Intro to Collection Processing: Why Historical Preservation is Important
Before you ask, no:
I didn’t become an archivist because I love history – I majored in English and Psychology during my undergrad. I stumbled into this field when I was unexpectedly offered a job in my university’s archives department. Both then and now, it involves a lot of work with oversized boxes, databases, and office equipment; most of it is painstaking and standardized, and very little of it is glamorous. Occasionally you find mold. More often, you find dead insects (or worse). And sometimes you have to touch a facsimile of someone’s death mask (a story for another time).
There is an ever-present and pervasive musty smell. The room temperature is always too hot or too cold. Your skin can crack and bleed from the general lack of moisture in storage spaces. It’s not nearly as traumatizing as this description implies, and it’s not something that anyone couldn’t learn or enjoy. But I’ve met a lot of colleagues in various information professions who absolutely can’t stand the thought of working in an archive.
Myself, I absolutely love it. It’s procedural and I find procedure relaxing. I appreciate the intense focus that this quiet field provides, because I get distracted by noisy, busy environments. I never know what I’m going to discover when investigating new collections, so it always feels like an adventure. Aside from the occasional unexpected creepy find and weird ranges in temperature, there’s nothing I don’t like about working in an archive. What, spend several hours alone in a silent basement meticulously sorting and scanning old photographs and writing up metadata? Crop fifty photos and upload them to a repository in less than an hour? Transfer these old records from this set of boxes into that set of boxes, and then label them all? Sign me up!
But it’s not just procedure.
The stronger element of my love for this field is my natural tendency towards salvaging things – particularly things that are touched specifically by a human element. I gravitate toward candid photographs, handwritten notes, journals, and sketches that belonged to someone. I hunt for items that encapsulate a portion of that specific person and represent a snapshot (sometimes literally) of who they are or were. The person could be anyone and the item could be anything. It bears saving because every individual is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, and all of us have value.
If we want to keep these mementos of important people, organizations, and cultural moments solvent for as long a time as possible, we have to commit to that process. We have to do better than putting items in cardboard boxes, slapping a label on them, and stacking them together on a shelf. Yes, this is arguably better than throwing the things away. But what good does it do the materials themselves if you haven’t stored and protected them properly? What happens if there’s a leak or a pest infestation or an outbreak of mold? Plus, you can’t investigate a collection properly if you don’t know where individual items are stored.
Preservation isn’t storage, in other words.
Practically speaking, preservation is an archival imperative because it prolongs the life of the object(s) in question. It protects the materials from these fates as well as possible (because leaks and mold do sometimes happen regardless). It offers the chance for researchers to peruse the collection in depth through the use of inventories and finding aids. If the ultimate goal of an archive is to keep a particular historical or cultural subject “alive” as long as possible, it only makes sense to actively assist that process. Not to sound morbid, but all matter – both animate and inanimate – is designed to succumb to environmental pressures and experience physical breakdown. All matter is fighting its own battle against disuse and decay.
But unlike animate matter, inanimate objects can’t defend themselves against this process. In an archival setting, eventual decay can severely impact the utility of the subject in question to the point that materials are unreadable, untouchable, or even dangerous to house. That’s why historical materials and collections of value need our help, and that’s why I became an archivist. It doesn’t even really matter what the subject in question is or what the materials I’m working with are. It’s the process of preservation itself that I find exciting, and the commitment to the historical record that I find rewarding.
Welcome to Collection Management 101!
Recently, an enthusiast and collector of classic car memorabilia kindly donated a multi-box collection of Packard-related materials to the site. I’ve undertaken the task of inventorying, processing, and rehousing the collection before myself and the dedicated PPG volunteers begin digitizing and cataloging its individual items. I’d like to bring you along for the “processing process” and explain some of the ins and outs of archival administration and collection management.
For readers who are passionate about preserving history and maintaining its research value for years to come, I hope this is as informative as it is encouraging. You don’t have to consign your mementos and artifacts to the basement and hope it doesn’t leak. There are real steps you can take to do right by your materials and help them fight against time. It can be time-consuming and laborious, but it’s truly worth the effort. And for archivists like myself, the process is its own reward!
Do you have original Packard documents, photographs, publications, or memorabilia that might be of value to the Packard Proving Grounds Library and Archives? Contact the site for information about our collection focus and donation policies.
