If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

–Emily Dickinson

If you were to go to my parents shed, you might find a lot of old junk of mine, and somewhere, in one of the boxes you will find a copy of this very poem, hand-copied by my 16-year-old-self onto a piece of notepaper, and taped to the inside of my binder for the 1991-1992 school year. There are several other poems taped there, and I had forgotten all about them, and all about that binder until last year when I rediscovered it on a visit to my parents’ house.

I did not think much about this poem at the time, but last week, after a classroom incident, and some archival processing work, it began to pop into my head here and there. An incident that reminded me of what my priorities are, why I am here, and what drives me as a person. Without going into unnecessary detail, I’ll simply say, that I saw one person tear down some one who was an easy target. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this moment, and about how it seemed “normal” to me at the time after spending the past decade in academia. Yet, on reflection, such behavior is extremely foreign to my core values, and the fact that I had normalized such behavior reminded me of how far I had drifted from my 16-year-old-self.

The academic career path is primarily about producing high-quality research and creating knowledge. In order to do this we need high standards, expectations of exactness, and a body of scholars who critique and police the boundaries of scholarly communication. In many ways, this pursuit of knowledge is, indeed, a noble one, and yet it is, for lack of a better phrase, “so not me.” This realization came to me through obituaries, yes, obituaries.

In my job at the archives, I have been spending a lot of time sorting through obituaries lately, and, when I am working on a collection of personal papers, I generally write a biography of the collection’s creator to introduce the collection to users. This got me thinking about what might be a morbid subject, my own obituary. I started to think: When I die, what do I want my obituary to say? What would I want the biography to my personal papers to say? I started to think about this seriously, and that is when “If I can stop one heart from breaking,” popped back into my head.

I had wandered so far into the academic forest that I had forgotten that it was not only okay, but also admirable to focus on helping others. Some accomplishments cannot be reduced to a line on a CV. There are many ways to contribute productively to society, and one of them is by guiding, helping, and uplifting. That’s where my passion is, that’s where I found the most joy in my previous career, and that’s why I am most interested in being a person who helps others by connecting them to the information they need.

So, in getting back to that obituary, I don’t care if it lists publications or conference papers or fancy titles. I do care that it talks about me as a caring, compassionate person, a good daughter, sister, friend, mentor, and maybe someday mother. I think of all those moments when I was teaching where I sat and listened to my students, the moments when I helped them find research material that excited them, and the times when, hopefully, I helped a student feel a little better about him/herself, a little more competent, a little more self-assured, a little more inspired, a little more dignified, a little less confused, a little less hurt, and a little less scared. Those are the things I want people to remember me for when I am gone; that’s my purpose in this life. For all the times when I didn’t do that, when I lost sight of who I am and what is important to me, I’m sorry.

If I have done any of those things already, then I have succeeded, but I hope that I get to do more. I do want to contribute to the advancement of knowledge in our world through helping. I want to lift people up instead of tear them down. I want to help others to see that we all have unique gifts to contribute to the world. I want to be remembered for these things, and I never want to stop being that 16-year-old girl who taped “If I can stop one heart from breaking,” on the inside of her school binder.

A Great Weekend

I haven’t posted in FOREVER, and I have nothing all that exciting to say, except that I had a wonderful weekend.

A very good friend of mine came to visit, and I spent the entire weekend relaxing and eating really great food. We also visited The Henry Ford Museum, which was both exhausting and wonderfully educational and entertaining. I would recommend it to any one; it’s a little bit of cars, a little bit of history, a little bit of airplanes, a little bit of everything!

In not so good news, my old computer went “kaput” after I spilled some water on the keyboard. I had to shell out for a brand new one, but, honestly, I am loving it. I never realized how junky the old one was getting, and I’m glad to have the new MacBook.

It will be nice to type up the Archives 2.0 paper on this lovely new computer.

More Archives 2.0

Well, my Archives 2.0 research continues to move along quite nicely.  I am actually enjoying learning about all of this, and am quite fascinated by what I am reading.  I wish my full-time job was in the field of archives.  Oh, wait, that’s why I’m doing this!  So, here’s a quick summary of some of the more practical facets of Web 2.0 as they relate to archives, which, as we learned a few post back, is the engine driving the Archives 2.0 idea!

Today I read three articles related to the implementation of Web 2.0 technologies in archives.  The main thrust of the research in this area is:  What kinds of technologies should we implement to facilitate access to and increased use of archival collections?   Thus, much of the literature on the implementation of Web 2.0 in archives deals with online finding aids and collection descriptions.  From work at the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library and Brigham Young University on online finding aids to work at Illinois State to create narratively embedded digital photograph collections, archivists and special collections librarians are creating and implementing imaginative approaches to leveraging Web technologies to create improved access.  In the process, archivists have discovered that creating more transparency in the production of finding aids and metadata, can actually enhance their own ability to provide relevant information and access to collections.

Preliminary research on the actual use of Web 2. technologies by archivists, however, demonstrates that very few repositories are actually currently using these technologies.  Some googling on my own, actually led me to discover that the American Antiquarian Society, one of the country’s leading research library’s in the field of American history, has only recently begun to implement Web 2.0, and the only technology they use is a blog.  Thus, while some archivists are exploring radical new ways to transform and enhance research and user experience, most repositories, even highly-regarded ones are lagging behind.  More encouraging is the fact that the repositories that do implement these technologies generally receive a positive response, and archivists also find them worthwhile on their end.

Apparently, however, we know very little about the use of these new technologies, as user studies are sparse.  I will be reading a user study this week, as well another article on implementation for a new generation of researchers. My final report before I write the paper will be on current resources available for implementation, as well as an examination of some of the actual digital repositories and Web 2.0 technologies from my own point of view.

“Solution”

Must be a busy weekend.  I’ll post the solution here, because my next task of the day is to write more about Archives 2.0 based on reading I have been doing for my research paper.

Brenda is, indeed, correct that this Bible was a family heirloom belonging to the Allen family until well into the nineteenth century before finding it’s way to Harvard University’s Houghton Library.  I’m sure that Brenda thought of this when she posted, but I’ll be explicit here.  The original parts of the binding were likely kept because they had emotional resonance for the owner who had it rebound.  In fact, we might conclude that this must be true, because it would have been cheaper and easier to simply buy a new Bible at the time when this one was rebound.  Why preserve a text that could be found on the shelves on any bookseller in the English-speaking world at this time?   This is why, when I look at this book, I see not just a crumbly old binding, but an object that tells personal stories of those who loved and read it, who spoke to the divine through it, and who constructed a family legacy by preserving it.  Yet, that is not all that I see.

And therein lies one of the most interesting parts of this particular book.  It is STC2215 in the Pollard and Redgrave’s A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland and Ireland, and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475-1640. STC2215 corresponds to The Bible Translated According to the Hebrew and Greeke, London:  Robert Barker, 1611.  This text was absolutely not available when the book was rebound, because, as the title indicates, it is a Geneva Bible, not the Authorized Version (King James).  By the eighteenth century, English printers, by order of the Crown, only printed the Authorized Version, the Geneva having been out of print since the middle of the seventeenth century.  Therefore, we can also conclude, in addition to this being an heirloom of the Allen family, that it was important because of the particular translation.  Ironically, this particular Bible was also printed in 1611, the first year that English printers produced the Authorized Version, which came to replace the Geneva Bible as the most popular translation of Scripture in the English-speaking world.

Thus, the Allen’s Bible sits at the crux of several intertwined histories, that of a family (the Allen’s), a text (Holy Scripture), a religious persuasian (Calvinism), a nation or two (England and the yet-to-be United States), and an empire (the emerging British one).  I suppose a picture and the book it represents is worth a few hundred years of history, at least.

Book bindings 2.0

Well, I promised that I would give my own reading of this binding, so I am keeping that promise.

First of all, however, thanks to all those who weighed in on the photo I posted.  You are all right in your own ways.  That’s what I love about “reading a text”; there are no wrong answers.  What you see is what you see.

Now, I’m not sure how successful my little experiment was, but I do appreciate all those who contributed.  Your thoughts helped me to understand a little better how the average, non-book historian, views an old book and it’s binding.

Let me tell you what I see.  First of all, I immediately see a Bible.  I was really fascinated that no one attempted to identify the contents of the book from the binding, but I suppose that would require advanced knowledge of how certain types of books were bound.

The second thing I see immediately is that this book as been rebound.  If you look closely you can see an earlier binding behind the 18th-century one that is falling apart.  This was likely the original binding.  We can tell that the current, outermost binding is from the 18th-century because of the designs on it, which appear in a square pattern.  These were not prevalent before 1700, and this type of binding died out by the early 19th century.  At it’s latest, this was rebound in the early 19th-century.

On of the most interesting things here is that the metal decorative pieces, which serve absolutely no practical function, are earlier than the binding, and, in fact, don’t match the binding at all.  We can see that they follow a diamond pattern, while the binding itself is a series of rectangles and floral designs.  This is the only time I have come across a re-binding that used the original decorative hardware as an overlay on a new binding. Of course, as Mike mentioned, I also see that it originally had clasps, which is one of the ways I know it is a Bible, because by the seventeenth century and eighteenth centuries, when these types of bindings were popular, Bibles were the only books sold with clasps.  Originally clasps were used to keep medieval manuscripts codexes from curling due to weather conditions, and they survived as decorative flourishes only on Bibles.

So where does this lead us?  What questions would you ask next?  Why rebind this Bible?  Why not buy a new one?  After all, they weren’t that expensive by the eighteenth century?  Moreover, why keep the seventeenth-century decorative pieces, which don’t match the eighteenth-century binding at all?

Anyone want to hazard an educated guess or two?  I will post the “solution” later this weekend.

Archives 2.0 is about access

And young archivists-in-the-making are pro-access!  I can’t wait to see what kind of changes are coming in the world of Archives 2.0. A real post to come again next week!

What is Archives 2.0?

I’m finally getting around to beginning to write about Archives 2.0, because I’ve finally been reading through some of the research I collected over the past several weeks.

My first conclusion:  There is Archives 2.0 and there are archives that use Web 2.0 applications, and this divide is critical to understanding what is currently happening in the profession.  I was originally wondering: what type of Web 2.0 applications are institutions using, and what do they hope to accomplish by implementing them?  However, I have now realized that a significant sub-set of the professional archival community supports a concept called Archives 2.0, which is a broader concept than the simple use of Web 2.0 applications by archives.  Over at ArchivesNext, Kate Theimer argues that Archives 2.0 is not simply Archives + Web 2.0 applications, it is instead a radical reorientation of the archival profession.  Joy Palmer seems to share this view in her Ariadne article “Archives 2.0:  If We Build It, Will They Come?”.  Yet, if you visit “The Interactive Archivist,” and online Society of American Archivist Publication, there is a lot of information on using Web 2.0 technologies in the archives, but no discussion of the Archives 2.0 concept.  This seems to also be true of the majority of the published literature, which focuses on Web 2.0 applications, but not on the concept of Archives 2.0.  (I see research/publication opportunities here.)

It seems therefore that the discussion began with archivists discovering and beginning to think about how archives could use Web 2.0 technologies.  Those technologies, however, are inherently destabilizing to a lot of the assumptions of the archival profession over the last century, primarily around issues of authority and control.  This led some archivists to propose an Archives 2.0 model, which is more open, participatory, democratic, user oriented, outreach-focused, technologically savvy, and all-together inclusive than what is now being refer to as Archives 1.0.

So, perhaps my question has shifted from what applications are archives using and what do they hope to achieve to how are Web 2.0 applications challenging and reshaping our basic assumptions of archives and archivists?  Additional research could focus on how user communities will be reshaped and/or how traditional users, such as historians, will or will not interact with and use archives in new ways.

Any thoughts are much appreciated.

A lazy update

I plan to start blogging on Archives 2.0 later this week, as I get deeper into the research project.  In the meantime, I just want to recommend a great book I’m reading called:  Shop Class as Soulcraft. I am enjoying it so far, but I’ve linked to the New York Times review of the book, because it makes some good points about the drawbacks of the book as I see them so far.  It also does a good job of highlighting the high points of the book.  I think, despite some of what the reviewer bristles at, Crawford’s book is worth a read simply for the oft-overlooked perspective he gives.  Having gone through a decision to change careers myself recently, I think this is, at the very least, a worthwhile perspective on the kinds of fulfillment people are looking for from their work, and does admirable work by trying to broaden our minds about the kinds of work that we can do, be paid for, be good at, and actually enjoy!

Sukkot

Ok, I know this is supposed to be a Web 2.0 in the Archives blog, but I need to do this one last navel-gazing post.  I can’t seem to help wanting to write when I find links between my own personal experience and collective religious myth.

So we are in the midst of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths, which commemorates, among other things, the Israelites wandering in the desert after being freed from Egypt.  Why this comes after the High Holidays and not between Passover and Shavuot, I will never understand, or maybe that’s a good topic to learn.  I’ll make a side note.

So, having been “freed” so to speak, I guess I’m now wandering around in a desert, and boy does it feel that way some times. Okay, I love Ann Arbor, and I have a social life and have met some great people, but I don’t exactly know where I’m going or when I’ll get there, or what the promised land looks and feels like.  Everything feels so temporary, like a make-shift shelter, a sukkah.  If this is how the Israelites felt for forty years, I don’t envy them, but I understand them.  Actually, the Torah, as the story of the Israelites, helps me to understand my own life, my own transitions, my own struggles.

I am in the process of re-creating a professional identity that is, in some ways completely new, and is, in other ways, built upon my past.  I am constantly learning new things, like computer programming and mathematical theories.  In some cases, I am able to connect this all with my previous career and identity.  I’ve actually learned to love history again, and to connect it to the archives and see where I fit into all of it, but I still have a long way to go.

I’m thankful that these myths exist because they help me to make sense of my experiences in the context of the larger human story, and to understand that my experiences are not unique.  They provide a guide for contextualizing my own life, and understanding how my experiences are part of larger, normal life processes and transitions.

So here’s to the Jewish camping holiday, temporariness, and reformulating an identity.  Chag Sukkot Sameach!

Re-launch

I’m apparently all into the “Re” thing these days, but, honestly, I haven’t come up with a new theme for the blog yet.  I was hoping for some suggestions, but I have either a shy or bored readership.  I hope it’s the former!

I still don’t have a new theme though, and I no longer have the time to take little trips and write and post visual histories.  So, I was thinking of making my Archives and Web 2.0 paper into the theme for a while, to push my blog in a professional direction.  I’m sure that would bore my readership, since my readership is mostly not archivists.  Alternatively, I could conceive of it as broadening my readership.

That might be the way I go.  After all, it could potentially help me with my paper, and I’ve got to start to be sensible!