Week 7: Overview and Update

Overview:

This past week was very productive. One of the most delightful incidences was the fact that I met Paul Kilian, a past PCC music Professor and Dean. He was hard at work in the archives, doing research for a history he is writing of the Pasadena City College Music Department. We had a chance to talk about the importance of archival material and he expressed how vital the Shatford Archives are to his research. I couldn't help but mention the phonautogram, invented by Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville and recently discovered by French historian David Giovannoni in a Parisian archive. The machine recorded a voice singing "Au Clair de la Lune" that predated Edison's recording of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" by seventeen years! Dr. Kilian and I both agreed that such a discovery truly illuminates how important it is to save historical documents and objects.

Courier Project Update:

I have begun a spreadsheet for the Courier proof sheets and negatives. This will help me develop an accurate finding list once all of the proof sheets are in binders and negatives in boxes. It will also allow for a quick glance of the extent of what is held by the archives of this material.

Campus Archives Project (CAP):

Mary Ann and I met with Dean Douglass of the Natural Sciences division last Tuesday morning in his office of the U Building. He had brought some items with him to the office to give us an idea of the history contained in the geology lab. One of the most important were digitized photographs on DVD. These images were taken from scrapbooks made by Jack van Amringe (past faculty) in 1938. This is exactly the kind of thing that CAP is attempting to both encourage and hopefully be able to offer to all departments in the future. Dean Douglass also had a copy of the Academic Master Plan (1980-1985), Anniversary Brochures for the Geology Club (DANA Club), and related ephemera to show us.

We then moved to the Geology Library in the H Building where Dean Douglass pointed out several things. The Geology department has US Geology Journals dating back to the time when John W. Powell was the president. These types of things should probably stay in the Geology Library, but could definitely use some mending/preservation attention. Dean Douglass showed us the physical scrapbooks from many years ago (the 20s and 30s) which had drawings by students, photographs, and text of past field trips. The field trip scrapbooks have not been scanned, but parts of other scrapbooks have. These scrap books are acidic and deteriorating. The digitization of these scrapbooks represent a significant part of what CAP can offer to the Natural Science department. There are cans of film, CDs, and DVDs which Dean Douglass said needed to be looked at in order to know what kind of information they contain. The films are in danger of deteriorating and should be examined soon. CAP is the perfect vehicle to help with such an endeavor and to suggest digitization if it necessary.

Dean Douglass ended our meeting by taking us to the Stanton Hill Geology Museum which was absolutely stunning. There were all kinds of rocks, gems, crystals, and the like of which I have no knowledge to name. Meeting with Dean Douglass was a truly wonderful introduction to the Campus Archive Project. Later in the week, I contacted Dean Douglass and we met in the Shatford Library to track down a year book his grandmother is in. We found her senior class picture in the 29-30 copy of Campus and he left with a very good copy.

Research Project: Mabel B. Peirson

I will be meeting with the patron who requested information on Mabel B. Peirson on Tuesday, April 8th at 3pm in the Shatford Library to give him the materials I collected. I look forward to this and I will recount our meeting in the next blog.

Cabinet Project:

I continued with the cabinet project by putting the first drawer's posters in alphabetical order. I also created a list of all the materials that are there for a specific finding list that I will print out and put in the Finding List Folder.

Next Week:

1) Continue spreadsheet for Courier Archive Project.

2) Create a spreadsheet of the CAP to track meetings, etc.

3) Set up meetings with more Deans for CAP.

4) Organize the Cabinet, drawer 2.

5) Organize the proof sheets and negatives of the other material outside of the Courier.