Update 1: The Case of the Missing Box 9
On July 17th box 9 successfully rescued. Box 9 secretly kidnapped by a collection of Craven playbills and was given a new identity as box 14! Early Monday morning, the archival police were able to track down his last known whereabouts and uncovered clues that lead to the recovery and rescue of box 9. I am happy to report that box 9 is in good condition and has been returned to the Jackson family.
In other words, box 9 was accidentally labeled as box 14 of the Craven Playbill Collection and went into storage with the wrong collection. But it sounds more edgy when described as a kidnapping mystery.
And with that my friends, the case of the missing box 9 is officially closed!
Update 2: Ethics and Legal
The hardest part of this week was doing research into whether I needed to take steps toward protecting the names of those mentioned within the legal papers. With the help and guidance from professor Gabriele Carey, I learned a lot about the issues and concerns that go along with sensitive and private records.
I learned that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requires all schools receiving federal funding to protect the privacy of student educational records. However, the records in the collection discuss a lawsuit and are technically not considered educational records, and are not protected under FERPA. However, if the lawsuit deals with unfair grading practices, or harassment of students by their professor, or unfair/false
evaluations/references, these papers might fall under FERPA.
Since the lawsuit was settled out of court, the parties may have agreed not to disclose information about the lawsuit or its settlement as part of the settlement agreement. These letters and records within the Jackson collection might fall under the protection of the settlement agreement if they agreed to protect the records dealing with the lawsuit.
Another issue is whether the records are confidential or not. Confusing right?
To be continued…