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Re: ARCHIVAL TRAINING



Any possibility of finding grant money to hire a professional archivist for
a certain period of time?  You could store the material in an appropriate,
safe environment until you secure the funding and hire the person you need.

I was charged with starting up a municipal archives some years ago, and I
knew my limitations.  We found money to bring someone on-board, part-time,
for a year.  Had we not done so, I am certain we would have made many, many
mistakes in the cleaning, foldering and organizing of these materials -- not
to mention the mistakes that might have been made in supply purchases.  In
time I acquired the training and skills I needed to continue the program
beyond the grant-funding period, but I would never recommend that someone
try to take on a project like you've described with minimal, or no,
training.

Students can be very helpful, but they are students.  They are still
learning and will make mistakes.  Another reason to have a professional
archivist on staff to supervise the "helpers."

Anyway...these aren't classroom or manpower resources, but they could prove
useful:

The Northeast Document Conservation Center had an on-line course titled
"Preservation 101."  The course is not open for enrollment at this time, but
the class materials are available at http://www.nedcc.org/p101cs/p101wel.htm
Free.

NEDCC also has its publication, "Preservation of Library and Archival
Materials: A Manual" available on-line at
http://www.nedcc.org/welcome/pubs.htm  Free.

These are both excellent sources to start up with.

The SAA's Fundamentals series should also go on your bookshelf.  See:
http://www.archivists.org/catalog/catalog/archives.html $138 members, $180
non-members.

Good luck!

Paul R. Bergeron
City Clerk
229 Main Street
Nashua, NH 03060
Telephone: 603/589-3010
Fax: 603/589-3029
http://www.gonashua.com/



-----Original Message-----
From: Larry Hlavsa [mailto:larry@SHPL.ORG]
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 1:30 PM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: ARCHIVAL TRAINING


I am the director at St. Helena Public Library. Included in our collections
is the Napa Valley Wine Library which soon will be getting some archival
collections. We have no trained staff to deal with either this collection
or some others which need attention; e.g. local history and library history.

Here are my questions:

Are there short-term programs at Berkeley (or someplace else near Napa
Valley) which could help us get someone trained quickly to work with these
collections?

Are there any options available to ship these collections someplace to have
the collections archivally processed for a fee?

Are there any schools (Berkeley) which have archival practicuums where
students could help us catalog and process these materials?

We will soon be getting the Wm. Heintz Wine History Collection (from Mr.
Heintz who has done research on Napa/Sonoma wine history foir thirty years).

If anyone can help on any of these questions or direct me to a person(s)
who can be of help I would be very grateful.

Larry

-------------------------------------------------------------
Larry Hlavsa, Director
St. Helena Public Library / Napa Valley Wine Library
1492 Library Lane
St. Helena, CA 94574
PH: 707-967-2805
FX: 707-963-5264
EMAIL: larry@shpl.org
-------------------------------------------------------------

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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>