Archival Balance
The word “archives” refers to both documents and records relating to the activities of a person, family, corporation, etc, and the place where these historical documents are kept. Within the city of Cleveland, these archives are hidden deep within many institutions, and generally exist without pomp. However, a trip to the archive of the Cleveland Orchestra reveals not only the importance of the writing within the archives but also the writing that is used to organize, preserve, and promote the artifacts.
The Cleveland Orchestra’s website claims that its archive’s “prime function is to organize, preserve, and promote the historical records of the institution.” (http://www.clevelandorchestra.com/html/Education/AdultLearning.asp)
Each one of these tasks requires a great deal of writing that falls on the archivist or their colleagues. In meeting with the archivist of the Cleveland Orchestra, Amy Dankowski, it is easy to identify many facets of her position that can easily fall into these three categories.
Under the topic of organization, she and others have created “finding aides” to speed up the process of locating artifacts. Acting as a more-detailed table of contents, these aids provide a researcher with a brief summary of the different parts of the archive so that they may avoid digging through the artifacts piece by piece. This tool has been created over the years as additional archives are added and represents an enormous investment in writing on behalf of the archivists.
The preservation of these archives is the next integral factor of an archivist’s job. Dankowski related the fact that some of the orchestra’s documents are readily accessible to the public while others have restricted access. Therefore, in the preservation of archives, one must sort through the documents to categorize the level of clearance one must obtain before viewing them. As part of this, the archivist must also make the documents that are expected to be used more frequently readily available (i.e. keeping them at Severance Hall rather than shipping them off elsewhere). Once this sorting is complete, the physical mechanics of the preservation can be as simple as storing financial reports in boxes or keeping fragile documents in microfilm.
The final expectation of an archivist is to promote the archives. Dankowski has found several ways to fulfill this task through different means. She recently created a timeline that points out significant dates in the history of the Cleveland Orchestra in order to educate the public about the rich history of the organization. Also, she re-wrote the script used by tour guides in order to make it much more historically accurate and invigorating. One last example Dankowski provided was a time when she dug up old photos of past events to put on display when a group of elderly women were meeting within the hall. She mentioned that other archivists might be surprised to learn that she allowed the women to handle these pictures. However, Dankowski noted that fact that a large part of her job is to balance these different roles of her job (in this case specifically preserving and promoting).
After listening to Amy Dankowski speak about her position, I learned that success as an archivist revolves around the effective balancing of the organization, preservation, and promotion of archives. If she merely preserved the documents and didn’t allow anyone to see them, they would serve no purpose and might as well be thrown away. If she allowed anyone to handle the documents without restrictions, damages may occur to these vital pieces of history. Finally, if there was no organization to the archives, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack if someone was looking for a specific document. Although I have illustrated quite an issue in the profession of an archivist, the cure is relatively simple: merely being cognizant of this balance will ensure the success of the archive.
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