Monthly Archives: December 2014

You’re never done

Posted on December 31, 2014 | Leave a comment

“You’re never done.” In a speech on July 25, 2011, AOTUS David S. Ferriero talked about customer service and about the importance of putting employees first.

“Look for ways to engage your customers. We all have a lot to learn from them. And they are desperate to talk! I remember doing an Information Seeking Behavior Study at MIT and how easy it was to get faculty to talk about their research—no one else wanted to listen to them.

“….For me, if you can’t get the employee equation right (training, support, resources, etc.) you will never succeed with the customer service equation.

And, finally, you’re never done. Don’t ever think you have conquered the customer service equation. It can always be improved. Just talk to your customers!”

The through line of David’s remarks? Listening and learning. You see the same vibe of continuous learning in the thoughtful new Supervisors Handbook that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) developed this year.

“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.”

Learning can be complicated! How we learn, what leads us to listen, what we look for in community, how we approach problems and solutions, varies from person to person. Being able to own your learning space–and pace!–can make all the difference.

Yesterday, I smiled when I read some slides that @nickblackbourn shared on Twitter. My favorite parts of “Five Steps to Creative Problem Solving?”

“Incubation: Let it marinate. Some call it ‘thinking aside.’ Shut off your mind to spark creativity.”

“Failure is the foundation to success.”

“Vulnerability leads to pure creativity.

Vulnerability: Trust. Communication. Collaboration.”

It helps to embrace chaos. Sounds scary but stepping back from the impulse to control how things go can be liberating, or so I’ve found. (I’m reflecting some of my past experiences, long ago and more recently. Events and actions that I’ve been able to control and ones I have not.) I think that’s one reason I like Twitter so much. Random conversations, spontaneous interactions, a great range of questions, answers, searching, missteps, corrections, failures, successes. Humanity and vulnerability on display!

And no one in charge, there are no assigned roles or classifications or times to speak. Just the ebb and flow of interactions in a community that shifts from moment to moment. Online and IRL, there are so many people who inspire me to keep going, make me think about challenges, and add light to my days!

David Ferriero observed in “Burnout at the Reference Desk” in 1982 that physical activity such as running or swimming or in my case, walking, helps with more than stress relief:

“The time spent in such exercise also serves as a period of thought organization. Many people use such time to think through difficult problems and develop various alternative approaches to them.”

I’m glad I had a chance to talk to David at NARA earlier this year about why he wrote the article in 1982. But some of my most joyous interactions this year were with archivists and librarians who wrote me offlist about their workplace and reference experiences after I posted on the Archives and Archivists Listserv about David’s insightful and deeply humane article on burnout. To understand that it is okay to be yourself–“alright to have those feelings” as David put it in 1982–is such an important part of handling the people issues that form an essential part of management. And life in general.

Learning, growing, developing work best when there is safe haven, places of shelter filled with patience, kindness and nourishment. Just as in these photos taken at the National Archives in November!

Given some of my experiences in Washington, it’s not surprising that safe haven was a theme I continued to discuss this year at my blog. I wrote in “I go home to a very different place than you” about a thoughtful tweet I saw from Hannah Clutterbuck:

“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 we face in working with records analog, digitized, and born-digital.

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.”

Sometimes it takes a while for things to sink in or make sense to me. I’m taking in so much information all the time, from so many sources! That was the case for me in 2010-2011, as I started learning about the change vision for the National Archives and Records Administration. There are a few things I would do differently than NARA has done since 2010, but there’s so much I support. And I have great respect for David, for Deputy Archivist Deb Wall, for Chief Operating Officer Jay Bosanko, and the employees of all ranks who contribute to a truly noble mission.

At my own pace, I’ve come to embrace the overall change vision. Because it is the future! The knowledge about national history that so many talented NARA employees enable through their work on appraising, accessioning, processing, preserving, and reviewing records increasingly is shared in the many places people gather.

Walking helps me because it gives me the space, day by day (however long I need) to sort through the what, how, and why of change in the way we handle archives, records, knowledge and, most importantly, people. I cherish those times of thinking while walking because in that time, I own my own space, internally and externally.

When I head out for a walk after work, I often gaze at the sky during the first part of my walk. Seeing such beauty helps me relax, center myself, step out of myself. As I free my mind, my thoughts wander and ideas, some I develop, some I set aside or throw out, have time to marinate.

Much of my blogging this year centered on archives transcendence. On what it means to be part of a profession which seeks to share knowledge. I’ve felt tremendous joy this year at seeing members of the NARA team accomplish challenging mission assignments. And work their way through complex issues. And bring joy to people in unexpected ways.

So it’s fitting that my year ended with a visit to the National Archives, a cultural heritage agency where I once worked and which I cherish. A place where from my seat in the second row, I saw a wonderful, spontaneous look of delight on the face of Tim Gunn of Project Runway fame on stage in the McGowan Theater on December 11, 2014. He was so surprised when David Ferriero and Maureen McDonald stepped on stage to give him a photo inscribed with Rosalynn Carter’s best wishes.

As I described in “Wonderland,” Tim Gunn had just told us about the many challenges he faced in working through an assignment to decorate a holiday tree at the Carter White House on short notice in 1979. He persevered and found solutions in unexpected places to the problems he faced. Just one of many narratives that I heard or participated in during 2014 that inspire me to keep trying to #makeitwork in the year to come!

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Posted in archival issues, NARA, Workplace issues

Linked literacy: understanding and appreciating the past

Posted on December 30, 2014 | Leave a comment

“Keep Calm and Ask an Archivist.”

The image comes from a thoughtful post about digital access to records by Keith Donohue of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on December 18, 2014. Later in December, the National Archives posted a digitization strategy plan. Its goals are part of the NARA strategic plan I described in “Because it is the future!”

Keith’s essay is available on NARA’s website at the Annotations blog of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). The picture reflects a now-popular meme that derives from a poster (“Keep Calm and Carry On”) created in Great Britain in 1939. The Wikipedia entry about the original poster and the subsequent meme is here. I use Wikipedia as a gateway for some research questions and carefully consider the sources and framing of entries.

In his post, Keith writes that

“While millions of people are contributing data through social media, including comments, annotations, tags, ratings, and reviews, they continue to need a cadre of professionals standing behind the data. Archivists, librarians, and curators now play a greater role in sorting through, authenticating, and analyzing massive amounts of information, while also providing context for historical documents.”

And then he provides context for the last sentence in the paragraph I just quoted.

“A few years after the founding of the National Archives and the Society of American Archivists, The American Archivist summed up the challenge in 1939:

‘Just as librarians promote the use of books, and as teachers defend before the public the value of education, so archivists have as part of their duty to give stimulus and guidance to the use of archives, and to their use not by the few but by the many.’

Access for the many, that persistent goal of the libraries, archives, and museums community, may have been achieved, in part, by putting digital content on the Web, but it does not mitigate the need for continued stewardship of the historical records and professional assistance for the digital information seekers.”

I noted in my last blog post how Anthony Grafton and James Grossman make an effective case for the study of history in their recent article, “Habits of Mind.” Keith’s essay points to the archival angle as he explains why NHPRC has a new funding category for Literacy and Engagement with Historical Records:

“One key task ahead is to help students gain critical thinking skills and basic research techniques when seeking and using historical records in both analog and digital formats. In addition to developing digital literacy, users need to recognize the complexities of archival materials and to locate and effectively use them in a wide range of repositories. A central irony of the age is that the unprecedented access to information requires greater levels of skill and understanding to find the right answers and to ask the next questions.”

Archival literacy involves the entire life cycle of records. Among the players are many people outside the archives, including those who create records. Some records come into archives as donated materials. Others through the process of records management.

Ideally, key creators of records learn from the moment they enter government service the core elements that surround record keeping. These include the institutional value and short and long-term use of the records they handle. (Use includes within the agency but outside the business unit in which the official works.)

Officials also benefit from briefings on how records may be requested externally, including the differences in handling disclosure in Freedom of Information Act processing and in legal discovery. How records are handled while still held in an agency or department and after the transfer of legal title and physical and intellectual custody to the National Archives. And what is the impact on institutional memory of disposition decisions that must balance risk minimization (including the levels of operational exposure), and retention of knowledge about what happened, why, and how.

In situations where candor is possible in an organization–and this applies in business and academic settings as well as in government entities–it also helps to discuss the acknowledged and unacknowledged elements that affect preservation of records. As I noted in “Records awareness, awareness of Records, “as an information professional, you don’t want creators of records to be blindsided.”

An ideal is just that, of course. Researchers benefit from understanding the life cycle of records both “as should be” and “as is” (in its many forms). However, the beginning of the records life cycle does not always get enough attention from historians. Yet the first steps that affect access are taken by the person who creates or receives a record.

In theory, records come into the National Archives “as is,” that is, as described in a records control schedule. However, the transfer decisions are made within the creating agency or department. Understanding the culture of the creating entity–even within the federal government, they can be very different– provides insights into why records were handled as they were.

Understanding records life cycle issues and the impact of actions by stakeholders, from creators to internal and external end users, is part of historical literacy. In the past, I looked for one-stop forums where historians, archivists and records managers could gather to discuss some such issues and learn from each other. Some of the Listservs I tried out were moderated, as at H-Net, others not (Archives and Archivists, RECMGMT-L).

In looking through some threads on the Archives and Archivists Listserv and RECMGMT-L in preparation for writing this post, I found fewer models of productive brainstorming between archivists and records managers than I believe the topic warrants. Yet there are cases where the two professions depend on each other and historians depend on both.

Online interactions are like those in a workplace–they differ depending on who is in the room. Psychic tolerance of seeing disses (general, not specific to an individual) of one profession at the expense of the other, varies, too. I see no need for librarians, archivists or records managers to compete over whose job or certification is “better” or “harder,” much less reach for “end of food chain” putdowns. The challenges, obligations and skills of the practitioners differ, both within their professions and individual employing organiztions. As an archivist, historian and researcher, I depend on all of them.

Included among the electronic footprints at A&A and RECMGMT-L are links to news stories about archives and records. Some of the most interesting old threads I read on A&A earlier this week were ones from the second and third weeks in March 1994. That was when Richard Cox, Bruce Montgomery, and others discussed in multiple threads a series of articles and opinion columns in The Washington Times about NARA and Acting Archivist Trudy H. Peterson. In 1994, I had no Internet access yet and was not a subscriber to A&A. Reading the old thread reminded me of how sourcing and framing and intent can affect interpretation of news narratives.

Over the course of the last year or so, I’ve posed this records literacy question to archival educators from time to time. When you discuss news links in class, how do you unpack the component parts? There’s a lot going on, after all. (Even when there is online discussion of a story, not everyone with information on the subject can speak in public.) Analyzing news links about archives and records is all the more challenging now, when advocacy organizations and web sites with very different goals, standards, and objectives are in the mix.

I’ve had in-person and offline conversations with some educators about how they deconstruct news links and commentary. Seeing a writer turn specific officials into villains rather than looking at issues systemically may be a red flag. Turning people into cartoonish villains–a characteristic of some advocacy writing on the Right and Left, both–can obscure the complexity of many archival and records issues and affect efforts to find solutions.

What serves the short term goals of an ideological or partisan group doesn’t always serve the long term knowledge goals of scholars. At its worst, demagoguery can ramp up a chilling effect and increase reluctance to create and preserve records. Historians strive to look at the forest and the trees, both. And to avoid reductive thinking. That said, some scholars write in a more polemical style than others.

I’ve found unhelpful depictions of archival or records issues that only look at one side, as here in a review of Christopher Horner’s The Liberal War on Transparency. In addition to looking at an advocate’s use of FOIA, the reviewer offers views of scholars in federal employment:

“Mr. Horner recalls President Eisenhower’s farewell address in which he warned not just of a growing military-industrial complex but of the unhealthy concentration of the nation’s scholars and scientists in federal employment. All the while, the media remain mostly silent, underscoring again the liberal double standard and undermining the nation’s trust in its educational institutions.”

However, scholarship reflects a way of tackling issues, not a political stance, as Grafton and Grossman remind us in “Habits of Mind.” Archival educators who use news links in class best serve their students if they examine third party reporting and commentary as scholars do. By that I mean what Grafton and Grossman referred to as critical analysis “that doesn’t have a lot of patience with simpleminded formulas and knows an observation from an opinion and an opinion from an argument.”

Outside the classroom where should we turn to build linked literacy for use of archival resources? To the places many cultural heritage institutions go these days. Social Media, including Twitter, Tumblr, and blogs.

Interactions are more random on social media than on H-Net and the archives and records management listservs. But there are some truly thoughtful writers and open leaders in the blogosphere. People who are unafraid to show as they engage with readers that they are imperfect human beings. Because opening up questions for discussion requires just that, opening up. Yes, I’m thinking of Charlene Li’s advice, which I quoted in this post about a great approach to outreach by Meridith Halsey (“The Makeover Could Get the Archives Noticed”).

Because experiences and roles in our professions differ, we need safe space for enhancing literacy and providing original observations and linkable content about our different professions. Online space where we can feel comfortable being leaders at times, followers at others. Teachers and students. Speakers and listeners. As Martha Beck wrote earlier this year of status seeking and hyper consciousness of rank,

“….If you love clawing your way up social pyramids, by all means, hang on to this view of reality. But if you’re into things like, oh, I don’t know, happy relationships and enjoyable work, you might want to note that many highly functional human systems are less like pyramids than like calm seas: Roles are as fluid as water, and the hierarchy of personal worth is flat, with every person valued equally. In systems like these, each person leads in situations where he or she is most capable, but just as willingly follows in others.”

The fabulous Kate Theimer (author, lecturer, blogger, Tweeter extraordinaire) recently asked non-archivists, “What aspect of archives do you wish you knew more about?” She also asked archivists what they wished people understood about their profession. Excellent. We need to see more of such questions asked!

With the changes in how we create, preserve, and share access to records, we need more smart interaction among our professions. As more and more archival materials are born digital or digitized for online access, we need to talk to each other about our needs, objectives, and how we work. And yes, I’ll say it again–context matters, more than ever!

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Posted in archival issues

The gift of listening, the heart of understanding

Posted on December 24, 2014 | Leave a comment

In writing about the archival mission, I’ve described in posts such as “The gifts we give” my intense joy at working in a field where I can share knowledge with scholars. There truly is a transcendent feeling in making access happen and enabling scholars to study our nation’s history.

This is a time of year when we hear so much about joy. But life is so different for every individual. Some of the lessons of the season, I think about year-round. Knowledge, joy. But also about the price of ignorance. Especially the passage from Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol when the Ghost of Christmas Present tells Scrooge,

“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”

On Monday, December 22, 2014, I read an essay about listening in the archives. And another one about joy. The two are related, or so it seems to me.

In the morning, I saw a tweet from @rjcoxarchivist in which he noted: “‘in the archive the historian has the opportunity and the obligation to listen.’ Anthony Grafton & James Grossman. Archivists must listen 2.”

Intrigued by the use of the word “listen,” I did a web search for the quote. The results led me to “Habits of Mind,” a new article in The American Scholar by Grafton and Grossman in which they looked at the value of history and archives–“when all goes well.”

“The best defense for research, however, is that it’s in the archive where one forms a scholarly self—a self that, when all goes well, is intolerant of weak arguments and loose citation and all other forms of shoddy craftsmanship; a self that doesn’t accept a thesis without asking what assumptions and evidence it rests on; a self that doesn’t have a lot of patience with simpleminded formulas and knows an observation from an opinion and an opinion from an argument.”

I shared the link on Twitter and on the Archives & Archivists Listserv a quote from the article, as well:

“But in a deeper sense, this is a worldly education, in the traditional way that humanistic education has always embodied. A good humanities education combines training in complex analysis with clear communication skills. Someone who becomes a historian becomes a scholar—not in the sense of choosing a profession, but in the broader meaning of developing the scholarly habits of mind that value evidence, logic, and reflection over ideology, emotion, and reflex. A student of history learns that empathy, rather than sympathy, stands at the heart of understanding not only the past but also the complex present.

That is because in the archive the historian has the opportunity and the obligation to listen. A good historian enters the archive not to prove a hypothesis, not to gather evidence to support a position that assumptions and theories have already formed. But to answer a question. It’s an amazing experience to see and talk with and learn from the dead.”

I credited Richard and was happy to see a subscriber respond with thanks, not just to me for posting the link but to him, as well. Provenance!

Grafton and Grossman described scholarly habits of mind and noted that
a “self like this can seem unworldly, especially if the ‘real world’ resembles a political culture that dismisses complexity and context as ‘academic.’ But in a deeper sense, this is a worldly education, in the traditional way that humanistic education has always embodied. ”

Improving civic literacy can be a challenging but worthy goal. As I observed in “Who’s in?” earlier this year, when we process archival materials for public disclosure, we don’t know who will use them. Sometimes researchers use them for knowledge. Sometimes for advocacy. Sometimes as an objective historian does. Sometimes as a demagogue does.

Grafton and Grossman concluded their essay by saying

“When a student . . . attacks a problem that matters to her by identifying and mastering the sources, posing a big question, and answering it in a clear and cogent way, in the company of a trained professional to whom she and her work matter—she’s not becoming a pedant or a producer of useless knowledge. She’s doing what students of the humanities have always done: building a self and a soul and a mind that she can take with her wherever she goes, and that will make her an independent, analytical thinker and a reflective, self-critical person. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing?”

What Grafton and Grossman write resonates for me: “A student of history learns that empathy, rather than sympathy, stands at the heart of understanding not only the past but also the complex present.” And as I’ve noted, I agree with AOTUS David S. Ferriero that empathy is a quality found in many good leaders in our field.

In some cases, reading fiction may lead to greater empathy for others. Pam Belluck wrote in The New York Times in October 2013 of a recent report in Science that

“It found that after reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence — skills that come in especially handy when you are trying to read someone’s body language or gauge what they might be thinking.

The researchers say the reason is that literary fiction often leaves more to the imagination, encouraging readers to make inferences about characters and be sensitive to emotional nuance and complexity.”

Ferriero holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in English Literature as well as a Master’s degree from Simmons College of Libraries and Information Science. I’ve talked to him from time to time about books I’ve enjoyed reading. He wrote on Monday at his blog about “A Christmas Memory.” David explained, “One of the benefits of starting my library and archives life as a shelver in the Humanities Library at MIT was exposure to some great writers. As an employee I took advantage of my borrowing privileges and went on a literary journey that set the foundation for my passion for reading to this day.”

David shared his favorite passage from a book that is “an annual must read” for him this time of year. It is the scene in Truman Capote’s short story, A Christmas Memory, in which a young boy, Buddy, and his older cousin, Sook, share joy despite living in a poor family. They fly the gift kites which they unknowingly both chose for the other and crafted in secret as Christmas surprises. And lie on the grass in the sun and look up at the clouds in the sky.

In that moment, the older cousin reaches a moment of understanding: “That things as they are’—her hand circles in a gesture that gathers clouds and kites and grass..—‘just what they’ve always seen, was seeing Him.”

After quoting that passage, David concludes his post, “May your holidays be filled with joy and reflections of clouds and kites and sun-warmed grass and loved ones.”

Unexpected joy is beautiful. Looking at a clock on a shelf in my house reminds me of the kindness and generosity that can result from our random interactions with each other. My late sister, Eva, received the clock as a Christmas present in 1994. Next to it is a box of old VHS tapes of one of my favorite works by Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby.

Eva, a supervisory archivist in the Declassification unit of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), did not volunteer to coordinate the move of national security classified records to Archives II in 1994. Overseeing a massive archives move never is easy. When it involves classified records, how you handle the job matters more than ever. I remember Eva sighing and telling me she wished she didn’t have to do the assignment.

By the time she finished the project, which took months, Eva was glad she had a chance to oversee it. Being move coordinator enriched her life in so many ways. The move of records from two locations into a third, Archives II, meant that Declassification staff finally could work together in the same building.

Eva made new friends in the NARA Declass unit among staff previously assigned to work at the Washington National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland. (You see above Neil Carmichael, Jay Bosanko, and Joe Scanlon at Suitland.)

But she also found joy in other ways, as well.

Eva talked to the members of the move crew as she worked with them, listened to them, learned from them what their jobs were like, got to know them. At the end of the year, she made up a sign showing her appreciation. And she reached into her pocket and gave each mover a generous cash gift before Christmas.

A few days later, one of the men on the crew for whom she drew the number 1 sign and gave personal cash bonuses surprised her. He told her what working with her on the move meant to him and handed her a wrapped box. He said he wanted her to have a Christmas gift.

She brought the box home and opened it on Christmas Eve. It was the only present she opened then that did not come from us in the family. Gifts from others in her life, many cherished friends, she opened when they came to dinner during various holiday visits.

Writing about Eva receiving that gift in 1994 from a friend on the move crew brings a tear to my eye as I write this. Not one of sadness, although Eva died on December 16, 2002. But a moment of joy for me, reflected in looking at the clock I still care for 20 years later. And in remembering an evening when I saw in the giver and the recipient of a present the beauty of the human heart.

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

“What archives are all about”

Posted on December 18, 2014 | 2 comments

There’s my answer, I thought as I sipped coffee and read my Twitter feed. How to look back at the year at Nixonara, I wondered? And then, there it was, in a beautiful, nuanced, complex convo that @Sam_Winn and @nataliebaur had on Twitter.

Sam asked about what many of us refer to as “imposter syndrome” in its broad (not the clinical) sense. About safety and trust. How to reach marginalized and under-represented people and ensure that their records are saved as part of archival holdings. A great conversation followed, with @crowgirl42 and @KDRoe122 joining in.

I wrote in 2014 about diversity and inclusion, including in “I go home to a very different place than you.” So I was struck by @Nataliebaur’s thoughtful observation that “providing a safe space to let people talk abt their history, experiences is definitely intertwining both issues I think.”

Sam responded that there’s never a simple answer in archives. Natalie agreed, that such issues never are straightforward when they involve people and “that’s what archives is all about.”

The focus of my blogging changed and expanded during 2014. In early 2013, I moved most of my Nixon related research files from the room where I’ve kept them for years, next to my computer, down to the basement. A sign of moving on! In 2014, I rarely wrote about the subjects that first inspired me to start blogging but on which I’ve found great peace over the last couple of years.

I only looked at matters related to Richard Nixon a few times this year. A post I wrote in May about Nixon issues examined a recent and a past attempt at external advocacy by an academic historian and by a journalist. In August I wrote about my joy in hearing Luke Nichter and Douglas Brinkley’s book lecture about The Nixon Tapes at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). As I wrote in a recent post, “the greatest gift you can give archivists and librarians is the opportunity to share physically and virtually the knowledge found in their collections and holdings.”

People issues and leadership in working through archival challenges formed the throughline at my blog. I wrote about people who inspire me: Ashley Stevens, Kate Theimer, Maureen Callahan, Sam Winn, Rebecca Goldman, Lance Stuchell, Eira Tansey, Meredith Halsey, Kathleen Roe, and (of course!) the Big Dude, aka AOTUS David S. Ferriero. Communications, safe space, management and change in cultural heritage institutions were the topics I blogged about most.

Cultural change, effective communications, open leadership are hard. Really hard. Much of leadership is instinctive and being an effective leader comes from within–or doesn’t. Leadership requires connecting the dots, having a macro and micro view (seeing the forest and the trees) in setting a vision, fortitude and resilience, and, most of all, acting from The Big Self. Positive models inspire me. (Yes, “walk towards the light” has been a recent theme at my blog, as well.) People such as the ones I just named!

I read some of the traditional management literature that is out there on the market. Although there are some good tidbits, I’ve found many such books to be frustrating, sometimes disappointing. I rarely find the depth I seek and have come to understand that it is because I so value situational awareness.

I believe that David Ferriero is right on the mark when he observes,

“There is a set of interpersonal skills a person has to have to be a good leader, and they can’t really be taught, but after all these years I can tell pretty quickly if someone has them. I look for an individual who truly cares about people, who has good listening skills, who has empathy and is able to understand what people are going through and is genuinely sensitive to the situation. Directness and honesty. And of course, the ability to make decisions.”

This is why the new Supervisors Handbook written under David’s guidance in a collaborative process resonates for me in a way management books I buy in a store never will. It reflects the heart of NARA, its people, their learned and lived experience.

As someone familiar with its old management culture, I know NARA has a long way to go! The mountain seems so steep. But it gives me great hope that David and key members of his leadership team, such as Deputy Archivist Deb Wall and Chief Operating Officer Jay Bosanko, value continuous learning and open leadership. The Supervisors Handbook reflects this at its core:

“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.”

Open leadership is dependent on wiring more so than gender or age, although experience plays a part. My late sister Eva, a NARA supervisor and team leader, is pictured at a staff party at Archives 2 in 1995. She once supervised Jay Bosanko, second from the right in the first photo. He now is the COO!

I’ve seen the most inspiring examples of open leadership on newer platforms, such as Twitter. But it’s important to remember that there is an #archives buffet. To take into account different comfort zones for engagement. To understand the community. And to be open to learning, regardless of age, rank, or position.

Earlier this year, I had a chance to talk to David Ferriero at the National Archives about an insightful article he wrote in 1982, “Burnout at the Reference Desk.” This summer, I wrote about the article in a series of three blog posts. I also shared it with subscribers to the Archives & Archivists Listserv.

David’s article provides thoughtful, humane advice about attention to those in your care, as well as self care. What he then wrote resonates with many readers still. Web X.0, people 1.0. Some of what Ferriero described, archivists and librarians now do virtually as well as in face to face in meetings. Interactions with colleagues serve many functions:

“…socialization–a chance to get away from users and the cluttered desk; to exchange pleasantries with the rest of the staff in a relaxed atmosphere; support group–a place where a public service person can vent the frustrations of dealing with problem users and get tips from the group for making the next such encounter less frustrating and the nod from the group that it is alright to have those feelings.”

Most importantly, as David observed in 1982, when he was a Supervisory Librarian,

“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.”

The team must look out for one another. I believe that this applies to the larger community, too, not just in the workplace.

Some of us engage on multiple platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, blogs and old-style email listservs. A thoughtful analysis in 1998 in The Electronic Journal of Communication looked at cultural and gender differences in a Web 1.0 setting. Issues never are straightforward when they involve people!

The 1998 study’s examination of participants in a Listerv who approached discourse as if there must be “winners” and “losers,” on the one hand, and those who were bridge builders, on the other, is useful for understanding the behavioral spectrum (hypercompetitive to collaborative). The analysis explains low- or high-context cultural behaviors and self-face and other-face displays. The findings point to where engagement is most likely to succeed, where results may be limited, and even where engagement best is avoided.

The Social Web, too, displays the very human choices that individuals make. These range from reliance on “zero sum games,” dominance tactics, closed stances, to collaborative, adaptive, and open leadership.

There’s much to learn from this and other studies of communication for anyone seeking dialogue to resolve archives, records, and history issues. And also for understanding options for dealing with various colleagues. Outside the workplace, a gentle nudge or praising good models is the best option in a learning oriented safe space where there are Codes of Conduct and potential protection from abusive conduct. (Not all virtual space is safe, as the best-known hashtagged controversies remind us.) In the workplace, learning about wiring and temperament is part of effectively coaching those you supervise.

Earlier this year, in an essay about “Open community, closed society,” I wrote about Eira Tansey and how she

“called for professional engagement in a post she wrote at her blog after the Society of American Archivists conference last year. She asked people to stay for the Business Meeting. . . . And to seek opportunities for long-form discussion. I applaud that.”

Eira now participates in a reading group started by Erin Lawrimore in which archivists tweet and blog thoughtfully about the speeches of past presidents of the Society of American Archivists.

Just as the future of archives is participatory, so, too, enhancing understanding of the past, present and future. Archivesnext long has modeled best practices by opening up her research and writing questions to feedback at her blog and on Twitter. There’s no better way to avoid driving the authorial train onto the wrong track–or derailing!–than asking the crowd, “what do you think?”

Dealing with dissent is a part of learning. As Eira Tansey observed, a charitable attitude is a part of effective outreach and communication:

“. . . . we are all complex human beings, and every single one of us sometimes says dumb stuff we probably regret in retrospect. Let’s try not to hold someone’s dissenting opinion against them in perpetuity, because frankly, this profession is really small, people change, and none of us are ever going to agree about everything all the time.”

Finding solutions lies at the heart of the engagement that cultural heritage institutions such as the National Archives, the Smithsonian Institution, the New York Public Library, the National Gallery of Art, and many other galleries, libraries, archives, and museums have embraced. As David Ferriero wrote about NARA’s Strategic Plan

“‘Make Access Happen’ includes within it all of the crucial work that is required for access: everything from appraisal to preservation to processing. All of the vital work that the National Archives does with the records of the federal government supports and enables access.”

What is changing is the physical form of the records being created within the government (which affects content in some cases) and how researchers seek information and connect with archives and libraries. NARA isn’t just putting information and records on its own website. It also is providing content for the Digital Public Library of America, working with cultural heritage organizations and citizens and other stakeholders, and reaching out through WikiMedia to let the public know what it holds.

After work one day this summer, I impulsively boarded a Metro train on a different line than the one that would take me home. And rode to Arlington Cemetery. It was almost closing time and I had to walk fast–nearly run!–to reach John F. Kennedy’s grave. But I found great peace as I stood in front of it. As I looked at the late day light and the Eternal Flame, I thought about what the president once said about leadership. And about how one person can make a difference and everyone should try. Most of all, I thought about Kennedy’s views on stewardship.

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”

For me, 2013 was the year of coming to understand capacity. Of learning about “safety and shelter.” This year, I learned to appreciate beauty and light while also embracing chaotic change. Yes, there can be beauty in chaos!

What David Ferriero once wrote of the employees in his care applies not just to friends at NARA who inspire me but to the broader archival community I see around me in the virtual and physical world. “These talented staff members have had ‘…a small, bright immutable part…’ in making it possible for future generations to study and learn from the past—the true gift of the work we do.”

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

Wonderland

Posted on December 13, 2014 | 1 comment

The Holidays at the White House can seem like a Wonderland. But behind the magical, glittering scenes, there is a lot going on, on many levels. Just as in the homes and workplaces of ordinary Americans but on a bigger scale and with very great responsibilities and obligations. I heard some of those stories on Thursday at a public program about Christmas in the White House at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). My second visit this week although I now am on vacation for the rest of the month. I joked to AOTUS David S. Ferriero about my schedule before the start of the program in the McGowan Theater. The National Archives feels like my second home, I come there so often these days!

Each year, as during the Bush and the Clinton administrations, above, the public rooms in the White House are filled with Christmas trees and holiday decorations that delight many visitors of all ages. Among those visitors during the Carter administration were my Mom and my sister, Eva, who came with me to view the decorations in 1977. Little did I know that among the designers of Christmas ornaments for the Carter White House in 1979 would be the now famous design guru, Tim Gunn!

Upstairs in the living quarters, the President lives with his family. The decorations are less grand and more personal, as Lynda Johnson Robb told the audience during the program at NARA on Thursday. Notice how President Lyndon B. Johnson is reaching down to hold the dog. Lynda mentioned something many families can relate to, that small children and lively pets make family photos challenging!

She appeared in the McGowan Theater on the Christmas in the White House panel moderated by Tim Gunn. In September, I met Gunn at a small event in the Archivist’s Reception Room where I also had a chance to chat with Lynda Robb.

In the audience at the National Archives on Thursday were her daughter, Lucinda Robb, and her husband, former Virginia Governor and former U.S. Senator Chuck Robb. At Lucinda’s urging, Lynda brought with her a Christmas stocking she first had hung on the mantel in the family quarters of the White House in December 1968 when Lucinda was an infant.

The holiday season includes many events at the White House. As former employees have mentioned, the most relaxed reception often is the one for staff. As a National Archives staff member and holder of a White House complex badge, I was lucky to attend such a reception with some of my Office of Presidential Libraries colleagues in 1977. (We had building access badges because the National Archives then maintained an Office of Presidential Papers in the Old Executive Office Building. The Nixon records I later processed as an archivist at the National Archives still were stored in the White House complex in 1977.) What a special evening for us archivists!

For most people who mark the holidays, the extent to which they do so often is quite voluntary. But in the White House, tradition and history come into play. And what you do very much is in the public eye. Not everything goes smoothly behind the scenes, as Tim Gunn recounted in a story I’ll share in a moment.

In the workplace as at home, there often is a person who acts as the force behind the Christmas party planning and decorating. Who decides on the decorations and takes charge of party planning. My twin sister, Eva, who died 12 years ago on December 16, was that person in the Declassification unit of the National Archives. Eva loved Christmas and so looked forward to it every year. Even going to a hockey game with a friend, as with Tim Mulligan in 1989, was special for her in December!

Eva vested a lot of her time and emotional energy into the holiday season. And she was so expert on Christmas traditions. The bookshelves in my house hold many books about Christmas that she bought over the years. Magnify that knowledge and sense of tradition a hundred fold and you get some sense of what happens in the White House. You can test your knowledge about White House Christmases and learn about this year’s theme here!

Eva wore Christmas sweaters, ones in pretty good taste, as the picture I took of of her with Jay Bosanko at a NARA party at my house in 1994 shows. (It looks as if I fixed my “pasta-pizza” casserole–put out in several serving dishes–for the group.) Jay now is Chief Operating Officer at the National Archives and a valued member of David Ferriero’s team.

As a team leader and supervisory archivist at NARA, Eva spent a lot of her own money decorating the office. As I’ve mentioned here at my blog, in 1994, when she served as the coordinator of the move of national security classified records from Archives 1 in Washington to Archives 2 in College Park, Maryland, Eva quietly reached into her pocket. She personally gave generous Christmas bonuses to the members of the contract move crew. In the White House, expenditures can come under scrutiny, as when decorations Betty Ford chose ended up costing more than expected!

Most of all, Eva brought a generous spirit to holiday festivities. In her last Christmas at NARA in December 2001, Eva not only coordinated party plans but made sure everyone felt welcome.

Among the newly hired employees who attended the party was an archivist who just had been hired onto the Declass staff that fall, Pamela Wright. Eva, a respected, veteran, senior archivist, spent time sitting with the newbies in the group, Pam among them, to make sure they felt as if they fit in. That was Eva’s vibe, always. She was so much about reaching out and inclusion. Eva would very much like the new Supervisors Handbook that NARA developed under David Ferriero’s guidance this year.

The White House is a workplace, too, as my past work with presidential records reminds me. Often, toxic or unfair political framing by opponents overlooks the humanity of the people–Presidents of both parties and their families and those who work for them in the Executive Office of the President. That they handle their public duties as they do, despite circumstances most people would find challenging, is a too-often overlooked lesson in forbearance, class and grace.

Preparing for the holidays is a tremendous effort that starts early in the year and relies on permanent staff and volunteers, both. Tim Gunn recounted that in 1979, while he was teaching three dimensional design at the Corcoran School of Art, he got a call asking if he and his students could make decorations for a White House tree–in a mere week’s time. (There was a last minute decision within the White House to replace a design by someone else.) They produced beautiful ornaments on a folk art theme.

He remembers the theme as being his idea but as he told us on Thursday, other sources said the choice was that of First Lady Rosalynn Carter. And it turns out there was a hitch. The ornaments his team prepared faded into the tree, which was bigger than Tim Gunn had anticipated. But he still was able to “make it work.” A visit to the Sears, Roebuck store then still on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington unexpectedly provided the extra touch the decorations needed. He spotted red lacquered apple ornaments for sale and bought up a huge amount to add to the tree.

Perfect! And a good lesson that things don’t always go right but you should keep trying.

And this is where the best moment on Thursday occurred at NARA. Tim Gunn talked about how he and his students posed for photos with the First Lady in 1979 only to later discover there was no film in the camera. But it turns out there are some photos in archival holdings which show Tim Gunn at the White House with the tree on which he worked.

At this point in the program, David Ferriero stepped up on stage. He told Tim Gunn that Rosalynn Carter could not be there that evening but sent her best wishes. Tim Gunn exclaimed with delight as he received a special photo (also shown on the screen) from NARA of himself with the First Lady in 1979 at the White House inscribed with her good wishes!

Much of my recent blogging has been about the gift of knowledge those who work in archives share. And this past year, I’ve thought a great deal about archives transcendence. And about a strong sense of mission among archivists.

How to share records in the digital age. The tremendous effort so many people are making throughout the National Archives to make access happen. The initiative to improve the supervisory culture in the National Archives that Deputy Archivist Deb Wall has led on behalf of David’s team.

My blogging this year also has reflected admiration and respect for archivists–and for the Archivist, or the Big Dude, as I call David Ferriero! So many good things happening at NARA. So starting my Christmas vacation, with time off at year’s end, by seeing the presentation of a gift to Tim Gunn “from the records” was a perfect way to mark the beginning of the holiday season!

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

Pass, fail, or something else?

Posted on December 12, 2014 | Leave a comment

When the two-hour Nixon Legacy Forum on the Vietnam War peace accords concluded last Friday, I walked over to talk to KT McFarland, national security analyst for the Fox News channel. She had just moderated a panel at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) with former National Security Council officials John Negroponte, Winston Lord, and Richard Smyser. The program in the McGowan Theater lasted from 10:00 a.m. until noon on December 5, 2014.

As was Ms. McFarland, I was an undergraduate at The George Washington University (GWU) during the Vietnam War. But my recollection of the impact of anti-war demonstrations on the campus differed from what she shared from the stage. So I introduced myself to her after the forum to talk about those differences. There was no audience participation at the event, no Q&A. I wasn’t able to offer corrections on the record while the event was being filmed. Still, I decided to share my own recollections with the Fox News analyst.

During the Nixon Legacy Forum, the panelists referred to opposition to the Vietnam War. Dr. Smyser said that from the viewpoint of an administration official, it was hard to get through to the U.S. public the aims of the war and to sustain support for the effort. The forum speakers conveyed a very general sense of the public mood. As they talked about how different the environment was then as compared to now, they pointed to the amount of civil unrest.

There certainly was a lot of unrest at home in the United States during the Vietnam War. But I think it is important for younger listeners to know something else, as well. That there was a draft, not an all-volunteer military, as there is now. Young men volunteered or were conscripted into military service, with some sent to serve and many to die in a war far from home. The National Archives notes on the military reference section of its website that the “Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files contains records of 58,220 U.S. military fatal casualties of the Vietnam War.”

I believe that this time period deserves careful, thorough study due to the great difficulty of the political, military, foreign policy, and domestic issues, the varied perspectives on them, then and now, and most of all, due to the human issues. A nuanced and rich view of public opinion on the Vietnam War is available in various sources in the National Archives’ holdings.

One place to study the issues is at the NARA administered Nixon Presidential Library. Not only does it hold records of presidential and other high level discussions and decision making, some citizens’ voices are there for study, too. The federal Nixon Presidential Library holds in the White House Central Files many contemporaneous letters from citizens from across the political spectrum who wrote to President Richard M. Nixon.

I processed some of that correspondence as a disclosure review archivist employed by the National Archives. This material has not yet been used in full by researchers, perhaps because it is scattered in various categories, not in a single, easily identifiable series.

When Rick Perlstein began research for his recently published book, The Invisible Bridge, I suggested in 2011 that he ask then NARA official Tim Naftali and his staff about those sources. I don’t see them listed in the source notes for the Perlstein book; he took another approach in his research.

At one point last Friday, as the speakers sought to describe the turbulence at home, KT McFarland turned to address the audience. She shared her memories of a time when antiwar demonstrations spread throughout the United States. Ms. McFarland said the dorms at GWU were turned over to protestors and the campus shut down for a semester in the spring of 1971. Because the university used a Pass-Fail system of grading, she noted that students all simply received a grade of Pass for the semester that ended in May 1971.

I, too, was at GWU then. But I knew that’s not what happened. I should note for context that my twin sister and I were commuting students so we were not on campus 24 hours a day during our undergraduate years (1969-1973). A feature in The Evening Star on December 10, 1972 showed Eva and me as we walked in downtown Washington, D.C., to catch a bus home after class. Although not resident students, we had many friends who were and we spent a lot of time on campus, of course.

A sketch in 1970 by Eva shows the audience at a campus meeting about the Vietnam war. We were not very politically active but we sometimes attended meetings where we heard people with various political views speak. I was shy then (still am) and just listened mostly.

I came from a Republican family. (I’ve been an Independent since 1989, unaffiliated with any political party. In Federal, state, and local elections, I’ve voted for Republicans and Democrats who once held varying views on the Vietnam war). Although I would vote for Richard Nixon in 1972, as an undergrad, I wanted to understand differing viewpoints on an issue as difficult as the war. As I’ve grown older, that desire has only grown stronger.

While at GWU, I absorbed a lot of information about others’ views which I thought about and assessed or reassessed as I later came to work with records from this time period. Continuous learning.

Political opinion on campus spanned the spectrum from left to right. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) appealed to some on campus. A small group of conservative Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) to others. The first photo shows the takeover of Maury Hall, which housed the Sino-Soviet Institute, by SDS members and their sympathizers in April 1969.

The GWU campus is only a few blocks from the White House. There were several major protests in Washington that involved people on campus during my undergraduate years. The November 1969 anti-war Moratorium March during my freshman year. Protests after four students died in Ohio when members of the National Guard opened fire on demonstrators at Kent State in 1970. And anti-war demonstrations during “May Day” in 1971.

Soon after graduating in 1973, I re-lived this time period as it appeared within the Nixon White House. One of my first assignments in 1978-1979 after I began processing the Nixon tapes as a National Archives employee was transcribing segments of President Nixon’s conversations about the 1971 May Day protests for a court case, Dellums v. Powell.

A GWU Libraries Special Collections Research Center wiki notes, that “the University provided a ‘sanctuary’ for anti-war demonstrators.” But the administration never turned over the campus to protestors.

I pulled out my iPhone during the Nixon Legacy forum as I listened to KT McFarland’s assessment and looked at the campus newspaper, The Hatchet. News articles about the death of Lloyd Elliott, GWU President from 1965 to 1988, matched my recollection that the administration cancelled classes (and finals) not for a semester in 1971 but for a few days in May 1970. Lloyd Elliott is pictured above speaking at a press conference during the Maury Hall takeover in 1969. Student assembly president Neil Portnow is at left.

One news account in The Hatchet noted,

“When thousands of college students flocked from around the country to GW’s campus in 1970, Lloyd Hartman Elliott became more like a warden than a college president, searching for space for rowdy inmates.

Students with gusto and bell-bottoms settled in Thurston Hall to protest the escalating Vietnam War. Makeshift soup kitchens opened on each floor. A station to hose down protesters burnt by tear gas sat outside.

GW – which Elliott had helped stabilize since becoming its 14th president in 1965 – now saw the safety of its own students at risk.

Elliott, who died of a brain hemorrhage Jan. 1 [2013] at age 94, took quick action after midnight meetings with D.C.’s mayor and police chief. He urged for the opening of a boarded-up building across from Thurston Hall, where he could house roving protesters and reduce safety concerns, banning outsiders from residence halls.

‘This chaos, this hell that’s let loose on campus, has to end,’ Elliott said, according to a history of GW called “From Strength to Strength.” ‘I want this University to be around when it’s over. We can’t let the bastards win.’”

K T McFarland described a Pass Fail system under which students received a grade of Pass for the semester which she misremembered as being cancelled in its entirety. But GWU actually had an Honors, High Pass, Pass, Fail system in 1970 and 1971. My undergraduate transcript show grades of Honors and High Pass (As and Bs) for the Spring and Fall Semester, 1970 and Spring Semester, 1971. In the Fall of 1971, the Columbian College at GWU returned to a traditional A, B, C, etc. system of grading.

Some members of the audience in the McGowan Theater and past, present, and future viewers of video of the panel may have the impression from KT McFarland’s comments on stage that the GWU administration backed down. And that they not only shut down the university for a semester but officially handed over dorms for outsiders to use. With no audience participation last Friday, I couldn’t address any of this officially at the Nixon Legacy Forum.

You can look at Ms. McFarland’s narrative any number of ways. As the event ended, I chose to view her statements about GWU last Friday as a misremembering or faulty recollection. We historians often see conflicting memories in reading through oral history interviews. And we use records as well as reminiscences. I had thought Friday morning that I’d just come in to the McGowan Theater and listen. I just wore my usual Nixonara “uniform” and even under the best of circumstances, don’t project gravitas or authority. But I didn’t have blue sprayed in my hair, either. So I decided to represent both the archival and historian professions.

I walked over to introduce myself to Ms. McFarland as the program ended. I told her,

“Hi, I’m a historian and former archivist who as you did, also attended GWU in 1971. My memory is different than yours. There were protests on campus in 1970 after Kent State and in 1971 during May Day. But the administration never cancelled classes for a semester. I do remember finals being cancelled one spring. But that was it. We just took the grades we had at the point classes were cancelled. And we weren’t under a pure Pass Fail, it was Honors, High Pass, Pass and Fail.”

KT McFarland was cordial, shook hands, and thanked me for stopping by. She said she had looked at her personal files and thought from the materials she saw there that the semester was cancelled.

I smiled and told her, “GWU has a very good archives. There are many records about this time period in its library’s special collections.”

We parted on a congenial note, with the historian and former archivist providing the Fox national security analyst some sources in case she wants to look at the records and further study a turbulent time that in some areas, we saw differently.

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Posted in Richard M. Nixon, U.S. History

What do you think?

Posted on December 6, 2014 | Leave a comment

“If it isn’t online, it doesn’t exist.” We often hear or use that phrase to explain digital access goals. Does it apply to people, too? Yes and no. We only share selected glimpses into ourselves: our values, our views of community and accomplishment and achievement, of our goals and objectives. But in what we share, how we react to each other, how we view safe space, we’re providing insights, directly and indirectly, into the forces, positive and negative, that shaped us.

In many ways, when we’re online, we’re representing not just ourselves, but those we know and have known. And those with whom we interact or have dealt during our lifetimes. The luckiest people are those who had others in their lives who cared about their welfare and helped develop their professional and personal skills. They don’t always tell us about those people. But you can see their presence or absence in how they treat others.

The people we’ve known are part of our electronic footprints. The footprints we ourselves leave online affect whether people come walk with us or turn away and take other paths. Those choices are as individual as people and what they seek and value.

The archives and library worlds are no more immune to controversy than other professions. Professional forums and Twitter feeds I follow showed me that this year as in previous years. But they also showed me examples of collaboration and working together towards goals larger than any one person. I like to think that comes from the fundamental objective of those professions, the sharing of knowledge, a core element in the gifts we give.

Yesterday, AOTUS David S. Ferriero paid tribute to Natalie Nicholson, a librarian who helped him early in his career and who died on Monday at age 104. A graduate of Simmons College, she worked at the Boston Public Library and Harvard University before starting a long career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1954.

David writes of Ms. Nicholson, Associate Director of Libraries when he started as a book shelver at MIT during his undergraduate years at Northeastern, that

“As a young librarian, she looked for opportunities for me to learn and grow. She asked me to chair my first task force—converting the MIT union catalog to microfiche. It turned into a learning experience for me with lessons in diplomacy, persistence, the power of data, marketing, return on investment, strategizing, space planning, communication, quality control, and the role of humor in defusing tense confrontations. Natalie was a great teacher and in my regular meetings with her, she offered encouragement and perspective, but never prescription. She always turned my questions into ‘What do you think?’”

“What do you think?” is a phrase with enormous power. It stood out for me during the 1970s, when I was in college, in part because it was a time of political polarization with wide and in some areas long-lasting impact. Some of the issues of that time period remain challenging to examine to this day.

I developed an aversion during my college years to people depicting each other as caricatures or reaching for dismissive stereotypes. To this day, I most admire those who share their perspectives in a way that leaves room for “how does it look to you?” I’ve learned to respect those who understand how to create safe space.

I was lucky, I came into the workforce in a position of privilege, well-educated and secure in the knowledge that I would have opportunities to advance. I started out in a relatively low paying position that led me to live on a tight budget for a while. But I was confident I could reach the comfort of a middle class lifestyle. As I wrote this week in “I go home to a very different place than you,” not everyone was as lucky.

The 1970s was a time when minority groups increasingly sought fair treatment in employment, to be treated with the respect others often took for granted, and to have their voices heard. Natalie Nicholson was a member of the Boston Joint Program for Minority Group Recruitment to Librarianship in the 1970s. Efforts to address marginalization and discrimination and dehumanization in some areas continue still in many workplaces and in daily life.

Within the federal government in the 1970s, agencies and departments faced diversity and inclusion issues, in court, in mandated actions, in internal workplace initiatives. Some lacked the confidence to preserve some of the records of those actions, laws notwithstanding. The impulse to sanitize records can be very strong.

The ability to study what happened and why depends not just on retention schedules but on choices made by human beings who stand with records in hand and decide “keep” or “destroy.” Risk minimization sometimes trumps future learning and knowledge needs that depend on retaining records. At times, the voices of those who raise questions about diversity and inclusion in a workplace are preserved or silenced depending on how those who stand by the shredder or the digital fireplace handle that balance. Confidence or lack of confidence can make a critical difference.

Thirty-eight years ago today, I started a job as an archives technician in what then was the National Archives and Records Service. Four years ago on December 6, I started my blog. I’ve let go of some of the issues I first focused on at my blog. Why? The records that my colleagues and I once worked with now largely are open.

I’m happy that my successors as archivists showed commendable professionalism in completing the knowledge disclosure mission we started in the 1970s. It was a complex mission mandated by law and an incredible learning experience on so many levels. As with all such narratives, the story is complicated and consists of multiple perspectives, no two exactly the same.

My generation of archivists at what now is the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) worked in positions as pathfinders. That means we had more opportunities than most people to ask each other and to be asked, “what do you think?” I worked in an unusually collaborative environment and was lucky to have good supervisors and colleagues. From the start, I knew how lucky I was to have gotten a dream job I’ve never regretted accepting.

When we work with people we regard as mentors, we don’t always understand what they’re teaching us until we take on some of the same responsibilities. In 2011, I had the joy of introducing one of my former bosses, Fred Graboske, to David Ferriero. As I’ve recounted here, when Fred said I was a challenge to supervise, David responded, “I can well imagine!” Me? I laughed!

As we talked with David at the holiday reception at NARA in 2011, Fred and I chatted about whether I argued or debated issues with him while he was my boss. Fred said it took a while for him to understand while supervising me that he and I often were in the same place, we just took different paths to get there. I’m grateful that he saw it that way. That’s a gift, one I appreciate and try to remember.

Mentorship can be individual or collective. Sharing collective wisdom is what makes the National Archives’ new Supervisors Handbook so effective. Just as NARA seeks to engage increasingly with the public, so, too, does it turn to the strengths of its multi-talented employees to formulate guidance that will benefit present and future employees.

“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.”

More and more, we see good models for collaboration online. Kate Theimer, @archivesnext, is just one of many people who will throw out questions on Twitter to see what various people think. Just as it takes confidence to move to a collaborative model in the workplace, as NARA strives to do, so, too, outside it, online.

Kate’s blog, Archivesnext, is a great example of a thought leader willing to put up essays and let others weigh in. I respect her tremendously for not deleting a comment I once submitted that proved to be disruptive. Not only do you build community that way, you gain knowledge and perspective that strengthens the products you write. And you help others (yes, me!) by giving them space for trial and error.

NARA notes in its Supervisors Handbook that “Trust is difficult to build and easily destroyed.” This is why sensitivity to the harm of inappropriate framing can make a difference in who succeeds as a leader within a professional community and who does not.

Jeremi Suri examined toxic discourse on December 2 in “To effect positive social change, make being compassionate cool” in The Daily Texan. As I read Suri’s piece, I thought of Sanyin Siang’s wise essay in 2012 in which she wrote

“At a time when discord and tensions over critical issues run high and disputes get more heated, we need to bridge across divides more than ever. We need to talk with one another and unearth the values and differences that lie at the heart of our perspectives. We need to discover the similarities and points of intersection so we can arrive at a shared solution. More than ever, we need collaboration rather than contempt for other points of view.

We are empowered with choices, but it’s easy to use them in a way that boxes us in rather than exposes us to a broader and more diverse set of perspectives. We can discipline ourselves to be exposed to other points of view.”

There are ways to share perspective without being prescriptive. To give a listener or reader the respect he or she needs to voice his or her thoughts and partner with us. NARA’s Supervisors Handbook acknowledges this beautifully: “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.”

When we allow comments at our blogs, and leave up comments whether we agree with them or not, we’re doing what good managers and leaders do. (Thanks, Kate!) Partnering with others, adding to our strengths, through theirs. And yes, NARA shows that at its blogs, too.

Outside the National Archives, I once fought to save someone I respected and cared about from a very difficult situation. As I listened to the person describe actions taken against them (yes, I’m choosing not to reveal gender), I thought, “This never would have happened, had the other person been strong enough to see my friend as a partner, not a rival.”

When we have the self assurance to ask others, “Tell me what you think,” we strengthen ourselves, not weaken ourselves.

David Ferriero wrote on Friday of Natalie Nicholson,

“As I made each transition in my career, I would call Natalie and let her know where I was headed. Those calls were always followed with letters of congratulations and encouragement—and memories of those early days at MIT. When I visited her in 2010 with the facsimiles from the records of the National Archives, she was the same Natalie that I remembered from 1965, sharp, elegant, curious, and kind.”

He concluded his post by saying, “If you’ve had a Natalie in your life, say thanks. And give thanks.”

What better way to mark what I’ve learned in the last 38 years than to do just that. And to be grateful for the opportunities for ongoing continuous learning!

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Posted in NARA, People issues, Workplace issues

Monthly Archives: December 2014

You’re never done

Linked literacy: understanding and appreciating the past

The gift of listening, the heart of understanding

“What archives are all about”

Wonderland

Pass, fail, or something else?

What do you think?

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