[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: archival experiences



A few months ago I was accused of killing a potential donor because I did
not want his files.  I am totally serious.  He had a massive heart attack
within a few days of taking his unwanted files away from the library, and a
few of his friends decided it was all my fault.  It was a pretty stressful
winter for me, let me tell you. The whole story is too much to go into here,
but I'm thinking its a good topic for an article.

Elizabeth B. Scott
Archivist/Special Collections Librarian
Hilton M. Briggs Library
South Dakota State University
Brookings, SD









-----Original Message-----
From: Archives & Archivists [mailto:ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU]On
Behalf Of Roy Webb
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2000 9:55 AM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: archival experiences


Whew!  Just back from one of those intense archival experiences I
know we've all had; but this one affected me so that I want to write
it out for people who can understand it.

So there I was last week, minding my own business as always,
when a guy who works on our web pages comes up.  He's got a
printout from one of our pages--a well-known 1980s Utah political
figure--and says he's been contacted by someone about the page,
who doesn't like the photograph we have on the page to represent
the collection.  I look, and there are only two photos in the whole
collection; you can't post what you don't have, right?  So he has an
email address; I write to the gentleman and say just that, politely,
and that if he has more photos--since the last name is the same--
we would love to have them, and would he happen to have any
papers?  He writes back and says yes, he does have more photos,
but his wife (for such is the relationship) of over a half century is
now in the thrall of Alzheimers, and that furthermore just last fall he
threw away almost 40 boxes of materials from her political career.

Now for an aside: I well remember when this first came up, for it
was when I had just been in the library a year or two; this woman
had run for congress, twice, and had lost, twice.  She was a liberal
Democrat, back when such existed in Utah, and this was in the
middle of the Reagan backlash against liberal Democrats.  So I
remember my then-boss seeking this woman's papers, but for
some reason, nothing ever came of it.  The gentleman gave me the
impression that we had let this slide; my colleagues who were
involved in the transaction said that the donors put them off every
time.  However it happened, this archive is lost forever.  It sure
made me get out my list of donors and start calling them up.

Anyway, so today then I go over to his house; right off campus, a
nice ten minute walk.  He comes to the door trailing a little oxygen
tube; very gracious and nice, and says we couldn't meet in the
morning because of his cardiac therapy.  That's fine, this is fine
with me, I say.  So we talk a bit and he says he's thought about it
and wants me to just take everything; he doesn't want to decide on
what to take, just take it all.  Then he takes me to the dining room,
where in a side board are some photographs and files.  When he
opens the drawer, there's a simple sheet of paper with a note
written on it in ink in a big bold hand; the wife's handwriting.  It
says (and I can quote this because it doesn't reveal any identity):
"Closer contact with national politics has made me / less sure I am
right / more forgiving / and less ambitious."  It was written like that
too, almost like a haiku or something.  When he saw that on the
top of the pile in the drawer, he recoiled like flames had come out
of the drawer, and clutched his chest.  It only got worse; as we
went through the photos in the drawer of his wife when she was
vibrant, in charge, alive, at each one he would grimace and say in a
strangled voice "Wait a minute, wait a minute," with his eyes
closed tightly and his face turned away, again like the sight of her
evoked what she must be now, alive but dead; and it was very
intense!  I finally just took them out of his hands and said "Look,
sir, I don't want to cause you this kind of pain; I can either come
back later or we can do this another time..."  He thrust the folders
and photos at me and said "Yes, take them, I don't want to see
them..."

All the while I'm thinking I'm sure glad I just got recertified in first
aid and CPR last week, cause I'm going to be using it on him in a
minute; seriously, I was rehearsing what I was going to say to the
911 dispatcher and how I was going to check his airway before I
began rescue breathing and on and on!

Well anyway, we left the fateful drawer and went around the house
to look at a few other files he still had, and even though the
intensity was less the pain was still there.  I made an appointment
to come back in a day or two and clean him out, which is what he
wanted me to do (unfortunately I had walked, and there was too
much to carry off in my arms); but I walked back to the library
shaken and sweaty, like I'd just had a workout.  I know we joke
about being ambulance chasers in this business, but this was so
personal and so intense!  I love what I do but experiences like this
one really set you back.  Again I can only say: Whew!

Archivally yours,


Roy Webb, C.A.
Multimedia Archivist
Special Collections
J. Willard Marriott Library
295 South 1500 East
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah   84112
(801) 585-3073  //  fax (801) 585-3976
rwebb@library.utah.edu

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>