Allan Appel photo
Frank and Paula Panzarella, wearing some of their archive.
For people who have devoted their lives to organizing, Paula and Frank Panzarella have finally been able to confess: They are quite disorganized –what with a house full of flyers, posters, political buttons, a battalion’s worth of t‑shirts, white papers, position papers, an original of the Port Huron Statement, a mantle of other manifestos, diaries, and correspondence from decades of a meaningful life of political and social activism and organizing dating back to the 1960s.
So now the question arises: What in the world to do with all of it?
That sometimes overwhelming dilemma – and opportunity – is what brought them and two dozen other packrats and stewards of family photos and memorabilia to the community room of the Main Ives Branch of the New Haven Public Library at 133 Elm St. on smoky Wednesday night.
There Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library archivist Jennifer Coggins was on hand to offer some hope, relief, and practical suggestions for how to keep documents safe, with an hour’s introductory lecture on preserving materials in different formats for future generations.
After audience members like the Panzarellas and retired professionals Jo Kremer and Mary Ellen Savage (friends happily re-meeting at the event after several years) asked for help with incentives, with how to choose to between what you love and what you need, how to find the right box or locations, and how to deal with different media, paper and digital, Coggins offered some general pointers, beginning with antidotes for the Overwhelming.
Jennifer Coggins.
And then came a key point that elicited (at least to this packrat’s ears) a small but audible exhalation of relief all around the room: “Remember that you are not preserving forever. Only until you can pass it [whatever the material in question] on to the next steward. This makes me feel easier in my responsibility.”
“The best option,” she added, “is the option that can work for you,” given factors like the amount of time and money available for the project.
Someone in the audience had burial records in her charge from a congregation in New York City. Westvillian Mary Ellen Savage had two 19th-century Bibles, with precious birth and death and marriage dates of family members passed along to her from her great grandparents’ generation up in Calais, Maine.
And another woman described the challenge of being in a small apartment “with tons of photos, in boxes, digital, different formats … and I’ve also kept theatre programs that I don’t’ want to give up, which I’d like to be able to access. I’d like to have a plan.”
Before she offered general good ideas on a plan and materials, Coggins was at pains to compliment her interlocutors: Their collections — some elements of which may end up in libraries, museums, and displays — are going, potentially, to alter history.
Here’s how she put it: In the past, elites, not regular people’s materials found their way into collections and archives, on the basis of which historians did their work. “So preserving your materials is a way to work to counter traditional narratives in the way we see the present and the past.”
Now the plan, or the spiritual approach to the plan: First, Coggins suggested, you overcome feeling overwhelmed by prioritizing. “Maybe ask what’s most vulnerable without intervention. Also just starting small. If you have, for example, a lot of digital records on different formats, maybe start with the most fragile, like CDs. Also, realize that lots of things will be okay without lots of intervention.”
Then comes prioritizing: What do you really love? Ask yourself, she suggested, if you are keeping items for yourself. For family and friends? For your community? Perhaps for historians, and, if the latter, then online there are ways to find an institution that might be appropriate.
Once you know what you want to keep – usually in boxes and folders – how to decide what should be separate and what together. As Paula Panzarella put it, “If I have letters that refer to an [historical] event and the event itself has a separate file [or box] of its own materials?”
Coggins’ advice was to use cross-referencing in the form of written “file aids,” and also to “try to keep them, the [separate but related] folders and boxes in close proximity to each other.”
Archivists are also a lot about maintaining “context,” Coggins said. She illustrated her advice about being careful not to separate connected materials and lose that context with this story: One woman wanted to organize a wide range of letters chronologically, “but that meant breaking the group or source of where the letters came from.”
Then Coggins moved on to an awareness of the forces arrayed against preservation of what you have loved, prioritized, and organized
It read like an archivist’s version of the plagues of Egypt: water and humidity that lead to mold; light that fades and foxes; heat and temperature; dirt, smoke, and pollution; insects; damage from handling; and contact with containers, fasteners, or other materials that degrade and cause damage over time.
Among the latter items most to be avoided: rubber bands that go brittle, snap, and stain; adhesive tape; acidic materials and certain plastics that degrade paper (look for acid-free polyester and mylar sleeves); and evil metal clips that will rust and stain paper are true culprits.
There followed a brief but useful conversation about staples: As evil as the metal clip? Answer: “It often depends on what and where it is being stored. With two stapled items, for example, one might be okay, another not. Also if it’s a letter, a clip or staple could lead to discoloration, that’s one thing [that might be okay]; a work of art another.”
Jo Kremer and Mary Ellen Savage.
Coggins concluded with how critical is the storage location: What’s most preferable is a cool, dry, dark, off-the-floor, low-light environment. “If you take away nothing else from this presentation, it’s location. The wrong locations have caused the most catastrophies.”
Listeners took away more. As the meeting broke up, Panzarella said she was a little more inspired to put things in order. Deciding what’s important, she added, is now going to have to do with “separating the personal from things of a more historic perspective that people would find valuable beyond me.”
“All my diaries and journals” — Paula said in high school she had 15 pen pals, including one person who participated in the historic 1968 Paris student movement– “may not be as valuable as a button.”
While Coggins’ presentation is not yet online at the Beinecke, there are many guides available, including those related to personal digital archiving – a main point there is to have material on more than one device and format. Coggins recommended the Penn State Libraries Guide to Personal Digital Archiving.
And for exploring what archives and their collecting priorities are out there, the recommendation is Archive Grid.
Coggins intends to bring her presentation to other Elm City venues, although no dates certain yet. In an email after the meeting she added, “I also plan to start offering more in-depth sessions on specific topics — for example, organization records or photographs.”
And she’s available to answer questions: Jennifer.coggins@yale.edu