as Vice-Chair/Chair Elect for 2014-2015 of the Students and New Archives Professionals Roundtable (SNAP).

I was lucky in being able to sit with Sam on the bus ride from the SAA conference hotel to an evening reception in August at the Library of Congress during this year’s annual meeting. That the bus driver seemed to get lost (he certainly took “the long way” to the site) meant we had more time to chat!

Rebecca Goldman admirably led the effort to establish a roundtable for students and new professionals in 2011-2012 and served as the first chair of the SNAP roundtable. A photo I took after an enjoyable dinner with Rebecca in Washington in 2012 shows her vibe. Ghostbusters! We had a great conversation about a wide range of issues related to the archives profession.

Rebecca explained in a Q&A in 2012 how SNAP came about:

“Ever since my first Annual Meeting in 2010, I’ve been thinking about the representation of new archivists within SAA and within the profession. I put up a comic that summarized all the things I was thinking about, and it generated some good discussion, but nothing really came of it. Then, about a year ago, I read that ALA had started a Young Professionals Working Group, and thought, hey, why doesn’t SAA have a group like that? I posted my question to Twitter, Council member Kate Theimer saw it and suggested I try to start a roundtable, and the rest, I suppose, is history. Any SAA member can propose a new roundtable, but until Kate suggested it, it hadn’t really occurred to me as something that I could do.”

Although I am outside the age group which is the focus of SNAP’s activities, I joined so I could learn on multiple levels from its members. Rebecca and Sam have been just two leaders from whom I’ve learned.

What the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) advises in its new Supervisors Handbook applies to groups generally. “Be ready to learn continually.” In addition to learning online, I’ve heard both Sam and Rebecca give thoughtful educational presentations at two different professional conferences that I’ve attended.

NARA advises its supervisors and managers “to give people time to read websites, blogs, and participate on the ICN [Internal Collaboration Network].” It acknowledges that “no single method reaches all employees.” This is true for professional organizations, as well. The Society of American Archivists understands this, as do many cultural heritage organization. SAA doesn’t demand that its members speak in one place but offers multiple platforms for engagement.

One of the reasons for establishing SNAP and a student and new professional Listserv was to provide space for discussing shared interests, issues, and problems in a respectful environment where members recognized the importance of building trust.

SAA has broadened its reach in recent years beyond the Archivists & Archivists Listserv by offering more options that fit different comfort zones. It has established a number of specialized Roundtable listservs. And it has created new opportunities for conversations on Twitter and at the Off the Record blog.

Professional engagement and continuous learning are so important. A year before President Barack Obama nominated him to be Archivist of the United States, David S. Ferriero talked in an interview about participation in professional organizations. He joined the American Library Association in 1972 and worked on its reference, statistics, and interlibrary loan (ILL) committees. David chaired ALA committees, as well. But it was the first interaction that was the most important:

“I became involved in the ILL committee after I called the person who had written the ILL Manual to ask for advice – by reaching out I was able to establish a relationship which then led to my appointment on the committee. Participating in the ILL committee was my most rewarding experience because at that time the national code regulating interlibrary loan was being revised, and I was able to meet my peers at a national meeting and participate in a major change of agenda. The ability to have my voice heard at the table of a national discussion had a major effect on my future involvement in ALA, because I participated in this committee early in my career.”

Reaching out for advice is an important part of networking. And having your voice heard is a goal Ferriero has emphasized throughout his career, including now as AOTUS. He noted in “Burnout at the Reference Desk” in 1982 that “performance and attitude suffer when you have no voice in how things are done.”

Asked in 2008 what was the most important lesson he had learned about leadership, David replied

“The most valuable lesson I’ve learned is the importance of listening. A good leader understands how important it is to give people a chance to talk, to have their voice heard, to have their ideas truly influence the direction of an organization. Decision-making should be a collaborative process – no matter how good a leader you are, you’re never going to have all the answers. An organization’s culture plays a huge role here, as well – either it fosters collaboration or it doesn’t.”

In my last blog post, I wrote about moving from technical expert to leader. A technical expert may look at issues in a relatively narrow, insular manner. My sister used to refer to some such people as “bump on a log” staff members. Some even may look at members in their work unit or professional association as competition. They may apply a ledger approach–striving to pick up, then brag openly about, credits they accrue. But being self oriented doesn’t prepare people for leading a group. Understanding how you and others fit in does.

One passage in the article that David Ferriero wrote as a young supervisory librarian has drawn the most comment from people with whom I’ve shared it:

“Just as it is necessary to know the subject strengths and special reference skills of one’s colleagues, it is just as important to learn about their burnout threshold. Members of the team must look out for one another and step in when the situation warrants and provide support where appropriate because it is crucial that users not fall victim to the burnout frustrations of the staff.”

Members of the team must look out for each other. And the supervisor must decide when s/he should act as part of the team and when as coach and mentor.

“Supervisors may choose to be team members, in which case they share the responsibility with the rest of the staff for keeping an eye on each other; or the supervisor may act as coach and assume the responsibility for knowing everyone’s strengths and weaknesses….The latter situation, while potentially viable, may lead to feelings of distrust on the part of the supervised. The former situation reduces the work load of the manager and, at the same time, contributes to the sense of ‘group’ within the organization.”

Before dealing with issues affecting the group, David advises supervisors to do a personal inventory and to understand their own strengths and weaknesses. The ability to do that, in my view, is what separates effective leaders from ineffective ones.

Being an effective supervisor, manager, leader requires stepping back, looking at the big picture, understanding how you fit in with group members and within the organization, and working to fulfill larger goals and objectives than promoting yourself. Some people display that type of situational awareness, intellectual curiosity, and in-group generosity early in their careers. Others retain a narrow, technical, self-oriented focus throughout their working lives.

The best leaders know how to listen as well as talk, learn as well as teach. As NARA points out in its new Supervisors Handbook, “Getting results as a supervisor will require good interpersonal and communication skills. Put in the work to develop your capacity to coordinate complex work, prevent and work through conflict and build and maintain team harmony.”

I’ve often pointed here at my blog to a message David Ferriero sent me via the Archives & Archivists Listserv’s Lyris Manager interface:

From: [email protected]
To: maarja
Sent: 9/30/2010 4:47:33 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: re: archives

Maarja,

Thanks for your comments about my latest blog post. Thanks, especially, for the John Taylor history. Have heard lots about him and will now make an effort to reach out to him. Still on a steep learning curve regarding NARA’s history!

David

— This email message was written in the Lyris ListManager Web Interface at: http://forums.archivists.org/read/?forum=archives

I’ve referred to capacity but I’ve never stated what I’m trying to convey when I share the message at my blog. It’s a lesson for us all. “You’re never done learning.”

Making mistakes is part of learning. The photo of me with David Ferriero at the National Archives shows me laughing as I just realized I had erred! I used it last year in a post called “Safety and Shelter.”

NARA notes of “Leading Others” in its Supervisors Handbook that

“People expect leaders to make them feel safe, included, and appreciated. Leaders hold themselves and others accountable for results. They help others be successful in their roles. Connect, serve, ask the right questions, and celebrate success.”

What NARA tells new supervisors applies to those who aspire to leadership in the archives and records and library professions in the virtual world, as well. “Your behavior will be closely watched and your walk will have to match your talk.” The Twitter backchannel need not always be something to fear; it can be a good source of feedback about how you’re coming across.

As it seeks to improve the supervisory and managerial culture, NARA is wise to assure its officials,

“The learning curve ahead of you might feel vast, but remember that it takes time to grow into this position. Acknowledge and celebrate your successes; allow yourself mistakes and learn from them; and lean on the knowledge of the supervisory community. Trust yourself. . . .Everything you do matters. You can do this.”

The agency expects its supervisors to: set the example; embrace the organization’s values; jump in with both feet; be clear; be honest; be bold in resolving conflicts ; be present and accessible; celebrate successes; invite discussion; respect your team’s skills; commit to developing the skills of others.

NARA notes, “Trust is difficult to build and easily destroyed.” Wise words!

There are many things good leaders do, such as understanding that it is better to deal with an “unpleasant situation quickly when it first arises than to wait until it has grown into resentment and open conflict.” This applies to online forums as well as inside workplaces. Better for leaders to reach out and address problems early than to ignore them and hope things die down. Or that those who ask questions will give up and walk away.

My favorite part of the Communication section of the supervisors handbook? This beautiful advice: “Be human.”

NARA advises supervisors to “invite discussion. Ask questions and create time and safe space for conversation.” What goes into creating safe space? I applaud NARA for recognizing how important it is for leaders to “not be afraid to admit mistakes and seek help from your employees.”

You’re never done learning. And it can be a beautiful place to be!

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Posted in People issues, Workplace issues

Making the transition from technical expert to leader

Posted on November 20, 2014 | 1 comment

The larger and more diverse a group, the more challenging to take its pulse. Or should I say, gather the right information. And if you are lucky, to be able to do that in a truly solution oriented environment. Then to assess it well. And to work effectively through the issues.

You need to know your community at a deep level, have the ability to read between the lines, assess unarticulated as well as articulated needs. The more diverse the community, the more important these skills.

You have to get the people part right. As David Ferriero observed when he worked at the humanities library at MIT in 1982:

“It is vital to the individual’s feelings of self-worth that he/she feel an integral part of the organization. Both performance and attitude suffer when you have no voice in how things are done and when you are unclear about your role in the organization. Participation in the management process and role clarification by individuals and organizations are positive approaches to improving the psychological environment.”

The Big Dude before he became Archivist of the United States. When he first was a library supervisor with people in his care. Employees. And customers.

Listening to people, assessing their deep needs, is necessary in professional organizations as well as workplaces.

In the Society of American Archivists, the American Library Association, the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, ARMA International.

In large cultural institutions such as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian.

In colleges and universities, with multiple academic disciplines and administrative and cultural issues.

It isn’t just a case of stepping out of your comfort zone. Of being willing and able to assess and act effectively and positively on matters affecting the psychological environment. Where and how you get feedback matters.

In the world of archives, records, and librarianship, SAA, ARMA and ALA have been roiled by member issues recently. Some members have voiced concern, even dissent, in public expressions at a blog in one case and a Listserv in the other, as to each association’s direction and goals.

In the group with which I’m most familiar, SAA, its leaders moved from communicating via a 1.0 Listserv and email to using Social Media. Including Twitter and the “Off the Record” blog. Outcomes of SAA Council actions suggest that on some issues, they have been listening carefully and conveying that member input matters. SAA President Kathleen Roe has been offering insightful observations at the blog this fall about why archives matter. And challenging archivists to “live dangerously.”

You have to listen. And you have to go where the people are to communicate well. By which I mean match content to needs, in tone, structure and platform. Open leadership matters as much in professional organizations as it does in the 21st century workplace.

Sometimes what you can say is limited. If you’ve never seen your work or workplace as the subject of news stories (as I have), you may not realize the extent to which there may be information asymmetry. Sometimes the sources or reporting may be unreliable or biased. And sometimes not all the facts can be shared with a reporter as events are unfolding.

I’m thinking of news stories about NARA personnel and operational issues about which I know quite a bit. People who work in academic institutions or for corporations can find themselves in similar situations so the lessons are universal. This is why I often use caveats, advise outsiders to approach news stories about NARA with caution, ask them to consider the sources, and urge people to consider what they may not know.

But in some cases, you can point out pretty easily what you believe readers may need to take into account. Take news reports about the annual Employee Viewpoint Survey (EVS) of employees in federal agencies and departments. It isn’t just that the data collection instrument could be better. It’s how it is used, too.

There is good intent behind the surveys–it’s not just part of Washington Kabuki Theater, of course. But in many cases, the ranking results (comparing agencies against ones with similar numbers of employees) have little meaning.

More so than many of the agencies against which it is ranked, the National Archives has a very broad spectrum of functions among its employees. They range from low-paid employees who work in the records centers moving Federal Records Center boxes to more highly paid archives specialists and archivists working in traditional functions to employees working to find solutions to technological problems.

The low paid employees who shelve heavy boxes in the records centers in the Washington area and in the field locations are relatively high in number but limited in comparison to other employees in their career paths and opportunities to receive higher compensation. In addition to skills and career path gaps, there are divides in the tools people use to do their work.

The National Archives increasingly relies on technology for communication and collaboration. But it also has a pretty high proportion of people in the workforce–more so than in many other agencies–who don’t sit at desks all day doing white-collar work. And who don’t all have access to computers. So technology-reliant innovative team and collaborative solutions that benefit parts of the workforce barely touch the lives of other parts, if at all.

Many other agencies and departments have a much more homogenous workforce made up of mostly white-collar mission employees and mission support employees (HR, IT, administrative). They don’t have the large records centers that are an important part of handling temporary and agency-owned records held in NARA facilities.

I know of agencies of similar size which have three times the number of officials earning senior executive pay than at NARA. And a much higher proportion of the workforce in GS-15 type positions with six-figure salaries than the National Archives employs. And very few people below the GS-12 pay grade.

Yes, you can get some useful data from the EVS survey. But comparing such agencies to NARA in EVS rankings is more than a little like comparing apples and oranges. That doesn’t mean the survey results don’t provide good actionable information on some areas for NARA’s executives and managers. NARA has been working to act on such information.

The survey does not convey some of the intangibles in the mix, elements not always seen or reflected in data collection instruments. NARA is undergoing a challenging but necessary cultural transformation while some (not all) other agencies and departments are acting more conservatively. The EVS survey rankings do not take this into account.

Some of the payoffs of NARA’s commendable cultural change efforts will not become apparent for some time. That these initiatives are occurring in Washington is part of the challenge.

I’m encouraged by efforts such as the initiative AOTUS David Ferriero has started to improve NARA’s managerial and supervisory culture. I find what David and the National Archives team members are doing in this area to be admirable.

NARA always has had some thoughtful supervisors and managers Yes, I include among the former my late sister, Eva, who once was present NARA Chief Operating Officer Jay Bosanko’s boss. And some of the people with whom she and I once worked. Thoughtful, inspiring leaders. But it also promoted many people who had technical skills but…how shall I say this. Who had few opportunities to develop (or in some cases enhance) their people skills.

The cultural change effort at NARA gives me hope for the future. The new Supervisors Handbook developed by the NARA team has the same thoughtful, humane, humble tone as “Burnout at the Reference Desk.”

Given NARA’s functions and workforce the approach it has chosen makes me hopeful. There’s a lot more to management and supervision than keeping people in line.

The Supervisors Handbook developed this year by NARA is full of useful information about workforce issues. We can all learn from what the team has developed.

The opening and closing sections of the handbook beautifully convey what is at stake. “If you are a new supervisor, you will need to make the transition from technical expert and individual contributor to leader–emotionally, behaviorally, and mentally.”

NARA explains the transition thoughtfully in its new Handbook:

“Understand that your role is to accomplish work through others. Assess your staff to determine individual capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. Be comfortable delegating the work and holding staff accountable to both performance and conduct requirements. Establish rapport and create a respectful environment where staff can trust you and each other. Your behavior will be closely watched and your walk will have to match your talk.

Develop a good rapport and mutual trust with your staff through delegation and empowerment. Creating an environment where mistakes become an opportunity for learning is one way to build trust and motivate and encourage staff.”

My favorite passage echoes parts of “Burnout at the Reference Desk” and focuses on the supervisor as well as the team.

“Successful supervision can require a level of self-awareness, humility, and introspection that may, at first, feel uncomfortable. Know yourself, and your strengths and weaknesses. Critique your own decisions both before and after you make them. Push the boundaries of your comfort zone and put the time in on your ‘personal homework.’ Anticipating and reflecting on the effects and responses to your own decisions, and how you communicate will help you to improve.”

Ferriero, too, noted in his 1982 article that feedback is a two way street. As a supervisory librarian, David advised librarians to establish “a climate where the staff is comfortable in sharing their perceptions and accept it as you expect them to accept it — in the spirit of helping one another.” The new NARA Supervisors Handbook has the same good, honest vibe:

“Constructive feedback makes us better at everything we do. Giving, seeking, and receiving feedback are skills that can be developed. In addition to reflecting on your own decision making, ask for feedback from your manager and your team. Providing feedback is a challenging practice. It’s worth putting in the work.”

It is worth putting in the work. For everyone. Employees and customers alike. At and for–most of all for–all ranks and levels.

There is so much at stake! The choices we make as professionals affect more than just the people we see and partner with everyday.

The Supervisors Handbook offers insights we can benefit from within our professional communities as well as in our workplaces. It isn’t always easy but we need to change and develop. As NARA explains it,

“The learning curve ahead of you might feel vast, but remember that it takes time to grow into this position. Acknowledge and celebrate your successes; allow yourself mistakes and learn from them; and lean on the knowledge of the supervisory community. Trust yourself. Supervisors and Managers are the key to success. NARA needs your talents, contributions, and your leadership to succeed. Everything you do matters. You can do this.”

The people matter. The mission matters.

“Trust yourself. You can do this.” Words to live by. And not just within NARA! Continual learning and development benefit more than just us. We need to embrace them so others may learn from the records we value, preserve, and share.

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Posted in NARA, People issues, Workplace issues

Sharing stories

Posted on November 18, 2014 | 1 comment

The connections we make online become even more special when we meet people in person. My most joyous moment during the Society of American Archivists conference in August was meeting Ashley Stevens. We had bonded through social media (Twitter, blogs) over the last two years. I cheered her when she took a job just over two years ago with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

Yesterday morning, Ashley described her experiences in talking about her work for the National Archives at a high school in Philadelphia. On the day she went to the high school, she tweeted a photo and made a comment about flashing back to old feelings from her school days. I could so relate to that. So I tweeted back that at least she has Twitter and can reach out to her community! Ashley laughingly agreed.

Fitting in can be complicated. I love the honesty with which Ashley addressed in her blog post some of her feelings on entering the cafeteria.

“All my memories of high school flooded back. Let’s just say high school wasn’t exactly a good time, 100% of the time for me. Painfully shy and overweight…a recipe for bullying or benign neglect by authority figures. But, I wasn’t that kid anymore.”

I was shy, too, and definitely not one of the cool kids in high school. High school wasn’t the best time of my life, either.

I am an Introvert as Ashley is, too. I still don’t always find it easy to put myself out there. But what she said about why we go out online and into the real world as advocates resonated strongly with me.

Ashley wrote, “If we’re not out front and center crafting the message then we leave it to be crafted by someone else who may have little to no understanding of the importance of our work.”

Ashley described in her beautiful blog post what it was like to talk about her job.

“Despite all their bravado, when teenagers see a box of stuff, their interest is piqued. I saw it in those who stared directly at the archival box to those who stole glances at it out the corner of their eyes. In some cases, I opened up the box and put the stuff out on display. For other sessions, I waited until my turn to talk to draw their attention to the box. I pulled the items out and explained to them what it was and how I use it. Then I circulated the items.”

Ashley listed some of the questions the teenagers asked

“Do you like what you do?

How does someone become an archivist?

What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever seen?

What’s the oldest document you’ve ever touched?

With each answer, I could see they were taking it in. And, another hand would pop up to ask another question.”

No surprise but some of the questions sounded similar to ones that AOTUS David S. Ferriero heard, when he returned to Beverly High School in October to talk about the National Archives!

Put the stuff out on display. In the larger sense, that is the aim of archival institutions–providing access to their holdings.

I’ve been thinking about that since the recent release by the National Archives of previously national security classified segments of diary entries recorded by former Nixon chief of staff H. R. Haldeman. Ones I had helped restrict as security classified, back in the day. Protecting information is part of the job. But seeing records opened is what most brings me joy.

Years ago, a subscriber to the Archives & Archivists Listserv asked readers if we couldn’t come up with a common definition of archival identity. It’s not unusual for professional forums to examine such issues from time to time. A similar forum for records managers, Recmgmt-L, has a discussion thread up this week under a link on governance trends and ARMA. Several subscribers to Recmgmt-L have offered their views on the role of the records manager in a changing world.

The A&A discussions on archival identity in 2008 didn’t result in an agreed on definition. Perhaps that was because archivists work on various tasks. That work can be quite different for a lone arranger who handles conservation, description, disclosure review, and reference and for functional specialists working in a large organization such as NARA. But all of the tasks–appraisal, work in the conservation lab, processing, working towards solutions for technological preservation and access, customer service in person or virtually–is geared towards the same goal. Making information available and knowledge possible.

I recently read an essay about an Internet controversy in which the author observed

“The internet — and particularly social media — is only as broadening as you work to make it. Our natural instincts may be to use it to confirm and congratulate what we already think. That’s especially true on places like Twitter: we ‘follow’ people we want to follow. They, in turn, follow the people they want to follow — so when they retweet content, it’s often agreeable to our peer group. When conflicting ideas are retweeted, it is often in the context of ridiculing them, or as disingenuous ideological synecdoche: ‘look at what this idiot says which is representative of what people on That Side say.’ We misinterpret a show of hands in our carefully cultivated clubhouse as a broad consensus. That means, of course, that it’s much easier to treat opposing views as preposterous, extreme, or deliberately offensive.”

Echo chambers can develop in ostensibly larger communities, as well. Self selection is affected in large forums where the same regulars repeatedly converse and others never engage or fall silent. It takes a lot of skill, and the right mix of people, to encourage greater participation and to reward bridge builders and discourage divisive speakers.

What we shouldn’t lose sight of is the fact that our personal reactions to issues should not affect how we do our work. Those who come to us to use records depend on our professionalism. In my last post, I talked about how I moved to using Social Media tools. Expanding the places where I meet people who work with records has helped me better understand the transcendent feeling that working the archival mission brings for many of us. I’ve seen some beautiful discussions on Twitter about the importance of sharing the voices of people who speak from the past through preserved records.

David Ferriero referred to the sense of passion and accomplishment in our work last year, when he quoted at AOTUS blog a passage from The Goldfinch

“And I add my own love to the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them from the fire, and sought them when they were lost, and tried to preserve them and save them while passing them along literally from hand to hand, singing out brilliantly from the wreck of time to the next generation of lovers, and the next.”

He described such effort as “the true gift of the work we do.”

At the National Archives, AFGE Council 260 officials pointed to a similar vibe when they wrote in a letter to Ferriero last fall, “NARA’s employees believe that they are part of something bigger than themselves, and view their labor, at times tedious and repetitive, to be part of the foundation of our democracy.”

Archivists may view some issues a bit differently at times, as debates at blogs or on Listservs about education and employment issues show. But in various ways, whether the records we hold are made available as the result of collections development or statutory controls, many of us focus on sharing what happened and why. The stories–good, bad, beautiful, ugly, inspiring, sobering–found in records preserved in archives.

Today, the National Archives posted on its Facebook page the story of Dr. Fosetina Baker.

“Dr. Baker’s great-uncle Frazier Baker was the postmaster of Lake City, South Carolina. In February 1898, just a few months after he began his new appointment, Baker and his youngest daughter were shot and killed when a group of men set fire to the house and then fired on the family as they tried to flee. His wife, two older daughters, and his son managed to flee, but were all shot and injured.

The record of his appointment is held in the National Archives in the General Records of the Department of Justice, along with letters condemning the killing. Two of the letters are from journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who wrote to Senator Dawes and to President McKinley asking for aid for the widowed Mrs. Baker and her children.”

The knowledge we hold in archival records can be sobering and eye opening. Whether the stories are tragic, horrifying, or uplifting, all are a necessary part of enlightenment about our individual and national stories. We hold the records in trust and we strive to share the knowledge in them.

We don’t shape a narrative, as a corporate lawyer does in court. Or a public relations official or lobbyist might. We put out the records so others can read them, use them, as meets their individual needs or goals or objectives.

The transcendence that surrounds the process of making knowledge available has been lost in some debates among librarians, archivists, and records managers about training, salaries, and certification. Comments centered on status and prestige and which certification is “harder” or worthy of “pride” don’t help convey the big picture goals of our different professions.

To ensure that we continue to be able to share a rich, diverse array of stories, we need to convey why some knowledge transcends the creating organization.

To understand the role of the creators of records, the lawyers, the IT people. But to be willing to place their work in perspective. To think in long arcs and focus on why ensuring preservation of and archival access to certain records, especially in the age of the delete key, matters so much.

We need to hear from people who work with records at various points in their life cycle who are willing to talk about why some stories are more fully preserved than others. To discuss the legal, technical, operational, social, psychological, and emotional barriers to preserving certain information. To break through the seeming barriers that have limited open discussion of some of these issues to date.

Ashley concludes her post by saying:

“We’re important. Our work is important. Let’s take ownership of that and develop the message. Let’s stop being the lone arrangers in our silos but a collective voice.

We’re archivists. We’re here. And, we’re not going anywhere.”

We need to be better bridge builders across affiliated professions, too. To look for opportunities to break down silos. We owe that to those whose voices are recorded in records and to those who want–or more importantly need–to hear their stories. To pass that gift on to generations to come.

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Posted in archival issues, U.S. History

Maker(s)pace

Posted on November 14, 2014 | Leave a comment

Since the conclusion of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) conference in August, I’ve been thinking about change in archives and records management. And why I, who almost never cry in public (and rarely in private), had tears in my eyes as I watched Kate Theimer, @archivesnext, receive a Spotlight award at SAA. Tears of joy. And quiet, private gratitude.

Kate deserves great credit for her work with the spontaneous scholarship program that she established–and for so much more. This post is about creating archives, next.

Fall is a time of transition in the Washington area. At lunchtime, when I can, all year round, I walk. On Capitol Hill or on the National Mall. Usually I’m listening to music (Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, Schubert). Often I walk after work as well, sometimes in center city Washington, sometimes in my own neighborhood.

In the mid-Atlantic states, trees that put on spectacular shows in October drop their leaves in November. The context is different than in William Wordsworth’s Ode on Intimations of Immortality. But as I looked at the fallen leaves recently, I thought, “splendor in the grass.”

As I walk, I sometimes run into my journo and novelist father in memory. On Capitol Hill. In the Federal Triangle area. (We’re pictured below in 1955, soon after my family moved to Washington.) Dad, as I am, was a civil servant, an employee of the federal government. As a college student walking to catch a bus, I once ran into him in the Federal Triangle area on 10th street, NW, where he had stopped by a liquor store on the way home. Dad was not a daily consumer of alcohol. But he kept a well stocked liquor cabinet at home for those moments, with guests or within the family, or, yes, after work at times, that called for a drink.

Nostalgia. It is one of many reasons why some people find certain types of history so appealing. You can learn a lot about people, what they take pride in, what they cherish, from the way nostalgia shows up in online communities. Including on the Internal Collaboration Network at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). And among some information professionals on the Internet.

La recherche du temps perdu. Nostalgia can be direct or indirect. Explicit or implicit. You see manifestations of both at times on the Archives & Archivists Listserv. And on Recmgmt-L, a forum which sometimes conveys an undertone of intense, even poignant, elegy among its core subscribers.

Both groups have their regulars, many of whom are veteran subscribers who tell readers a lot about themselves, in words and deeds. I sometimes look at both Listservs. I do so primarily to discern how subscribers see themselves in a changing world. Most of my actual professional conversations lie outside the two forums, on Social Media or face to face with people of various ranks and ages whom I know IRL.

It wasn’t that long ago that Archives & Archivists represented a central community for me. (I tried Recmgmt-L for a year, about ten years ago. I find it much the same in 2014 as it was in 2005.) Now, the A&A Listserv is one place among many that I look in on and sometimes participate in. (I also belong to some of SAA’s smaller forums, a few of the roundtable listservs.)

From A&A, I learned the way forward. At my own pace, in my own way, in my own space.

Why and how? At the right moment–around 2008-2009–unofficial leaders appeared on the Archives & Archivists Listserv who pointed not just to tools for performing tasks but more importantly to new platforms for engagement. People such as Kate Theimer (above all), Maureen Callahan, Rebecca Goldman, Danelle Orange. They didn’t reach me by saying, “you must do this.” (That almost never works for me.) They demonstrated behaviors that I sat back and studied until I reached “aha” moments of understanding.

This doesn’t happen everywhere. I consider myself lucky I saw such courageous people with vision walk into my old online space. People with whom I made mistakes in communications at times. But who gave me the space to absorb at my own pace–and this is critically important–what they were talking about. To learn what I didn’t know yet. To grow and develop. I am grateful to all the people (only some of whom I have named here) who have provided me Maker(s)pace.

Most professional transitions are gradual. Some are faster than others but you can adjust your speed. You don’t have to look at transitions in terms of saying mournful good-byes to what once was. (As I explained in Relax! Be Foolish (Counter-cultural change un-management), I’m not a fan of change being described in terms of loss or saying farewell.) You can look at them as part of a journey where you walk along at your own pace towards new ways. A journey that you yourself choose to undertake. One that is scary, exhilarating, exciting, rewarding.

In his Ode on Intimations of Immortality, Wordsworth speaks of loss, change, experience, memory, and strength.

“What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.”

To me the part that resonates most is “we will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.” Because I see radiance on the horizon. Bright lights that point to new ways. And bridges that connect what once was, what is, and what will be. We can’t lose what once was, it always is with us. It shaped us, our professions, our communities. What we can do is add to what once was, build. Expand, develop. Grow!

As I enjoyed a beautiful evening (once again!) at the National Archives this Thursday, I thought about how I got to where I am now. Especially as I chatted with Jonathan Webb Deiss (Citizen Archivist) and Anne Musella (federal archivist).

How did I first hear about Jonathan and the work he and his fellow Citizen Archivists are doing in scanning and sharing records held at Archives 1 and Archives 1? At David Ferriero’s AOTUS blog in 2010, a year before I got to know the Big Dude in person. What had prepared me to turn to social media for learning about new forms of engagement? Kate Theimer’s blog in 2008 and 2009! Jonathan wasn’t the only one I learned about at a blog, although it took me a while to understand what I was seeing. When Kate wrote at her blog about Rebecca Goldman, it made me sit up and first take notice of someone I came to find inspirational.

Change at NARA has many components. David Ferriero (pictured this month at Archives 2) was one of many people I talked to on Thursday. Always a gracious host! Deputy Archivist Debra Wall (pictured a year ago at Archives 2) was another.

The senior leadership at NARA is working on an ongoing initiative to develop managers and supervisors within the agency. Long overdue–yes, there are many growth opportunities in the people area at NARA. And truly commendable in its implementation. (Trust yourself! You can do this.) I greatly admire not just David but the people of all ranks within the National Archives who are working on mission and mission support change efforts. The new Supervisors Handbook that Deb played a key role in developing is part of a toolkit which will benefit employees and researchers alike.

It isn’t always easy to push for change. Friday, as I worked on a project at the agency which employs me in Washington, I listened to a NARA noon book lecture featuring the “accidental admiral,” James Stavridis. And then I Googled him. (Of course!) In an interview with the Navy Times, Stavridis talked about the importance of putting ideas out there. Asked about blowback, he responded,

“Yes, on several occasions I’ve been told I need to stay in my lane, that I was pushing the edge of the envelope. I wrote about what I called “Air-Sea Battle.” I originally wrote about that in 1992, when I was a student at the National War College, and got a lot of pushback on that. So you take chances. You write. But overall, I think that’s an obligation to share your ideas. It’s how we move forward with innovation.”

You take chances. You share your own thoughts, experiences, views. Not “just” or primarily the easy peasy partisan political stuff you see so many people dwell on as they troll around news sites in the virtual world. (If you choose that path, you risk hanging out a sign saying, “ignore me.”) So, no, not that. Me, I most admire those who have shared their own professional wisdom, hard won insights individually developed. Ones derived from trial and error and facing difficult challenges.

You write. Or you write and draw, as Rebecca Goldman does at Derangement and Description. Tremendous talent on display!

You overcome your doubts and bouts with imposter syndrome. And those moments of nerves, as Ashley Stevens demonstrates as she shares lessons in an inspirational way. And you keep your eyes open for opportunities, as Ashley and Meredith Halsey both demonstrate on Twitter and at their blogs. And you lead. As Kate Theimer continues to do.

You don’t let others box you in, thwart your creativity. And you don’t need someone ringing a bell telling you when and what you will discuss and on which day. Green light yourself! Command and control and embracing creative chaos represent two different points on a spectrum. Use your free will, when you can. Choose what suits your temperament and aptitude and go with your instincts.

Here’s what I’ve learned in watching effective leaders. You range freely. You succeed at times, fail at others. You make mistakes in public. You learn from them. You act from the bigger self. You admit error, apologize when appropriate. (Jeremy Young taught me how to do that at Progressive Historians.) You share credit. You hat tip and you point to others’ accomplishments.

I’ve seen all those behaviors as I’ve moved into new spaces. (I’ve seen taker behaviors, too, but you can’t transform a hoarder into a sharer. And I’d rather focus on the makers.) Don’t let those who cast shadows affect you. Turn towards the light, it’s out there!

I cherish the Maker(s)paces I’ve found and keep discovering. Places where I can relax and learn and experiment and contribute as I am able. I am grateful to all who have helped me and are helping in an ongoing transition. There is such joy in the splendor I’m seeing along the way!

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Posted in archival issues, People issues

I didn’t even know!

Posted on November 12, 2014 | Leave a comment

“I didn’t even know!” If, as I am, you’re into letting people know about the knowledge we hold in archival records and hearing how they use them, that’s an exciting, wonderful phrase to hear or read.

In a recent blog post, Meridith Halsey wrote about “Outreach Win: Reaching a Target Audience.” She described how she was listening to “Strange Brews,” a podcast about craft beer. In the podcast, she heard about the Library of Congress and how a

“… blog post about beer in colonial America was tweeted to the podcast’s hosts, and they were so excited about the topic that they asked the blog post’s author, librarian Alison Kelly, to be a guest on the podcast.

I was particularly struck by the enthusiasm exhibited during the episode, including this choice quote:

I didn’t even know that there were blogs on the Library of Congress website, but there are and they’re great!

This is a total Outreach Win for Alison Kelly and the Library of Congress. Not only did her research on colonial beer reach (and excite) beer enthusiasts, those enthusiasts rebroadcast that research to their listener base – a highly targeted group of people who are now more aware of American beer history and more able to conduct additional research on the topic.

I love that the hosts of Strange Brews sing the praises of LOC blogs, model excitement about learning, and completely geek out with a librarian.”

Beautiful. And I love the idea of a podcast called Strange Brews because I love the film Strange Brew! Yes, there’s an archives connection there, too. And not just the beer roundtable! Meredith has a wonderful sensibility for connecting our work to a broad audience in non-traditional ways.

Letting go. Embracing chaos. So much has changed in archivesland since 2005, when Chris Flynn observed of interdisciplinary communications on a records managers’ listserv

“Perspective is not considered a healthy trait within our records management profession. Slow to start on the tech revolution we prefer not to dwell on the past mistakes of our youthful profession ‘historically’ and I use the term loosely, we have increasingly leapt to embrace new technologies in an overaggressive stab at establishing relevancy in a modern business world.

Archivists are all about perspective and not ready enough to grapple with the rate of progress. Looking at our collective memory as their ultimate demesne. They will make relevant the information that eventually comes to them. Archivists tend to walk behind the technology, conservative and moody. They are very aware of what has been lost and seem more willing to cast the burden of blame forward to the business folks that created the situation.”

These days, the work of archivists and librarians at cultural heritage institutions such as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the Library of Congress is forward thinking and inspiring. It is full of “I didn’t even know!” moments of delight that result from libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs) reaching out to where people are rather than depending on visitors to find them.

You see the same progress among some members of our professions. A decade after Flynn wrote his post, old venues, such as Recmgmt-L, the ARMA associated listserv, and the Society of American Archivists associated Archives & Archivists Listserv, are two choices on a much bigger menu of places to gather. Looking beyond the lists, finding new choices, has led me to some wonderful places, including Meredith’s blog!

Many information professionals actively seek the diverse places where people gather naturally. We meet them there rather than directing them to come to us in one place. I thought about that recently as I caught up on some of the great information across various platforms that NARA and the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian have posted on their websites. That’s the Smithsonian “Castle” at left in the photo I took in October and the National Archives photographed later during the same evening walk.

No way I could link to all I found useful and informative in a single post to Archives & Archivists List–my message would stretch to book length! I smiled and thought I should just post a note saying “Woohoo! Good things happenin’ all around!” But I tempered my delight. I chose and posted to A&A a few representative links and added context based on my particular work experiences. Yes, we archivists are all about context.

But I’m not afraid to say here that it’s an exciting time to be a history or archives nerd! I’m lucky, I work in Washington in close proximity to the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, the National Gallery of Art, and the National Archives. But you don’t have to come to the McGowan Theater at NARA to hear about history and current events. The National Archives livestreams and archives videos of most of its public programs. The McGowan Theater hosts Archives Month Fairs and conference sessions as well as book lectures and expert panels.

There are great opportunities to engage and hear from others. Organizations such as NARA and SAA offer a wide range of learning opportunities, in the virtual and physical classroom. And outside it! As David Ferriero observed in 1982, when he was a supervisory librarian at MIT,

“It is important for the staff to have time away from the library to meet other people and to ‘recharge their batteries.’ These sessions away from the work unit allow for the exchange of information and ideas and the sharing of concerns. It is comforting to learn that other public service librarians have similar problems. You may even pick up on some ideas which are appropriate to try in your own situation. Remember that the meeting serves at least two purposes: the advertised intention and the serendipitous experience–fertile minds coming together at random.”

Much has changed since I became a historian and information professional. Not everywhere, of course. Change never is universal. So yes, there still are venues where you rarely hear professionals tell each other, “I didn’t know!” The reasons are complicated (individual, cultural), perhaps related to what is perceived to be subject to within-group professional reward or punishment. And yes, it is possible to tell when some people are donning masks in professional spaces.

If you define success in a profession in a narrow, old fashioned, conservative way–trying to become or declaring yourself to be King of the Hill–adjusting to new ways may bring some challenges. You may end up as a Grumbledore, constantly trying to keep your footing on a hill while others gather comfortably elsewhere across a wide landscape.

Effective leaders show by example how to learn and teach both; they say “I didn’t know” as well as “here’s what I do know!” You can’t do that if you’re hung up on status and rank.

In 2010, David Ferriero read something I posted on A&A and wrote to thank me for my comments about a blog post he had published. And added, “still on a steep learning curve regarding NARA’s history.” A metamessage as well as message in that note from the Big Dude! Actions like that point to solution oriented thinking. They have deep impact in ways that striving for control, focusing on footing and placement on a hill, do not.

Just look at the “trust yourself” vibe in a recent post by Ashley Stevens, an archives technician employed by NARA in Philadelphia.

“The subject line read ‘So here is an idea….’

The sender was my colleague and education specialist Ang. I’ve come to know her as a woman with great ideas and creative ways to make things happen. My interest was piqued.

Her idea: Would I consider taking on an education intern?

My initial reaction: I was simultaneously flattered and felt wholly unqualified. After all, there are those in my office with years of experience in the National Archives and a depth of knowledge about our records that surpasses what I know. I heard that inner voice say, “You’re just an Archives Tech not even an Archivist.” But you know what counteracted that Negative Nelly in my head: a colleague and friend had faith that I could do it AND while I may be an Archives Tech I’m by no means a newbie. I had curated an exhibit two years in a row and I’ve spoken before different people from k-12 students to grad students to my colleagues.

You know what? I thought. You can do this.”

As does @stephestellar (great comment!), I love the way Ashley uses the video of Keanu Reeves double whoas across time in her blog post. Ashley is as inspirational for me in person as at her blog. (I snapped the iPhone photo of her at the annual SAA conference this past August.) Truth be told, we all have those moments where we think, “whoa.” So I appreciate the reminder from Ashley and Stephanie that I’m not alone!

The National Archives is making up for lost time. So much so, that it has zoomed ahead in many areas where it once lagged behind or seemed to be moving slowly. In a blog post on Monday about the 2013 Open Government National Action Plan, David Ferriero highlighted work on citizen engagement, on records management, and with national security classified records. David observed, “Each one of these initiatives involves lots of National Archives expertise across the agency and shines many lights on the critical role that this expertise brings to modernizing government.”

Washington truly is a complicated place to work. Sometimes, I yearn for better informed and more thoughtful engagement by stakeholders, including information professionals, outside Fedland. As I noted in my last blog post, skewed news sources and demagogues have a greater reach than in the past. Why they get the signal boosts they do outside Fedland is a complicated issue, one involving individual motivation, that lies beyond the scope of this post.

You can’t control what others do. You do have some control over your own choices. Sometimes, you just have to persevere in the face of obstacles!

There is much to admire in the work of dedicated public servants at agencies such as NARA. Not just David Ferriero and senior executives such as Debra Wall and Jay Bosanko. But also people such as Ashley Stevens. And Arian Ravanbakhsh, who works on federal records management policy and whom I first met online through the Records Express blog. Processing archivists. Reference archivists. Educational specialists and curators who shape, then share, exhibits physically and in the virtual world.

If listserv postings from 2005 seem so long ago now, so, in some ways, do some of my blog posts from 2010. In several essays at my first, anonymous blog, Archivesmatter(s), I mused about rewards and recognition. Archivists occasionally saw their names listed in acknowledgments in published books by scholars who had worked with them. Now and in the future, more and more records are and will be available in digital form. I wrote in 2010 that as more information is shared online, without direct person to person contact, LAMs need new ways of making staff feeling like contributors. I didn’t know how that might occur.

Reading Meridith’s post showed me that all those who enable “I didn’t even know!” are getting the acknowledgments that reference archivists once did and in some cases still do. That thank you just is expressed in a different way.

What a wonderful lesson. Thank you, Meridith!

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Posted in archival issues, NARA, U.S. History

Tagged Arian Ravanbakhsh, Ashley Stevens, David S. Ferriero, Meridith Halsey, The Big Dude

The context of creation

Posted on November 7, 2014 | Leave a comment

As I sat in the McGowan Theater of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Thursday evening, I read in the Digital Humanities Journal the January conference presentation by @archivesnext, Kate Theimer.

While I waited for the program to begin, I set aside the article at one point and chatted with the Big Dude, aka AOTUS David S. Ferriero, whom I respect and admire greatly.

A little later, I listened to a panel of former members of Congress discuss elections and governing; the past, present and future.

History nerd, archives nerd heaven! We need more such spots IRL and in the virtual world. Places where we can examine a concept archivists and historians value: context.

I had chosen my reading material well. Kate’s look at “A Distinction Worth Exploring: ‘Archives’ and ‘Digital Historical Representations'” is admirably insightful. She observes,

“The approach I chose for my remarks at the digital historiography session was to illustrate the points the other speakers had made about the importance of questioning, understanding, and articulating the context of creation of digital historical representations by discussing the differences between different types of digital information sources created and used by historians—many if not most of which are often all referred to as ‘archives.’

….I would think that understanding why and how an information resource was created—that is to say, its context—is more valid than ever in digital historiography.”

I nodded along as I read Kate’s comments:

“Appraisal and selection of such materials is a multi-dimensional process with many factors involved, often including political influence, censorship on the part of the creator or collector, resource limitations on the part of the repository, random chance, and acts of God. How and why the materials on our shelves end up there is not always a straightforward story and one that is usually not captured in detail in the public description of the materials. How the materials were aggregated and for what purpose is usually described at some level in the finding aid, but documentation in this area can be sporadic.”

I was present at the American Historical Association when Kate gave the presentation on which this essay is based. Some of the same questions raised about organizational collections policies apply to items selected for “digital archives.”

“These collections may be created by archivists, librarians, historians, passionate amateurs, nonprofit organizations or for-profit companies. Because these digital historical representations are created by such a wide range of sources, it’s critical to know about the context of these collections—including who assembled them, what their purpose was, and what criteria they used.”

Kate asks

“On what basis were items added to this collection? Why were some items excluded? To what extent is what’s being presented a subset of what’s available? Where does the metadata come from? How was it created and reviewed? As with online finding aids for physical collections, what is being accessed in this kind of digital collection is a surrogate—a description of that object or aggregate created by a person to represent it. Even a scanned image of a document is a surrogate, although hopefully an accurate one. Descriptions and metadata can be subjective and also subject to errors.”

What Kate said about the archival bond fit the theme of the day for me yesterday:

“The value of the collections of materials preserved in archives often lies in the relationship of the records to each other—what’s called the archival bond—which means that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. As a whole, the materials provide evidence about the activities of their creator or the person or organization who brought them together.”

Earlier on Thursday, the National Archives released 193 entries (296 previously restricted segments) from the audio diaries recorded between 1970 and 1973 by Nixon chief of staff H. R. (Bob) Haldeman. Haldeman understood when he began work at the White House on January 20, 1969 that he would be witnessing historic events.

His diary, in written form during 1969-1970, then dictated onto audio cassettes from 1970 until 1973, captured his daily recollections of contact with President Nixon in the course of his duties. In some cases, the diary contains some of the same wording as the notes he wrote on yellow legal pads as he met or talked with the president.

The tone of the dictations for the most part is matter of fact. Haldeman worked long hours as senior staff do in the White House. Occasionally he would have a day off and would record a brief entry, “no contact.”

In my work with the Nixon White House tapes for the National Archives, I sometimes referred to the “H notes” in the White House Special Files or to the descriptive logs my team and I had made of the diary entries in the late 1970s. It was interesting to listen to conversations involving Haldeman on the tapes, then turn to his contemporaneous accounts.

I was the National Archives’ Nixon Presidential Materials Project team leader in charge of processing the Haldeman diary audio recordings in 1979-1980. I assisted Haldeman in using some of the unredacted materials in 1987 when a court case required him to request special access from us at NARA. His visit to the National Archives then also led to his agreeing to do a series of oral history interviews with us.

NARA noted in the Finding Aid that it released on Thursday

“Archivists recorded potentially classified audio segments from the working copies onto composite national security reels. At the same time, they photocopied all potentially classified pages from the Handwritten Diaries. The composite reels and photocopied, handwritten entries were sent to Agencies in February 1980.

…. Upon return of the materials to NARS, archivists executed agency determinations by creating derivative declassified copies from the working copies in which segments identified as national security classified were sanitized from the Handwritten Diaries or replaced by audio tone in the case of Audio Diaries.”

Haldeman wrote of his diaries in 1993, “Because I unofficially marked the diaries Top Secret, they had to be reviewed by the National Security Council for classified national security material. Before I could receive my copies, all entries deemed ‘sensitive” were deleted.”

I was one of the Federal officials who led the archival effort during the Carter administration to identify the security classified and other sensitive information on Haldeman’s audio recordings. (There were no portion markings when we took custody of them.)

Having worked to seal the restrictable information 34 years ago, I was very happy to see most of it released yesterday by my successors. Props to Cary McStay, David Mengel, and all the members of the NARA team who worked to make this happen! “Releasing what we can, protecting what we must.”

The finding aid that NARA posted on Thursday provides researchers a useful, detailed administrative history of the handling of the Haldeman diaries. Because we processed nontextual materials, my generation of archivists worked with technology from the time we joined the archives. NARA later was able to turn to the open reel tapes we recorded from the original cassettes in the late 1970s.

“Between July 1993 and July 1994, the Nixon Staff at NARA began processing the Diary for public release in keeping with the deed of gift. Audio engineers assessed the physical condition of the original audio cassette tapes and determined that the materials were too fragile to play on a cassette tape deck. Instead, engineers opted to capture analog signals from reel-to-reel tapes recorded in 1979-1980 from the original cassettes tapes.

The analog signals derived from these working copies were converted to digital signals and recorded onto digital audio tapes (DATs); the resulting DATs were then used to re-review the Audio Diaries in their entirety. As NARA did not have authority to declassify national security sensitive segments identified in the 1980s, archivists retained the national security withdrawals as originally sanitized from the Handwritten Diaries or as toned over in the Audio Diaries.”

The Associated Press noted the range of topics in Thursday’s release:

“The segments include a reference to top-secret intelligence briefings the Nixon administration provided to China, and reveal Nixon’s private musings as he wrangled with the then-Soviet Union over limiting nuclear weapons. Mixed in among the accounts of top-level diplomacy, however, are revealing nuggets of daily life: Haldeman surprising Nixon as he smoked a Russian cigarette after long negotiations with Soviet leaders, for example, and Nixon’s team struggling to stay sober at a Chinese banquet as they felt obligated to drink toast after toast with top communist officials.”

The AP turned to Luke Nichter, who spoke at NARA on August 8, 2014, for a scholar’s assessment:

“This combination makes the diaries unique and reveals almost as much about Nixon as it does about Haldeman, said Luke Nichter, a Nixon expert and history professor at Texas A&M University.

‘It adds to this tapestry that we have on Nixon that we don’t have on anyone else,’ he said. ‘These are not the White House talking points. This is what was really going on.’”

The photo of Luke Nichter and Doug Brinkley signing copies of The Nixon Tapes shows Fred Graboske, Cary McStay, and me. All three of us worked on the Haldeman diaries during various points during our archival careers.

As with the Nixon tapes, Bob Haldeman, the creator of the diaries, did not expect to lose custody and control of the materials. However, he very much wanted their contents disclosed so as to add to the Nixon history, as he made clear to us in the 1980s.

How people handle records as they create them and later may be affected by how they perceive their future use. As I’ve described, this is an element I would expand on in the scenario Kate discussed in her thoughtful presentation. Views of access vary, too.

During the panel with former members of Congress on Thursday, former Rep. Tom Davis (R -VA) noted that where Americans once got their news from similar sources (he mentioned professional journalists such as Walter Cronkite) who sought to present the facts, now some turn to sources that are not factually reliable or present skewed versions of events.

Members of the panel also described demagoguery aimed at public servants as unfortunate and said there should be a greater emphasis on getting people to join honorable service to the nation.

Both elements can affect information professionals, in various ways. At times I see demagoguery and skewed reporting in some news links that are part of the permanent record of the Archives & Archivists and Recmgmt-L Listservs.

It isn’t surprising that private sector outside advocates with clear partisan agendas present some records issues in hyperbolic terms. Or seek to portray records related actions by officials of a party they oppose in terms of unwarranted criminalization. But information professionals, regardless of political party, rarely say on the record, “no, that’s not it and to present it that way is wrong and unhelpful.”

Their silence–especially public silence from archival and information science educators–may not enable such rhetoric. But it does make finding solutions less likely in the forums. I’ve resigned myself to seeing little more than occasional on and offlist rants about stories involving government officials from subscribers to some such forums.

Haldeman expressed frustration to us at incomplete or skewed writing about the Nixon White House during the 1970s and 1980s. I found in talking to him that he believed that the more contemporaneous information you make available, the greater chance there is for historians to assess comprehensively what happened and why.

The National Archives’ actions on Thursday made more such information available.

Its finding aid answered questions Kate raised at AHA: how and why “the material ended up on our shelves.”

And the thoughtful observations by former members of Congress about niche news sources and demagogues reminded me of why I seek help from information professionals willing to look at issues thoughtfully. Not as partisans, flipping position, depending on whether a Republican or a Democrat is in the White House. But objectively as professionals who seek sophisticated understanding of all elements that affect the records life cycle.

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Posted in archival issues, NARA, Richard M. Nixon, U.S. History

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