Tag: Carl H. Hertel Collection

This week I worked on the front matter. Some of the process is just transferring data that already exists, or compiling it. An example of this is creating the date range in which the collection fits. I had already been looking out for the earliest date just because I was interested to know- there is a copy of something that was made in the 2000s but it is of a 1950s art piece so the earliest date in the collection is a letter from 1961. The items on the front matter that take the longest time are the written sections including scope and content, or what is cover what is included in the collection, and an abstract. One of these written parts is the biographical information. This is called the Hertel Collection, but Michael Woodcock’s important contribution of materials as well as the inclusion of some of his own items, means he is included in this section. For the biographical materials on Hertel, he had written his own short biographical account of his life in the 1990s that provided a lot of information about his life, that would not be included in any other place. Most career bios available for researchers would not include many stories from their childhood, but Hertel writes about significant moments as a young person that he can pin point as the origin of his interest in the environmental art, “the Chinese style,” and “the Mexican impressionist element” in his art. Writing a short bio for others to reference is not only helpful, but it is a great opportunity for someone to shape and influence the way they are remembered in situations such as this collection. One can add the small details that others may not know, or would skip over, but personally, are very impactful in a lifetime. 

     This week I continued work in the audio visual materials, finding the correct boxes and labeling them. For those that were not in their original tin, I photocopied the front so record of the original label title would be kept, no matter how hard it was to decipher. I also made copies for the Route 66 box. This box keeps coming up in the blog posts because it offers such an interesting opportunity. The box included food, but 17 year old raisins are risky in what creatures they might attract into the boxes. The solution was to photocopy the food items and then put them into their own sleeves so they represent the idea of why they were included in the project. While trying to figure out how the project would be intellectually arranged in the collection, I had an idea. The materials are from a 1999 Michael Woodcock class and are part of series 6, or the “Michael Woodcock Contribution.” With 5 subseries already existing, how could I resist calling the Route 66 class project subseries 6.6?

In the first survey, I expanded my audiovisual knowledge by learning to distinguish super 8mm from 8mm from 16mm. This time around I learned the different ways to store audio versus video. The trick is Vertical equals Video (and audio) and Flat is Film. Next week I plan to box all of audio visual part of the collection according these rules. I want to make sure I do it right the first time because on Thursday I made the mistake of choosing the wrong folder size for the 35mm slides and I had to rewrite the titles. 

This week I spent quite a bit of time reading up on archives. I looked at Describing Archives: a Content Standard (DACS) first but then moved on the book pictured below, College and University Archives. It is a collection of essays on archives in colleges. It was published in 1979, which leads to some things to be a bit outdated, like the absence of the internet or the use of male pronouns to describe faculty and other positions, but it provided quite a bit of good information behind theory and practice. The essays were framed about the relationship of the archive to the institution of higher education in which it is located. One piece discussed how the university archive is a “window” into American society,  as the student records reveal who is applying, attending, and graduating from college. The topics cover the idea of universities collecting their own materials, less about accepting outside materials like our Special Collection does. But for my work, regarding a former Pitzer professor as well as my experience in the Pitzer Archive, I felt that these essays were relevant. There was a section on Oral history which directly connects to the Pitzer History Project in which I have participated in as an interviewer of students, staff, alumni and emeriti faculty. 

I felt as though things had slowed down this week but then on Thursday a huge step was made as I started writing titles on folders. Some are in the works and other information has to still be added to them once confirmed, but pictured below is an example of the what I have done. I am excited to return from Spring Break with lots to do!

One of the parts of the collection I arranged this week was the assortment of Dick Barnes correspondence with Hertel. In this age of technology, it is advised to be careful what you may put online or send to people because “you never know who is going to read it!” Most people do not consider this when writing letters, yet the same idea still applies because it could end up in an archive, where you never know who is going to read it. I began to think about this as I saw some of the letters referring to opinions about controversies at the college. I have come across a few documents that will require some level of confidentiality, so I learned about different options for sealing, redacting, and requests reviewing for few materials that fit such description. The pictures below are two examples of the drawings sometimes included in the margins of the letters written from Barnes.