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Re: Your Valued Opinions Requested



The problem here is what I run into a lot. Your people aren't confused at
all. They have their minds made up about what they want to do, whether it's
right, wrong, logical, illogical or somewhere beyond the bounds of good
taste. Hopefully you have some experience in talking to them already. If you
have, then think through what was most successful for you in that
communication. Use words, language and terminology that they understand. If
you don't know what works with them, talk to someone who does. If you just
give them a lecture in untranslated archivese, you'll probably not get
anywhere with them.

An example from my work here (that I should have mentioned already for its
own sake, given the noteriety my situation here has enjoyed on the List):
After over two years of discussing, arguing, headbutting and more, I finally
got our managing director to let me make some badly needed changes in our
arrangement system. I gave him all the arguments that we archivists know to
be valid, but to no avail; he wasn't understanding what I was saying, partly
because he was convinced of his own infallability on the issue and partly
because I wasn't using terms that meant anything to him. Over the course of
the two years, I learned that he
responds best to the simplest, plainest langauge that can be brought to
bear, that he values efficiency very highly and that he takes considerable
pride in how he set up our collections years ago. It wasn't until I stressed
to him in the most direct, blunt, unequivocal terms how inefficient his
system had become, while couching the whole thing in a lot of genuflecting
to his hard work in setting the system up, that he finally listened and,
somewhat grudgingly, gave me free rein to make the changes for which I'd
been lobbying for so long.

Good luck!

Best wishes,

Thomas Berry, Archivist
Historical Construction Equipment Association
16623 Liberty Hi Road
Bowling Green, Ohio 43402
Phone 419-352-5616
Fax 419-352-6086
tberry@wcnet.org
http://www.hcea.net





----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerry A. McCoy" <sshistory@YAHOO.COM>
To: <ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2001 10:40 AM
Subject: Your Valued Opinions Requested


> Dear Colleagues,
>
> Your valued opinions requested...
>
> I have been contacted by a local organization which is
> embroiled in an interesting (yet sad) internal debate.
>
> This organization has a collection of 48 vintage
> photographs taken during the years 1869 to 1940 which
> documents their organization's history.  The majority
> of these images have been on display in a non-climate
> controlled environment (for over 100 years!) and some,
> understandably, are not in the greatest of shape.
>
> The photographs have since been taken down, removed
> from their original frames, and are in the process of
> having copy negatives produced.
>
> The situation is that the board members of this
> organization, since they will have copy negatives of
> all of the photos, want to put the originals BACK UP
> on the walls!  They feel that since the originals have
> been up all of this time, they should remain up since
> they have negatives now.  They feel that when the
> originals completely fade, as they are well on their
> way to doing, they can TRASH them and then have copies
> made from the negs. and put THOSE on display.
>
> Could you share with me any succinct, pithy reasons
> which I can give to this board as to why they should
> not allow their original photographs to be allowed to
> further deteriorate just because they have back-up
> negatives to make future copies?  Why they should
> display the COPIES instead and archivally store the
> originals?
>
> I know the reasons are obvious to us but these are
> obviously very dense, confused individuals and need to
> hear, loud and clear, some very good explanations.
>
> Thank you!
>
> Jerry A. McCoy
>
> __________________________________________________
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A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

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      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
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Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
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Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>