ARCHIVING IN THE SENATE PREPARING THE COLLECTION OF SENATOR JIM BUNNING Dina Mazina, University of MD, MLS Student Victoria Triplett, University of KY, MLS Student Introduction: Organizing Paper Records: MEMORABILIA Unlike records of the President or Con- Paper records were organ- B. Senate gressional committees, the personal papers pro- ized by House or Senate, I. Committee duced by US senators and their offices are the then by committee records 1) Aging, Special Committee Senators acquire large memorabilia collections throughout property of the senator. Through our work with and legislative materials. a. 2.0344.11.16 Hearings on End-of- their legislative careers and personal lives. In addition to the collection of Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning, Each folder was given a political awards, photographs and gifts, Senator Bunning we aim to demonstrate the task that stands before unique identifying number Life Care, 7/2000 has an extensive collection of baseball memorabilia. The archivists of retiring senators and some of our created from the original b. 2.0344.11.17 Hearing on Social Se- archival staff developed “Item Reports,” like the example solutions. FRC accession number and curity Representative Payees, 5/2000 below, to help catalog memorabilia. Senator Bunning has spent 12 years in the the order of the folder. In House of Representatives and 11 in the Senate. the example on the right, the Prior to his involvement in politics, he had a suc- number identifies materials as folders 16 and 17, box 2 cessful career as a major league baseball pitcher. of 11 boxes, with the acces- In 1996, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall sion number ending in 0344. of Fame. His senatorial collection reflects all of these points in his long career. All the forms used to organize the materi- als were created by archival interns working in STORAGE AT THE NARA FEDERAL RECORDS CENTER Below: An example of a constituent letter. As a rule, constituent mail is shred due to privacy concerns. Congressmen are given Right and courtesy storage at the above: Forms National Archives Federal used by Con- Records Center in Suitland, gressional of- MD. Boxes of archival and fices to transfer and retrieve non-archival records were boxes of records periodically transferred to to and from FRC. As part of the archiving FRC. process, boxes were withdrawn, inventoried, and Baseball signed by Jim re-accessioned. When the Bunning and kept in the Senator retires, the boxes Senator’s office. will be shipped to his repository at Northern Kentucky University. .