From: SARA STEELE <smsteele@wisc.edu> Subject: Re: advice for starting a local history center Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2019 16:54:57 +0000 Message-id: <01e9d5fb-29f8-c9e5-5e4e-d47525755718@wisc.edu>
Sorry, Jason
When I replied before I was acting off my dreams about a History Center I would like to create for our local area. That center would focus on preserving INFORMATION and the text and visual images which provide evidence to support that information. Most of the past focus of local groups has been on preserving physical things and showing what has been preserved. Museum concepts have prevailed. Example, a few year ago a WHS expert told us to use white gloves whenever we handled a photo and said nothing about copying them and using them other than in displays..
So let me now try to be more practical. I was in charge of the development of a small ARCHIVES over 20 years and brought together local information from WHS, newspapers (no local paper and morgue here ) and other places . My own interest was past history so most of the things were pre 1960.
People
If your group is serious about developing a meaningful Archives in support of whatever niche you have chosen, I suggest the first thing you need is not space but a TEAM OF PEOPLE DEDICATED TO LEARNING ABOUT whatever aspects or time periods of Madison History you choose. The ARCHIVES team needs to include people with the following interests and skills. team that includes 1.one or more people who likes to organize, inventory, manage and learn how to preserve text materials whether paper, microfilm, or digital.There is more physical work involved in maintaining text and visuals than other real objects. 2. someone who is so mentally interested they "know" what is in the archives 3. someone who likes connecting bits and pieces of information and can make connections between information in various places so a search is all inclusive rather than limited to one source. 4. a flock of people willing to scout for photos and pieces of info and 5. someone very familiar with sources of information on people, families, and land ownership --both local sources like Vital Records and City directories in the library and more pervasive like Ancestry, LDS films, digital newspapers files. Even if you don't promote your archives or want to provide help in genealogy area, you are bound to get a lot of questions from people searching for their family histories and you need someone to give a helpful answer to such questions (you may want to get well acquainted with Madison's Genealogy Society and be able to make referrals.).
Space
In terms of space, you need to plan for four kinds--!. various kinds of display space easily accessed 2. storage space organized so one can find something with a few minutes search, 3. Visitor work space and 4. staff work space (computers. scanners, table space to to organize binders, folders, etc and do the things necessary to protect actual documents. Which, by the way, is different than how you would protect and display them if you mean to deal with them like other physical objects and only put them in glass cases.
Currently, storage means shelf and/or file space. Personally, I prefer binders on shelves to file drawers and folders, or boxes as the WHS archives uses (too easy for a paper to walk unnoticed) All can handle the requisite plastic sheets each piece needs. Seeing as how grade school students are now using chromebooks, I can imagine a future information focused archives as being DVDS or computers with large monitors and easily accessed content stored in external drives and backup materials also stored in such drives, or if your collections are large, back up computers.. That will require a completely different amount of storage space than that required today. Currently, however, the issue, is whether one also keeps hard copy in case one forgets to refresh the material on the drives so space for physical materials needs to be planned for. I used a professional back service for the work I did on my home computer until it combined with one in Utah. I have not explored Cloud.
The "hotter" the topics and time periods the more guest space you may need. However, because Madison is home to a large U, and two colleges, as well as several high schools, it is very likely you may have more walk in and appointment archives users than most places. Museum visitors generally walk through looking or stand listening, while archives users need places to sit and make notes or take photographs, or they ask to use a scanner or copy machine.
Don't underestimate the importance of planning separate space specifically for text and visual materials and their use if your group is really serious about maintaining a useful archives. Also, remember that the broader the spectrum of time periods and topics covered in you archives the more space you will need.
If you can't do a good job of maintaining a useful archives providing valuable information, don't pretnend you have an archives and don't promote the fact that you have an archives. In that case, Treat the text and visual items as they have traditionally been treated as a sub set of the museum collection requiring a little different storage and protection rather than building a real archives..
Resource Person
It looks like museum folks are stepping forward with advise. However, also look for folks experienced in developing the history sections of libraries. Peter Klein, the former director at Sun Prairie, is the only person I know who had oversight of a historical archives and a museum. I drew on Peter for advice. I do not know his replacement or know if she has an equal interest and experience with both a museum and an archives.
By the way, I'm curious what niche you have chosen. I hope you are planning a CONTEMPORARY Madison History Center. David Molonhoff's book did a wonderful job on the early history of Madison. However, things move so fast these days that there is a need to keep documenting what Madison was like in 2000 and what has happened since.
Sara
On 9/30/2019 4:55 PM, Jason Tish wrote:
Hi everyone-
I'm involved with a small energetic group working on a plan for a local history center for Madison. Local history in Madison is a unique situation. We have only a narrow niche that is not covered by the State Historical Society, the UW Archives, the Madison Public Library's local history collections, and the Dane County Historical Society. We have a solid handle on that niche.
What we really need advice on is how to actually plan for, and create the physical space for a history center/museum/research facility. Our current model entails a small exhibition space, and archival facility, and space for an office, a reading room, and presentations. We expect it to be an iterative process where we start out in a space that may not have all of that. Our priority is to bring together a collection of documents and artifacts in order to demonstrate the need for a permanent facility. We can do do that initially in a facility that doesn't;t meet all of our needs, and later move to facility that does (unless fund-raising proves more successful than we expect)
If you have ever been involved in developing a local history facility, what is the one piece of advice (or two) that you wish someone had given you before you started?
-- - Jason