October 2014 - Out of the Box

October 30, 2014July 29, 2022 by phoebeh

A Couple of Smaller Collections

Hi Everyone,

Last week, I finished the Koike Collection on Japanese American Internment. This week, I am continuing the trend and I have been working on two smaller collections. I just finished working on the Yamano Japanese Internment Collection and another collection on Japanese American Internment is in progress. Unlike the Koike Collection, this collection had very little information on it. Very few photographs had captions and dates on it. Most of the photographs were of several unidentified people. As someone who was trying to arrange this collection, it was a little bit frustrating. In the Koike Collection, I was able to learn so much about Kenzo Koike and have a small glimpse into his life. On the other hand, this collection does not have quite as much information. I had to do more and more research without much reward in learning more about the collection. This made it more difficult to arrange the collection. However, it was a really fun challenge! I had to be much more creative in placing materials together in a way that would make sense to the researcher.

Yamano Collection

Eventually, I did it! It was a more challenging collection to work on, but I feel like I learned quite a bit through the process. Not every collection is going to be perfect and easy to organize. All I can do is arrange it to my best ability.

Phoebe

October 24, 2014July 29, 2022 by chasew

Scope and Content Notes

This week I’ve continued to work on processing the amazing photographs and documents contained in our Nag Hammadi collection! In addition, I’ve completed a bit more work on the Dead Sea Scrolls files. Specifically, I have created something called “scope and content” notes for each series and subseries in the collection. In this week’s blog post, I thought it might be helpful for me to explain the purpose of these notes, and also to introduce everyone to the closely related concept of a “finding aid.”

In brief, a scope and content note is a prose paragraph(s) telling the researcher “the range and topical coverage of the described materials, often mentioning the form and arrangement of the materials and naming significant organizations, individuals, events, places, and subjects represented. The purpose of this scope and content note is to assist readers in evaluating the potential relevance of the materials to their research. It may highlight particular strengths of, or gaps in, the described information entered in other parts of the finding aid” (many thanks to my erudite Honnold/Mudd supervisor, Lisa Crane, for this excellent explanation).

If you’re a researcher, one of the first things you’ll want to do when you’re in an archive is examine the scope and content note(s) for a collection in which you’re interested. These can save you a ton of time, because they’ll clue you in fast and early to the contents of a particular grouping of documents. If there’s nothing useful to your work there, you know it would be more productive for you to move on and spend your time elsewhere.

So what do these notes actually look like? To help orient you, I’ve taken a couple of screenshots of the ones I designed today. You’ll notice I’ve already entered them in Archivist Toolkit. Here’s an image of the Series-level Dead Sea Scroll scope and content note:

DSS Series level scope and content note_blog ready.bmp

If you want to get even more detailed, you can then proceed to investigate one of the Subseries-level scope and content notes, which look like this:

DSS Subseries level scope and content note_blog ready.bmp

Does that make sense? I hope so! With this in mind, then, it’s possible for us to learn more about what a finding aid is. You can think about a finding aid as a much more detailed version of a scope and content note. People have created these for centuries in order to try and help make vast quantities of documents more manageable to sift through (think about how important that would be in the pre-digital world!). In fact, there is even evidence that the ancient Sumerians carved finding aids into clay tablets so that they could easily locate important bureaucratic records (http://thediscoverblog.com/2012/02/28/discover-finding-aids/)!

Finding aids will often contain a significant amount of background information, such as a biography of the documents’ creator, a historical chronology of important events which relate to the collection, etc. This can help a researcher contextualize the records s/he will find if they choose to study a particular group of records. The finding aid will also probably explain how the collection is organized, and perhaps even contain a detailed overview of the materials it includes. A good archivist will normally create a finding aid in the course of processing a collection. Indeed, this is usually the final step in processing, because by then the records will have been properly conserved and arranged in their final order, and the archivist will be quite familiar with the contents of the entire collection.

If you’re interested in doing archival research anytime soon, I urge you to become comfortable reading scope and contents notes, and in using finding aids. Even the best-organized archive will look like a vast and chaotic sea of records without them! On that note, here’s a great finding aid tutorial created by San Diego State University Library. You may wish to explore it – http://library.sdsu.edu/guides/tutorial.php?id=8&pid=30.

Enjoy!

October 24, 2014July 29, 2022 by phoebeh

History’s Mysteries!

Hi Everyone!

I am just finishing up working on the Koike Collection. This week, I finished arranging all of the folders, labeled them, and put them all up onto Archivist’s Toolkit! It is very exciting to have almost finished arranging a collection from start to finish. By going through the Koike Collection, I was able to learn quite a bit about Kenzo Koike’s life. Although, as someone who is simply arranging the collection, I do not have to do too much research on Koike’s life, I found it very interesting and wanted to learn more and more. Through extensive internet research, I was able to answer many of the questions I had about Koike, who died in 2010, but there were a few mysteries that I am still trying to solve.

The first mystery is of the missing brother. Kenzo Koike moved from Seattle to Los Angeles in 1932. There are multiple photographs and portraits of the Koike family before this time with 2 parents and 4 sons, while in Seattle. However, right before the move to Los Angeles, the eldest son is no longer included in any of the photographs. In addition, Kenzo Koike labeled many of the photographs, saying the names of his brothers and parents, but the eldest brother’s name is never mentioned, despite being in these photographs. The eldest brother would have been in his late teens at the time of the move. He may have stayed up in Seattle, Washington and worked up there. On the other hand, because of the lack of documentation on this oldest brother, where the other brothers have some files in this collection, perhaps maybe he died. There are many possibilities of what could have happened to this brother. A mystery that may never be solved.

Another mystery is of the Milwaukee Hotel. The Koike Family, before moving to Los Angeles, has multiple photographs outside of the Milwaukee Hotel in Seattle. There is even a card to Kenzo Koike’s mother mentioning this hotel. After doing a bit of research, I found that this hotel is in China Town in Seattle. People saw this hotel as the beginning of China Town and an area of the city where immigrants could be welcomed into. I am not sure if the Koike Family was drawn to this hotel for this specific reason, or if the family had other specific connections to it. The world may never know.

Although I have a few questions left unanswered, it has been an amazing experience being able to sort through these materials and arrange them in a way that will aid future research.

Phoebe

October 17, 2014July 29, 2022 by chasew

UNESCO

This week I’ve continued my efforts to arrange and preserve Special Collection’s many photographs of the Nag Hammadi texts. In doing so, I’ve begun to think a lot about the role the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) plays in helping preserve antiquities. This institution was critically important in helping Claremont’s own Dr. James M. Robinson publish a facsimile edition of the Nag Hammadi trove approximately 40 years ago.

What might motivate UNESCO to engage in this endeavor? Interestingly, UNESCO sees protecting pieces of cultural heritage as a form of peacebuilding. As its website explains,

“In today’s interconnected world, culture’s power to transform societies is clear. Its diverse manifestations – from our cherished historic monuments and museums to traditional practices and contemporary art forms – enrich our everyday lives in countless ways. Heritage constitutes a source of identity and cohesion for communities disrupted by bewildering change and economic instability. Creativity contributes to building open, inclusive and pluralistic societies. Both heritage and creativity lay the foundations for vibrant, innovative and prosperous knowledge societies” (http://en.unesco.org/themes/protecting-our-heritage-and-fostering-creativity).

With this in mind, I’ve been wondering how all these precious Nag Hammadi images might prove a unique source of creative inspiration and spiritual guidance in a world that is very different than the one in which these records were originally created. I am fascinated by the ways in which ancient scriptures and philosophies are used, revised, and re-purposed in light of each generation’s changing/historic needs. I hope over the next few weeks I’ll be able to find and share some examples of how people – both inside and outside the scholarly community – have found new and unique meaning in the Nag Hammadi texts!

On that note, I’ll sign off by pointing you in the direction of a really neat document I found this afternoon: a copy of UNESCO’s magazine, The Courier, from May 1971. Check out the article Dr. Robinson wrote on the Nag Hammadi findings inside!

UNESCO magazine.pdf

October 16, 2014July 29, 2022 by phoebeh

Photographs and Frames

Hi Everyone!

I just finished my 2nd week working on the new Koike Collection. It is a fascinating collection! It contains mostly photographs and portraits from 1921 to 1948 centered on Kenzo Koike’s life. Through looking through these photographs and the documents in the collection, I feel as though I have gotten some insight as what it was like to be a Japanese American before and during World War II. Koike was born in 1920 in Seattle, Washington, and moved in 1932 to Los Angeles. He attended Junior High, High School, and College in Los Angeles. A year after graduating college, in 1942, Koike and his family were sent to Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming. He was only able to leave the internment facility by being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943. It wasn’t until 1945 when Koike was sent as a translator/ interpreter to Japan. He took some amazing pictures during his time in Japan. He was also able to visit many of his relatives.

Although it has been really fun working on this collection and going through all of the photographs, it has been quite a bit of work! I’ve had to sort and arrange all of the materials and place them into folders. I also created series to organize all of the materials and make it easier for researchers to navigate. I photocopied a few newspapers and military documents. The most difficult task this week was to take out the nails of picture frames to place the photographs in mylar to help preserve them. I got to use a real Archivist’s Toolkit!

I’ll keep you all updated on how arranging the Koike Collection goes!

Phoebe

October 10, 2014July 29, 2022 by chasew

Archivist, meet your new best friend: Mylar

Hello everyone! I’ve finished up another productive few days as a CCEPS Fellow here in Special Collections, and I’m excited to have accomplished so much.

Most of my time this week has been devoted to arranging and preserving the Nag Hammadi Codices Project records. Of the 14 boxes which comprise this collection, 10 of them are almost exclusively facsimile photographs of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts. Although we always make sure to carefully preserve everything Special Collections accessions, it’s doubly important that these Nag Hammadi images are kept in as pristine a condition as possible. This is because the Nag Hammadi manuscripts themselves are losing more and more of their legibility with every passing year (see this link for more information: http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/nha); it turns out being many centuries old will do that to reading material! Given these circumstances, the best way to make sure the information written on the Nag Hammadi papyri is passed down to future generations is to make sure facsimile image collections – such as the one I’m working on right now – are meticulously preserved.

My best friend in this endeavor is a shiny little substance called mylar. Mylar is a clear, acid-free polyester. It won’t ever yellow, and when it is used to encase photographs, it is a powerful tool to prevent image deterioration (see here for a little bit more of an introduction: http://www.the2buds.com/mylar.htm). As you can see in the below photograph, mylar sleeves come in a variety of sizes:

If you’re having trouble finding a sleeve which is the right size, you can also cut your own – I’ve definitely done that this week!

Although it takes extra time and effort to place every individual photograph in its own mylar case, any archivist will tell you it’s 100% worth it. If you’re interested in preserving some hard copy images at home – especially really important ones (e.g. old family photos of your great-grandparents!) – do consider investing in some mylar of your own! It’s much less expensive than losing an irreplaceable image!

October 9, 2014July 29, 2022 by phoebeh

Kruska and Koike!

Hi Everyone!

I am just finishing my 2nd week working at CCEPS! It has been an amazing experience! This week, I pretty much finished arranging the Kruska Japanese Internment collection and entered it into Archivists ToolKit to make it accessible to researchers. I thoroughly enjoyed working with this collection. It has a wide variety of materials. Some of my favorite things to look through were the newspaper clippings, some of which are from 1905 when the Japanese Exclusion laws were just being put in place. Some of the photographs are also very interesting! They depict some aspects of life in the Relocation Centers and Internment camps. There is even a photograph of the Manzanar High School band!

Today, I just started surveying the Kenzo Robert Koike materials. Although this collection is also on Japanese American Internment during World War II, it feels very different from Kruska’s collection. Koike’s materials are all from his time before and during World War II and are personal to Koike. Most of the collection is photographs, which are very interesting. Some are very graphic, like the photograph of 10,000 dead bodies or the ruins of bombed cities in Japan. But others are quite comical. For example, one photograph is captioned “This man wanted me his picture take. Looks too stupid to be a cousin.” It has been interesting to see his journey from Washington, to L.A., to an Assembly Center in Pomona, to a Relocation Center in Wyoming, to joining the military, to Japan. Working with this collection, you really get an insight into life as a Japanese American before and during World War II. After surveying these materials, I proposed to arrange them into 4 series; photographs, personal records, realia, and postal materials.

Next week, I will start arranging and titling folders. I am so excited to be working with this collection!

I’ll keep you all updated!

October 3, 2014July 29, 2022 by chasew

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

I am happy to announce that I have begun processing a new, 14 box collection: the Nag Hammadi Codices Project (NHCP) files. That is basically a fancy way of saying that Special Collections has accessioned an amazing group of documents and images, most of which are related to the publication of the Nag Hammadi gnostic text library.

Although the topic and the records are fascinating, we were dismayed to find that before they arrived at their new home here, they had not been stored in the best of conditions….by which I mean they had been stored in a garage. And although garages are an amazing and wonderful thing, trust me when I say they aren’t an awesome place to put your precious records. Why? Because you will likely end up with mold, bugs, and water damage all over the lovely things you were trying to save!

Now, when I think of water damage, usually what pops into my head is crinkled up pages of paper (what you would encounter if you were to drop a book in the bathtub). Well, it turns out that in addition to wrinkling pages, water can also cause rust! And then you end up with things like this:

Yes: that, my friends, is the picture of what a rusting paperclip left on a stack of documents for years will leave you to remember it by! Needless to say, I spent a fair amount of time removing rusty paperclips and staples from this collection’s contents this week. There’s no way those rusty little suckers are heading into the archives if I can help it!

My time-consuming encounter with rust this week made me wonder about the chemistry of this interaction. So I looked it up. It turns out that – of course – paperclips are made of steel, and steel is derived from iron. Over time, as iron and oxygen meet and mingle, a chemical reaction takes place which transforms the iron into iron oxide. The common term for iron oxide is rust.

The good people who make paperclips know this, and so to try and prevent it, they coat paperclips in a layer of zinc. This works – until the zinc layer erodes due to humidity, water saturation, etc. (Many thanks to Shaun McGonagal over at eHow for this explanation! See http://www.ehow.com/facts_5730689_do-paper-clips-rust_.html for more information.)

Which brings us full circle to why you don’t store documents in a garage. Garages, generally speaking, are not weather-proofed…and that means water and/or humidity will hit all your paperclips…and then you will open up a box in 30 years and find this:

But all is not lost! Fortunately, Special Collections accessioned these documents in time to halt their disintegration…so they will be around for a long time, and many researchers will get to enjoy them. Still – I thought after learning all this it was worth using my weekly blog post to make a public service announcement about rust!

Happy storing (your documents somewhere other than a garage) :-).

October 3, 2014July 29, 2022 by phoebeh

First Week!

Hi Everyone,

I just finished my first week at CCEPS! This week, I started arranging a collection called the Kruska Japanese Internment Collection. To begin the week, I read and took thorough notes on the Processing Manual, but then I began working with this collection. This collection has a HUGE array of materials. Some of them are very interesting, like a sign from one of the Japanese Internment facilities, and a tea towel, and a scroll, which was hung in Manzamar Internment Camp. Some of the materials are not so interesting, like printed web pages used by the collector to do research.

I began my journey with this collection by surveying all of the materials. Much of the collection was already arranged and placed in folders; however, I went through all of the documents, artifacts, and materials to think of a way to arrange all of them in an order that made sense. This was difficult because there is a huge variety. At first, I proposed to arrange the collection into similar categories, like having the newspaper clippings with other newspaper clippings. I was trying to create the most logical order I could think of. I then photocopied newspaper clippings, some of which were completely falling apart, like those from 1906 and 1907 about the Exclusion Laws being created in California. Often, it is best to photocopy newspapers in order to preserve the information being presented. I also sized some folders to fit large documents that were not originally fully covered. I did this to help preserve these materials. I also labelled and dated all of the folders, which took a while because there are a bunch of folders, many with only a single item inside.

After looking over my processing proposal, Lisa came up with a great idea to arrange the collection in a series, like Newspapers and clippings, photographs, postal materials, printed matter, realia, and reserach materials. Having the collection organized this way will make it easier for a researcher to find what they are looking for. Today, I re- arranged the materials into this new order and soon I will put it all up on Archivist Toolkit!

Overall, it was been a fantastic first week! I was able to work with some interesting materials and think of creative ways to organize the collection. I’m very excited to continue!