Monday, January 23, 2012
Randomly Noted OK, kiddos, let's have fun with old archives!
Posted by Scott Henry @ScottTheHenry on Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 5:37 PM
What are the Georgia Archives, you ask, and why do they need my help? Better yet, how do I find their Facebook page? Well, they don't have a Facebook page or a Twitter account because it's actually a beautiful new building down in Morrow full of old paper dating back to the 18th century. Excited yet? Yeah, that's what we thought.
Anyway, so the archives are hurting due to apparent lack of interest, which has resulted in harsh budget cuts by state lawmakers. After a round of cuts in 2008, the archives were forced to lay off most of its employees and can only afford to stay open two days a week. But the remaining staff has been dogged in their efforts to attract a new generation of young archivists, researchers and genealogists by putting on such exciting, fast-paced seminars as "Read It Write: Interpreting Early Styles of Handwriting" and "Georgia’s Delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787." Woo-hoo! Bring a sack lunch and let's get crazy!
OK, so unless "History Detectives" snares Ryan Gosling and Jessica Alba as on-air hosts, the Georgia Archives might have a tough time getting the YouTube generation amped up over old plat books and deed records. Still, the agency isn't just living in the past; it's also planning to digitize, baby! According to the state website, it's already at Step 4 of a 5-step process. On the down side, Step 4 is, literally, planning to digitize. The actual digitization — you guessed it, Step 5 — has been delayed due to crippling budget cuts.
Comments (23)
Showing 1-23 of 23
Is this an issue conservative Georgians will support because preserving the records will allow us to understand the thinking of Georgia's founding fathers?
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archives are a cultural treasure. it's a shame that we can't afford to remember our own history
archives are a cultural treasure. it's a shame they're being stored in morrow.
I've been to the GA Archives building and it's a really nice structure. The building actually houses important and temperature-sensitive materials of all kinds apart from the usual archival stuff. Supporting it is a good cause.
On a related note, the Digital Archives of Georgia is a partner institution that has a really cool collection of archival stuff already digitized. Worth a visit online:
http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu
Is there any specific reason as to why they chose Morrow to store them in? It would be of much better use to all if it were in Downtown.
The GA Archives moved to Morrow so it could share a campus with the SE branch of the National Archives. They're located right next to each other now.
I'm not sure why the National Archives branch is in Morrow. My guess is that it has something to do with the fact that Clayton State University, located next to the joint archives campus, has an Archival Studies program.
Actually the Georgia Archives has been digitizing for several years as evidenced by the Vanishing Georgia http://cdm.sos.state.ga.us/cdm4/vanishing.… and the Virtual Vault http://cdm.sos.state.ga.us/index.php projects to name a few. It is interesting that folks do not understand that it is not only our cultural heritage that is being preserved, but our legal records. The Georgia Archives is the entity responsible by law for preserving and organizing the permanently valuable records generated by the various departments and agencies of state government. They also are responsible for preserving, storing, and making available for the future the permanently valuable digitally generated records of government. I think if you do a little homework, you will find that the records kept there have saved the taxpayers at the very least hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees due to the records that resolve disputes.
So let me understand, open two days a week with a handful of staff and FB and Twitter are a top priority. Really? Here's some misinformation "the archives are hurting due to apparent lack of interest, which has resulted in harsh budget cuts by state lawmakers." No, the state charges the archives rent on its own building. The rent goes up, the funding goes down, people get fired, the building is closed. There's plenty of interest, just no money. Sheesh! Hope you're never in a position to need a vital record from the archives to prove something. Good luck with that.
I don't get the sarcasm of this article. Why wouldn't the "YouTube generation" be interested in preserving our collective history? Also, just because the staff of the Ga Archives lack the time to market themselves through social media doesn't mean what they do is irrelevant.
I think the tone of this article is pretty distasteful. What it doesn't tell you is that in addition to being a resource open to the public, that does host free programs - the GA Archives is also charged (by law) with preserving the records of many state agencies, including the office of the Governor. Funding cuts from the legislature essentially means that the documentation of elected officials can be lost or destroyed, thereby eliminating a paper record that can hold them accountable to the general public.
Many of those "documents" now arrive in digital formats, and as this technology changes archives around the country are evolving as quickly as possible to preserve these records and make them accessible in the future. Discussions about the best ways to accomplish this change are happening all the time - at the Library of Congress, at the National Archives, and at state institutions like the Georgia Archives. Google "digitally born material" and you'll find more information.
I can understand the conception that archives are full of old stuff, and host boring programs, but I just don't think that is a fair appraisal. The materials stored in archives fuel the general history that people access every day -- history books, internet sites (wikipedia), documentaries -- primary sources are at the heart of all of these, and without them (and places like the GA archives) we'd all just be guessing about what happened 100 years ago. The written record is important.
Wow. I'm glad that this dunce cares so deeply about this state's historic record, has researched the subject of his article so thoroughly, and is convinced that the digitization of historical documents with an eye towards preservation is as simple as running to Best Buy to snag a flatbed scanner and saving it on his hard drive.
A simple perusal of nationally-established technical guidelines for the digitization of historic documents ( www.archives.gov/preservation/technical/guidelines.pdf ) might be a good place for him to start. Then he can consider metadata, redundant [digital] storage, and enlighten us all as to how he would plan to digitize important, aging, and/ or priceless historic materials without a carefully-considered plan.
#ahistorical_d-bags #newmedia_winning #CHUDs
"I can understand the conception that archives are full of old stuff, and host boring programs, but I just don't think that is a fair appraisal."
lighten up bro
How dare the staff of the Georgia Archives attempt to manage and preserve - as mandated by Law - Georgia's recorded history (on a budget of pennies) while neglecting to update a Facebook page for the cyber-twits at Creative Loafing! Other unforgivable sins of these layabouts: no Spotify account; not mayors of anything in Foursquare; no fake twitter accounts (how funny and fresh is that horse_ebooks!); severe lack of sexting (and pexting) from Archives staff; no one at the Georgia Archives listens to Tunabunny; plus I bet their coffee isn't made with a Japanese coffee siphon, amirite?!!?!
Scott, what a short memory you have. Remember this article from two weeks ago? http://clatl.com/freshloaf/archives/2012/0…
You wrote:
"Perhaps most disturbing, there are also hundreds of boxes containing files and other documents. Many are torn open or fallen over, spilling their contents across the ancient hardwood floors: insurance policies, canceled checks, ledger books — the personal paperwork of generations of black Americans going back to the '30s. "
AND
"Now that I've toured the inside of the building and seen all the documents that were carelessly left behind, I'm actually a little pissed off."
THANK YOU to the Georgia Archives for preserving the records of Georgia's history!
Support your local archivist! Seriously. It's important... I wish I'd seen this thread earlier! Thanks to Scott and the Loaf for the heads-up.
Threats to the Georgia Archives are as dire (or more - two days a week?) as funding threats to the Historic Preservation Division of DNR, to GA State Parks and Historic Sites, and to all cultural programs.
Let's all write our state reps, folks, in support of whatever is truly valuable.
scott i think you riled up a forum full of archivists somewhere, there are a lot of new accounts defending the sanctity and majesty of history
Yes there is a good reason they are in Morrow. The downtown building where archival records used to be stored was falling apart. The Building in Morrow is open to public tours and is an environmentally controlled building. It is quite an impressive and well run institution. Unfortunately, it is severely underfunded and has lost 70 % of its staff due to budget cuts. Scott obviously is attacking the wrong group. He needs to better inform himself and ask the legislators and help raise awareness to help fund the institutions that protect Georgia's history instead of attacking the institutions themselves.
i'd venture to say that these new accounts have less to do with defending the sanctity and majesty of history than they do about schooling lazy and careless reporting.
sorry that a sarcastic op-ed from an alternative weekly paper offended your sense of respect for archives
no seriously where are you folks coming from, i'd like to think that there is some organized archivist internet defense team in the style of ron paul supporters
seriously the depth of offense in these comments is hilarious for such a dull topic, and i say this as a historian who keeps an active membership at the AHC archive for fun
did you know that if you combine the atlanta city directory with sanborn fire insurance maps you can precisely reconstruct racial residential patterns by individual house? so far i've discovered that in 1904 streetcars were weakly correlated with desegregation (i guess because rents were cheaper directly along streetcar lines)
Uh oh. Hipster denounces something he doesn't know anything about. Whoopty Shit.
This Scott guy and his article sound like an excerpt from Idiocracy. History? Documents? Who needs 'em? We've got sarcasm!
Seriously though, thanks for bringing attention to the issue. Someday I may need a record for a real estate transaction. On a Tuesday.
-- A local member of The Internet Defense Team of the Sanctity and Majesty of History
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