Association of Hawaii Archivists Newsletter

September 2004

Summer Social

Judd Family Home

July 2004

On 25 July, AHA members traveled to the country to enjoy a potluck and beauty at the Judd Family home at Pu'u Pueo. We had a variety of food, soft drinks, beer and wine, which we enjoyed in the cool shade of the large porch. Mary Judd took several members on a walk through the gardens surrounding the house, tasting, smelling, touching, the leaves, blossoms, even bark of various plants. It was a relaxing, peaceful afternoon. Thank you Mary and Bonnie Judd.

Guest Speaker - Archivist Nancy Zimmelman

"History and Administration of the

Robert F. Kennedy Assassination Collection"

Nancy Zimmelman will be a guest speaker for our fall educational program. She has been an archivist with the California State Archives since 1987 and is the Legislative Records Archivist directing the California Legislative Archives Program. She is the archivist for the records relating to the Robert F. Kennedy assassination.

Since 1992, Nancy has been Administrator of the Western Archives Institute, the annual two-week workshop that is an introduction to basic archives management theory and practice co-sponsored by the California State Archives and Society of California Archivists (SCA). Last summer, she served as both Administrator and On-site Coordinator for the very successful Western Archives Institute-Institute for Native American and Tribal Archivists.

Nancy is a member of the Society of American Archivists and the SAA Committee on Education and Professional Development. She serves on the Working Group and is one of the Special Research Consultants for A*CENSUS. She will be preparing the report on the census results concerning continuing education needs in the profession. She is a member and a past Secretary of the SCA.

Nancy will address us on Saturday, September 11, 2004 at the University of Hawai’i Archives Reading Room. The Archives is in the new addition to Hamilton Library, room A550. In addition to her remarks about the Kennedy Assassination Collection, Nancy will also discuss the results of the A*CENSUS Survey as it pertains to Hawai’i. The lecture is free for AHA members and $5 for guests. Lunch is on your own. Paradise Palms, located just outside Hamilton, is open from 10:30 to 2:30 and Volcano Joe's is located within walking distance on University Avenue.

AHA members may meet Nancy at a pre-presentation buffet dinner at the Willows at 6:00 PM on Friday, September 10. The cost of the buffet is $30.92, tax and tip included. For those of us 55 and older, the cost is $28.22; children younger than ten are free. R.S.V.P. to Helen Wong Smith at hewongsm@ksbe.edu if you will be attending. Send payment by September 8, to Association of Hawai’i Archivists, P.O. Box1751, Honolulu, HI. 96806.

SAA Recap

Several Hawai’i archivists were among the more than 1,450 folks who attended the SAA Annual Meeting in Boston in August. Some have agreed to share their experiences:

Series Description: Means of Reducing Backlog

While at SAA in Boston first week of August, I attended one session in particular which I felt offered some valuable guidance. It was entitled "Facilitating Description: Developing Standard Series" which seemed awfully bland. Waverly Lowell explained the concept of developing standard series within archival collections. The standard series work somewhat like a template, which you apply to each collection as you begin processing. She began this process while trying to find a way to eliminate the large backlog of unprocessed collections she had in the architectural records at the Environmental Design Archives at UC Berkeley. The basic thought seems awfully simple, but worth applying. Write up the

standard series one would expect to find in the typical collections in one's archives. Then when beginning the processing of a new collection, focus only on the series. Apply the standard series as a template to the particular collection. If the collection is unorganized, gather the materials into the series expected. Write a brief scope note for each series found in the collection along with a box or folder inventory. Don't surrender to the temptation of spending too much time describing below the series level. Other presenters at the session showed their plans to implement the series standard for science and engineering faculty and for medical research collections.

Jim Cartwright

Reducing Backlog and more…

Jan Zastrow attended the two-day pre-conference workshop on Digital Preservation, organized and attended a Congressional Papers Roundtable tour of the Joe Moakley Papers at Suffolk University Law School, took an SAA-sponsored tour of Harvard University Archives (which she described as “fabulous!”) and attended a number of sessions including the Means of Reducing Backlog with Jim Cartwright, electronic recordkeeping & digital documents, indigenous collections, even archives in the movies.

The Hawai’i contingent was happy to see Dee Hazelrigg once again. Dee spent 7 months last year with Jan at the Congressional Papers Archives processing the Sen. Hiram Fong Papers and is now Curator of Modern Political Collections at the University of South Carolina.

Jan also acclaims the “incredibly good dining opportunities,” including seafood and Italian specialties and pastries that she found in Boston.

EAD

Judy Kearney attended the two-day pre-conference sessions on EAD, the SAA-endorsed standard for archival finding aids on the Web. Kris Kiesling of Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin and Michael J. Fox from the Minnesota Historical Society taught the SAA class as they have for the past few years. The workshop covered the latest version of EAD and included a group coding exercise. If you are interested in learning EAD, check out the SAA Education Calendar at http://www.archivists.org. Kris and Michael will be teaching cascading style sheets for EAD this month, but Judy is not ready to get back on a plane to Boston so soon; besides that, she thought it was too cold over there. However, she thought the Fenway Park closing reception was a blast!

Annual Meeting Update

Hotel Lāna’i is extending the registration deadline to September 8 for our Presidents’ Holiday weekend 2005 Annual Meeting. Programming is shaping up, so save that weekend! Reservations for the hotel and the air transportation are the responsibility of conference attendees and should be made as soon as possible. Ground transportation is covered in the conference fee. Over the course of our Annual Meeting, a workshop, “Caring for Family Treasures,” will be offered to the Lāna’i community.

Workshops

A workshop similar to the above is scheduled for a local non-profit group, the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai’i, on Saturday October 2. AHA President Jim Cartwright, Vice-President Andrew Wertheimer, and Treasurer Helen Wong Smith will provide instruction to the JCCH staff/volunteers. The Board would like to continue to offer this type of workshop to other non-profits and generate the interest of our local talent to conduct them.