Among Harvard's Libraries: Centering somewhere in time

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Citation Elliott, Clark A. 1993. Among Harvard's Libraries: Centering somewhere in time. Bulletin 3 (4), Winter 1992-93: 7-12.

Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42663120

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CENTERING SOMEWHERE IN TIME: REFLECTIONS FROM A UNIVERSITY ARCHIVIST

Clark A. Elliott

o what end does a university archivist library and information science at Case West- T work? For what purpose do we spend em Reserve University- I taught (not very our lives amid the cast-off words of adminis- successfully or happily) for two years in the li- trative officers and bureaucrats, teachers, re- brary school at Simmons College. searchers, students? The Harvard University I left teaching in 1971 and came to the Har- Archives recently prepared a formal descrip- vard Archives, attracted by the actuality of tion of its mission, but that was an institutional contact with research materials, but deter- statement on the overall purpose and functions mined as well that I would not let go of my of the Archives. My questions are essentially disciplinary interest in the history of science. I person-oriented and ultimately self-centered. was glad to know, after arriving at the Univer- The words archiveand archivistseem unfa- sity, that my particular academic preparation miliar to many. I remember some years ago had been a factor in my getting the position. hearing my mother refer to me as "an archives But unlike someone in the library with a simi- at Harvard University." I was amused, but lar background, coming to the Archives re- bemused by her characterization at the time, quired that my interests take a particular tum. and wondered why she did not get it right. In That is because the Harvard Archives is not just many ways, I see now, she did. Staying with at, but of, the University. The University's the job, constant exploration in the collec- history and its administrative-informational tions, always having to deal with the mass of needs are the core of the Archives' mission. the new while seeing how it fits with the Whatever other interests workers in the Uni- old-simple familiarity with the archives' col- versity Archives may have, Harvard as subject lections and their multiple uses-does make must be added to them. I have been fortunate the mind of the archivist an archive in itself that Harvard was and is a center of science, and my general interest in the history of science in CLARKA. ELLIOTTis Associate Defining the Boundariesef Person and Place the has had a varied and signifi- Curator for Archives Adminis- Seekers or beginners in the archival profession cant context for utilization and development, tration and Research in the frequently want to know what the best prepa- day by day. I have been concerned, however, Harvard University Archives. ration is for such work. The answers are mul- that I not become overly focused on the insti- He is currently compiling a tiple, and some are not definable any more tution, that I also maintain a sense of individu- chronology and research guide than personality or life-orientation are defin- ality and independence from the role of to the history of science in the able. In responding to the question, my col- curator of a collection centered on the Univer- United States. leagues in the Harvard University Archives sity. The way I have done this, though largely and in the nearly fifty other manuscript and unplanned, is to shift between a focus on Har- archival repositories at Harvard and Radcliffe vard University and other interests. Over the would have somewhat different answers that last twenty years, in the various research and draw upon the experiences of their own lives publishing activities that have filled my leisure and the work they do. I speak here only for time, there have been periods of primary iden- myself tification with Harvard, and other times when My professional background is in library and my attentions have turned to broader questions information science and in history (and more of scientific documentation and to the history specifically, the history of science in America). of science in America. In fact one or both of these fields (library sci- ence and/ or history) is the most common an- Multiple Missions swer to the question of how to prepare to be An archive, by definition, is created first to an archivist. Near the beginning of my ca- serve the needs of its parent institution. The reer-just out of the doctoral program in collecting policy for the Harvard Archives is directed toward the gathering of sources cre- ated by, or substantially about, the University. I would like to thank Harley Holden and Kenneth Carpen- This is an important contrast with other Har- ter for their thoughtful readings of earlier drafts of this essay. The writing also benefited from insightful criticism by Wil- vard repositories, such as the Houghton Li- liam Bentinck-Smith, whose death is a loss to all who care brary, which (presumably) could collect on deeply about Harvard history and the University Archives. any topic. It differs also from Radcliffe's 8 HARVARD LIBRARY BULLETIN

Schlesinger Library on the History of Women the artifacts of past events and imagine how in America, which in theory is limited only by they will be used in the future. relation to gender and nation. The Harvard There are many paths to becoming an ar- Archives as a collection is bounded by the in- chivist but most begin with an interest in his- stitution, and, as an office, serves the needs of tory. Although I started in college with the University. It is the Archives' responsibil- journalism in mind, I soon realized that my ity to assist by careful review of recent records, real interests were centered on the past. After to help to assess what should be kept in an college, going on to library school and a dis- administrative office or should go to inactive tant goal to work in an historical collection storage, what can be discarded, and what small were natural choices. The attraction all part is considered of enduring value and des- along-and this must be common for librar- tined for the Archives' permanent collections. ians and archivists-was the sense of contact In carrying out the mandate to document with artifacts that are message-bearers of his- the University community, the Archives also tory. Our lives are grounded in physical ob- actively solicits the personal and professional jects rather than in abstractions, or at least not papers of the tenured faculty, records and in abstractions alone. (This is very special, and ephemera of student and other affiliated orga- it is something not to be let go easily for the nizations, student papers, lecture notes, and sake of efficiency through computer storage other curricular material, and publications by and access systems, although increasingly these and about the University. The Archives is a formats are the communication and recording reference and research source for all who have artifacts created by others that we collect as a need, irrespective of institutional affiliation. research resources.) The sense of reality in his- At the same time, it is a service office for ad- tory that comes from contact with original ministrators and faculty, acting as a source of documents is a large part of the reason that I information and as custodian of records. am an archivist rather than an historian of some other description. But the other part of Optingfor Insight the attractiveness is that research historians Such potentially schizophrenic expectations come to the Archives. In performing their part can be stressful for an organization straddling, of the common work in which we are en- in uneasy balance, the needs of students, schol- gaged, they publish the results of their efforts ars, and other individuals on the one hand, and and this leads to an understanding of the past of office managers on the other. There may be that illuminates our own times. There is a very greater immediate utility and financial benefit real satisfaction in knowing that the efforts of to the University through files management, archivists, past and present, have contributed or through centralized storage of non-current indirectly but crucially to that outcome. records. Maintenance of files in order that an administrator can determine past practice or Developinga Vieupoint policy is a reason to support archival programs. In trying to understand and to carry out the But my personal and continuing hope is that special concerns of an archivist-to select, to in doing our work we are helping to establish preserve, and to make accessible sources for a greater role for the cultural-even spiri- the writing of history-each archivist inevi- tual-values of history in our contemporary tably will draw upon his or her own back- public and personal lives. ground. In my case, I can draw upon training The archivist can -and, at best, should- and experience in the history of science, but be an historian as well as collector and care- also must try, insofar as possible, to generalize taker, but the roles are separate. The research for other interests that are represented in the historian seeks to understand and interpret the University Archives. To develop an histori- past. The archivist's function is above all to cally informed perspective, it is not sufficient serve the needs of others. In carrying out the for an archivist to be aware of substantive top- designated tasks, however, the archivist is ac- ics of concern to historians; a familiarity with tively and determinatively engaged with his- historiographic interpretations and method- tory, choosing what small part of the mass of ological practice also is important. As sug- records or papers is to be permanently re- gested above, the physical nature of historical tained. In this an archivist is required to assume documentation is central to an archivist. We a very particular perspective, where the pri- deal with the physical remains of past actions mary challenge is to live-mentally-in a sea or events and try, within those limits, to know of time. Placed in the present, we must look at the context within which documents were Among Harvard's Libraries 9

created. We want to know what office or per- than some of my archival colleagues in our son composed the document, when, for what ability to anticipate levels or types of use by purpose, to what result. For the institution, we researchers once a file (i.e., record series) is in need to know the functional character and the Archives. It is important to understand that level of authority of the officer or of the com- a criterion of use is put forward only as a gen- mittee that created a record. For professors, we eralized consideration. There is no way to pre- are interested in the particular areas of their dict specific research topics or areas of interest research and activity but also whether (for ex- in the future, and the Archives always must be ample) they were important in a narrowly fo- ready for the unexpected. In trying to draw on cused way or whether they also played a past experience to predict the future, one facilitative role in communication or interac- would look to previous patterns of use in the tion among colleagues in their discipline. University Archives (not simply to specific in- The process of assigning values to records or stances), and try to be sensitive to historio- papers in order to come to a decision whether graphic trends as reflected in the review and to accept or reject the material for the perma- historical research literature. nent collections-i.e., archival appraisal-is A general illustration from the history of sci- carried out in consideration of the overall con- ence may help to clarify the point. For certain text of document creation just outlined. But areas-for those historians of science who are decisions in particular cases are not easy. For interested primarily in the history of ideas, and example, the Harvard Archives generally ap- traditionally designated intemalists-access to proaches with skepticism the question of the published journal literature or technical re- whether there is research value that warrants ports may be especially important. One signifi- permanent retention of notes and other work cant implication of this fact is the crucial role papers, or of drafts and manuscripts of pub- that our colleagues in the science libraries play lished works that are commonly found among in documenting aspects of the history of sci- the papers of a faculty member. This attitude ence, a relationship to archival and manuscript is based on a general sense that future scholars repositories that is very real but not always suf- in a field are not likely to use a predecessor's ficiently appreciated. Other historians of sci- research notes. It also assumes that works pub- ence (so-called extemalists) are interested in the lished by university faculty members generally social nature of science-e.g., societies or as- are such that creativity and originality occurs sociations, university departments and curricu- at some stage other than in the process of writ- lar offerings, funding sources and relations of ing itself. A scientist or a scholar typically government and academia; biography is an as- draws upon external data sources in writing pect of the study of science as for all areas, and is judged not by one production but by a though perhaps less vital in an age of Big Sci- lifetime of work that appears in multiple jour- ence and team research. These extemalist ap- nal articles, reports, chapters in collective proaches to science draw upon a wide range of works, and books. This differs from the habits documentation, including correspondence and of a poet or novelist, where creativity is car- memoranda, diaries and minutes, reports, sum- ried out on the page itself, and where succes- mary financial data. Increasingly, however, his- sive drafts of particular works are of interest to torians of science, along with sociologists and scholars. Even for a university archivist, how- anthropologists, are exploring the ways in ever, the decision to reject the drafts of a work which an understanding of science requires that is not straightforward, and exceptions have to we know the social and ideological context be made. Sometimes it is a decision to keep a within which the work was done, and the ways body of material because it illustrates how a in which these factors may have affected the person worked, and other times the decision nature of scientific knowledge itself It is likely reflects an informed sense that the work was that this research trend will tend to make the seminal to a field. Behind every choice, how- use of multiple types of documentation more ever, there has to be some sense of value in the universally characteristic of historical writing, as material, relative to other files that are com- the artificiality of extremes of intellectual and peting for the same limited fiscal, human, and social history begin to fade. One possible im- physical resources. plication is the necessity to retain a wider selec- In addition to the above considerations that tion of laboratory records than is now the come into play when deciding whether to re- practice, in order to document notable events, tain or dispose of material, there is the perspec- the process of research, and the social milieu tive of use. I may put a greater degree of faith of the laboratory itself IO HARVARD LIBRARY BULLETIN

The Many Ways efSeeing the United States, J. B. Woodworth's papers Those of us who collect a university's ar- for an investigation relating to Precambrian chives and related materials, ostensibly to paleontology in the Boston area, the personal document the workings and the life of the papers of treasurer Samuel A. Eliot for the institution, must constantly face a paradox in musical history of Boston in the nineteenth use. What is collected in the name of the in- century, and papers of various professors for a stitution frequently is used for purposes only study of economics and World War II. The distantly related to the corporate life of the papers of Richard von Mises were used for a university. This is a tribute to the ingenious study of Berlin and the Vienna Circle, James research or question-posing abilities of histo- B. Conant's personal papers for an examina- rians and a reason why we must settle for gen- tion of his role as head of the National Defense eralized rather than finely tuned selection Research Committee during W odd War II criteria based on past use. It also discloses, in a and a study of the American Jewish commu- special way, the nature of universities. Orga- nity and postwar Germany, while the papers of nizational and fiscal structures are created to Albert J. Meyer were consulted in relation to carry out the facilitative, educational, re- Saudi oil policy, and those of Zechariah search, and other functions of the institution. Chafee, Jr., on the Red Scare in 1920. This Into this matrix of organization are brought sampling of topics and sources underscores the students seeking education but also a social striking unpredictableness of research use. It life and arena for growth. Also, and in many poses the formless question of what is "Har- ways most centrally, faculty members (and vard history" and suggests why someone em- other scholars) are brought in to do the ployed more than twenty years in the Archives university's business, and in so doing to carry still constantly learns new things about the col- out their own agendas as well. In sum, a uni- lections. versity is more than a corporate structure, but less than a community (insofar as the life-fo- A Day in the Life . cus of most members is elsewhere). The foregoing remarks, with their autobio- The holdings of the Harvard Archives graphical trail and side excursions into the un- touch upon a multitude of topics, document- derbrush of professional concerns, may be too ing actions done in the name of the institution tangled to show what is really going on in the as well as individual activities-scholarly, life of an archivist. The real story is etched out social, and political- of faculty members and through many days of repeated actions, of other officers. In one recent year, researchers projects begun and ended (or not), of success in the University Archives used Observatory and failure, of learning more about the limits records for a study of women astronomers, and the boundlessness of the University Ar- records of the Corporation to examine chives and the interests it serves. An imagined Harvard's support oflndian missionaries in the but typical day may give a clearer picture than eighteenth century, the presidential files of C. exposition alone. W. Eliot and A. L. Lowell for a history of What for many years was a desk cleared Bowdoin College, and the records of the De- away at the end of each day is yielding to ap- partment of Chemistry (as well as presidential parent clutter; only the adaptive topographic materials) for an historical investigation of map in my head saves it from ultimate chaos. American chemistry and chemical engineer- As I come into the office, my mind is compart- ing. The late eighteenth century book-charg- mentalizing what I will do during the day. The ing records of the library were consulted in a morning should begin with answers to three biography of Washington Allston, the records letters that were received with their authors' of the Department of Philosophy for a study manuscripts enclosed, asking for permission to of T. S. Eliot and Harvard philosophy, min- publish quotes from material in the Archives. utes of the Department of Physics and the After that will come editorial review of draft records of President C. W. Eliot for a biogra- descriptions, by one of our graduate student phy of Marie Curie, while records of the assistants, for a newly processed (that is, ar- Peabody Museum together with the papers of ranged and described) accession of records curator Frederic W. Putnam were used to from a program office at the Harvard Center study expeditions into Utah and Colorado in for International Affairs. This will require a the 1880s and 1890s. Records of the East Asian close look at the proper form of the corporate Research Center and John Fairbank's papers author, the title, and narrative description of were used for research on Japanese studies in the content of the collection, and a careful Among Harvard's Libraries II

check to be sure the suggested subject head- moments of their professional lives. We would ings conform with our standard lists or with like as well to have the more personal papers- Library of Congress terminology. All of this is diaries and family letters. The call from Mrs. preparatory to entry into HOLLIS (the Har- Porter is congenial. She is receptive to the idea vard On-Line Library Information System). of placing her husband's papers in the Ar- The bulk of our processing is done by students chives, and gives permission for me to go to or casual employees, which means that cura- his laboratory office and look them over to see torial supervision and review is particularly what might be of interest. There are files at her important. home as well and I give some general advice Materials arrive from a University office or about what, among those, should come to the a faculty member's home, sometimes orga- Archives. Her real worry is about how the pa- nized and agreeably listed by folder title, other pers will be used. She knows her husband was times with no discernible order and with in- involved in some controversial matters, espe- discriminate mixing of the useful and the use- cially a protracted debate over priority for an less. Depending on its prehistory, the steps in important breakthrough in his field. The situ- arrangement and description can be straight- ation requires both assurance that we are ac- forward, or time-consuming and fraught with customed to dealing with such material and an uncertainty. I still try to do some processing explanation of the ways by which access to a myself-basic work for an archivist, really, collection can be restricted (but emphasizing and what keeps us in touch with our material that restriction should be for a limited time). base. But the last collection on which I Our procedures for monitoring use are ex- worked-the papers of professor of entomol- plained, including the requirement of a special ogy (I865-I937)- application for access to manuscript material, took about five years to complete, done in and the stipulation that quoted text intended small segments of time, and with long inter- for publication be submitted for review and vals between. But most of it was sheer plea- permission. These procedures seem to address sure, perhaps because such work is so rare at Mrs. Porter's anxiety and the conversation this stage of my career. Imagine getting paid ends with a promise to send her an outline of for reading other people's mail, and perhaps the ways in which access to a collection of fac- even the unhistorical mind will be piqued. But ulty papers can be governed so that she can this morning, in place of hands-on work, there give us guidance. (Access to University records is the editing of the bibliographic result of a is more straightforw:ird-until the records are student assistant's processing. fifty years old, they are available for use only Tum on the computer so I can get to those with the written permission of the department letters of permission to publish ... The inter- head.) com buzzes: Mrs. Porter is on the phone about Back to the computer and the completion her husband's papers. I wrote to Professor of two of the three letters of permission, when Porter's widow last week, hoping that five one of the reference staff calls to say that a stu- weeks from his death would not be too soon, dent from the history of science department is or too late. It's not unlike the proverbial am- at the front desk. She is a junior, beginning to bulance chaser, but here it's watching the plan for her senior thesis and her advisor sent obituary notices, writing to a grieving family her to the Archives. In my office, we chat and hoping a letter is not an intrusion, or that about her interests, relating particularly to the it will not arrive the day after the papers were teaching of physics in the I92os and I93os. I thrown away. The Archives contacted Profes- bring up from memory several collections- sor Porter himself a couple of times before his the papers of Percy Bridgman and E. C. death, as part of a general solicitation of fac- Kemble and the records of the Physics Depart- ulty papers, and with a more personal re- ment come first to mind. I suggest also that she minder at the time of his retirement. There are consult our shelflist for the curriculum collec- notes in my file from a visit to his office, and a tion and of course the annual catalogues. I small segment of his papers already are in the almost forget to remind her to check in HOL- Archives, but I am hoping for more. LIS as well, not quite used to that universal Contacts with faculty members about their extension to the curator's memory. It is a start papers can be tricky, a reminder of their im- for her project and she leaves, appreciative. portance but also of their mortality. We are, That visit completed, I look across the of- in fact, asking them to place in a public loca- fice at a stack of boxes that arrived two or three tion what can be some of the most revealing days ago. Ifl tackle accessioning those, I'll clear 12 HARVARD LIBRARY BULLETIN

away some floor space and have the pleasure some understanding of the past. I sit before the of a conspicuous accomplishment. I open the processing manual and begin to work, draft- boxes and prepare a brief set of notes on their ing a description of how to fill in the work contents. Preparing the accessioning paper- sheet for input to HOLLIS, working through work, the job is done just before lunch hour. the form, data field by data field. The manual I tell the stack manager that the boxes are is beginning to take shape and with it some ready to go into the storage area for unproc- sense of integration of the past with the future. essed accessions, to await their queue. It could That seems to characterize the day itself, a be several years before they emerge for pro- mental weaving and undoing and weaving cessing and entry into the catalog of holdings. again of what was and what is becoming. In the afternoon I attend a committee meet- The phone rings, and it is a young historian ing of University Library manuscripts and whom I met last year at a History of Science archives curators. We are planning a question- Society meeting. He is thinking about a redi- naire survey of the patterns of use of collec- rection in employment goals, away from the tions. By 3:30, I am back in my office and see seemingly endless tenure track treadmill. "Can that the newly accessioned cartons have been you give me some idea of what it is like to live removed, but in their place is a book truck of a career as an archivist?" I hope I can .... But document boxes, items flagged for the usual I am thinking also about being home, and at curatorial review before they are photocopied the computer again, and working on my ref- for a researcher. erence book on American science. And I On the work bench behind my desk is a know that, for the foreseeable future, to be an manual, in draft, of archival processing proce- archivist and to be a publishing historian, I dures. I have been at work on it for weeks, have to live two lives, not unrelated, but in trying to integrate all the new requirements for two spheres that are the institutional and the entry of bibliographic records into the auto- personal. I gladly share my underlying joy (and mated system in HOLLIS. I had better get sense of the challenge) in confronting day to back to that-remembering that I wanted to day the material representations of history. But have a completed draft done for staff review by in honesty I have to point out the need to the end of the month. The necessary meshing compromise on personal research interests so of automation into the text of the manual that they fit the constraints of a twelve month epitomizes the challenges and sometimes dis- appointment and a minimum 9-to-5 schedule tractions that have come increasingly to char- of doing the University's business. There is the acterize the rest of my archival existence. need to put service to the institution and to Some days, it seems, the computers really are other scholars at the top of the list of profes- in charge, and we only try to keep up with sional values, and to hold that value so dearly their demands. I recall meetings with col- that it dissolvesthe pang of jealousy that comes leagues that seem too often to dwell upon the when I see other researchers at work in the details of how to achieve automation. Our reading room day after day. To my young dialogues can sound as though to automate friend, I pose the question of whether he could was our goal as archivists, rather than to pre- accept such an ambivalent outcome, while serve, organize, and service the physical re- confessing that, on most days at least, it seems mains of history so we and others can reach to work for me.

How HARVARD DrnN'T GET ITS RARE BooKs & MANUSCRIPTS: A Talk for the Opening efan Exhibition to Celebratethe Fiftieth Anniversary efthe Houghton Libraryat the GrolierClub, 21 May 1992. Roger E. Stoddard

ll around you stand the trophies- twenty-first. Yes, the work continues, and if A visible, palpable-brought back home you are not yet part of it, my colleagues and I to Cambridge by the great Crimson armies of will soon pass among you to take down names collectors and friends, scholars and librarians, and addresses so that we can arrange to pack benefactors and booksellers-marching out your books and manuscripts for shipment of the eighteenth century and toward the back to Cambridge for the seminars,