Capital Area Archivists FDR Library-CIA Library visit

On Friday, about twenty members of the Capital Area Archivists of New York (CAA) toured two repositories in Hyde Park, New York: the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum and the Hilton Library at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA).

We began our tour at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. President Roosevelt was the first president to establish a library, and the manner in which he created it -- privately raising funds for construction of the facility and then donating the building and grounds to the federal government so that the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration could operate it -- established the model (now being re-examined) for the creation and maintenance of presidential libraries.

FDR himself designed the building, which is modeled upon the fieldstone houses that Dutch colonists and their descendants built in the mid- and lower Hudson Valley during the 17th and 18th centuries.

The FDR Library opened in 1941, and to date it is the only presidential library in which a sitting president has worked. President Roosevelt's study is now part of the museum that occupies most of the first floor of the building. The desk in the far corner of the room is an approximate replica (one of FDR's sons took possession of the original desk in 1945), but the rest of the furniture -- including the wheelchair fitted with an amber glass ashtray -- belonged to FDR.

Supervisory Archivist Bob Clark gave us a tour of the library's stacks. Although it's kind of hard to tell from the image above, the design of the stacks reflects one of FDR's abiding passions: the U.S. Navy. The "mid-deck" floor on which many of the archival records are stored was designed to look like the interior of a ship: most of the surfaces are painted battleship gray, the metal support beams running along the ceiling resemble those found on ships, and narrow metal staircases connect the mid-deck and other floors.

The design of the stacks also reflects a more practical concern: FDR made sure that the aisles were wide enough to accommodate his wheelchair. The aisles are now narrower than they were in FDR's day -- the records were rehoused in modern archival boxes a few decades ago, and the new boxes are larger than the old ones -- but the fact remains that the FDR Library is likely the first federal building to be designed with accessibility in mind.

Clark allowed us to take a look at a few of the repository's treasures, including the draft of President Roosevelt's 8 December 1941 address to Congress requesting a declaration of war against Japan. The manuscript edits are in FDR's own hand. If you look at the top right of the image above, you'll see he changed " a date which will live in world history" to "a date which will live in infamy."

The FDR Library is still the most heavily used of the presidential libraries, and just about everyone who studies the history of America during the 1930s and 1940s conducts research at the facility. We got a chance to see the research room, but left after a few minutes because a couple of researchers were getting ready to start working, and we didn't want to disturb them.

As you might guess, the research room is located on the uppermost floor of the library. Although it's hard to tell from the photograph above, there several dormer windows within the room, which means that some natural light spills in. It's a pleasant space, and, as Clark pointed out, its proximity to the stack areas means that staff can retrieve records immediately after a researcher requests them.

After we left the library, we walked to Springwood, the home in which FDR and in which he and his family lived while they were staying in the Hudson Valley. It's part of the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site, which is administered by the National Park Service.

Photography is not allowed inside Springwood, so you'll need to visit it yourself if you want to see what the interior looks like. If you go, you'll see all kinds of interesting things: FDR's methodically assembled boyhood collection of stuffed birds, his collection of anti-British political cartoons (which stayed up when King George VI visited the house), paintings reflecting his interest in sailing and the U.S. Navy, and the manually operated luggage lift that he used to pull himself up to the second floor of the house -- no mean feat. Springwood is filled with odd corners and little sets of stairs that must have made life extremely difficult for a man who made heavy use of a wheelchair.

After we left Springwood, many of us paid a quick visit to the rose garden, which contains the graves of President Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Fala, the president's beloved Scottish Terrier. As you can see, the rose garden is very close to the library.

After we left the FDR library and historic site, we made the quick drive to the CIA. Christine Crawford-Oppenheimer, who was initially hired as the institution's archivist and is also its reference librarian, met us in the lobby of the Conrad N. Hilton Library and answered many of our questions about the school, which occupies a former Jesuit novitiate and is the oldest culinary school in the United States.

She then took us on a tour of the school's archival and rare book collections, which are small but extremely interesting: the Hilton Library holds a substantial number of rare books concerning food and cookery and holds a large number of restaurant, train, and ship menus dating back to 1823. Some of the older menus have been digitized and are available online via the library's Web site or online catalog (do a keyword search for "digitized menus").

Before heading back to Albany, we stopped by the Apple Pie Bakery Café, the most casual of the student-run restaurants on the CIA campus, for a delicious light dinner. Everyone had a wonderful time, and I'm deeply thankful that we got the chance to see these repositories.

Capital Area Archivists event in Schenectady

Late this afternoon, about a dozen members of the Capital Area Archivists of New York met at the Schenectady County Historical Society.

The historical society is housed in an 1985 neo-Georgian home, and a modern addition behind the original building houses its library and archives.

Our host, librarian/archivist Katherine Chansky, first led us on a walking tour of Schenectady's historic Stockade District, which sits on the banks of the Mohawk River. The area was first settled in 1664, but all of the original structures were burned to the ground by a French and Mohawk raiding party in 1690. The settlement was rebuilt and quickly became a commercial center: until the Erie Canal opened, settlers heading west had to travel overland from Albany to Schenectady and then resume traveling by ship.

Although the area suffered a devastating fire in 1819, the neighborhood is home to many 18th-century buildings. Two of them, the Hendrick Brouwer House and the Abraham Yates House, may have been built in the late 17th century.

The Hendrick Brouwer House sits at 14 Front Street, and was known to have existed as of ca. 1705. Some of its cellar beams are 13 inches square, and its foundation walls are 25 inches thick.

Although the building has settled a bit with age (look closely at the doorframe), it is sturdy and well maintained.

The Abraham Yates House, which is at 109 Union Street, is a classic Dutch vernacular home; note the street-facing gable end. The portion of the house to the right of the front door is a later addition.

A look at the side of the Abraham Yates House reveals that it has in fact been the recipient of many additions.

Another structure of note is the Widow Kendall House at 10 North Ferry Street. The home was built ca. 1790, and for many years was the home of Annie Kendall, who did a good business selling cakes and ale. The home's facade likely assumed its present form during the early 19th century.

Joseph Yates, the first mayor of the city of Schenectady and the fourth governor of New York State (1823-1825), lived at 17 Front Street; Yates apparently didn't believe in patronage, so it's not surprising that he didn't have much of a career in state politics. Yates's three-story home was built in 1760, and the two-story addition on the left housed his law offices.


The small circular park at the intersection of Front, Ferry and Green Streets marks the site of Queen Anne's Fort, which was built in 1704 and housed approximately 300 soldiers. The statue at the center of the park commemorates Lawrence the Indian, a Christian Mohawk who befriended the Dutch and English and doggedly tracked the French and northern Mohawks responsible for the 1960 raid.

After about 45 minutes, we returned to the historical society for a tour of its museum, library and archives. The museum's exhibits document Schenectady's origins as a Dutch settlement, rise to commercial and industrial preeminence, and efforts to grapple with recent structural changes in the economy. It's a lot larger than it looks from the outside!

We held a brief business meeting in the museum's dining room:

• CAA President Amy Rupert (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Archives and Special Collections) outlined CAA's plans to tour of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in early October and to host a business meeting and event in November.

• I discussed the 2009 Best Practices Exchange and the Partnership for the American Historical Record initiative.
  

• Susan D'Entremont (Capital District Library Council) noted that the 2009 Capital Region Archives Dinner will be held on October 7. She also highlighted the CDLC's new CDLC Digital Collections site, which makes available digitized materials held by a growing number of libraries, archives, museums, and cultural organizations, and New York Heritage, a portal to digitized materials held by institutions throughout the state.

Our visit ended with a tour of the library and archives. The research room, which also houses the library, is incredibly airy and inviting. The large picture window in the back of the room overlooks a creek that feeds into the Mohawk River, and the high windows ensure that the space is flooded with light. Modern temperature and humidity controls (which the museum also has) keep the space cool and comfortable for both collections and people.

I didn't take any pictures of the archives storage area, which is located below the library. The historical society is running a bit short on shelf space (what archives isn't?), but hopes to be able to secure the funding needed to install compact shelving.

This was my first visit to the Schenectady County Historical Society and to the Stockade District, and I was really impressed. The historical society may have a small professional staff, but it's been able to secure a lot of community support and recruit a corps of dedicated and creative volunteers. It sits in the midst of a beautiful and historic neighborhood, and it's pretty plain that the historical society and the neighborhood have a close and mutually beneficial relationship. I'm planning a return visit soon.

Recovery efforts in Cologne

Those of us whose German is weak owe a debt of gratitude to Frank Schloeffel at Salon Jewish Studies, who is translating into English Klaus Graf's Archivalia updates on the recovery effort at the Historical Archives of the City of Cologne.

The latest translated post brings some good news: three shifts of 20 volunteer archivists are working non-stop at the site, and "up to 15-20% of the archival inventory" has been recovered. Among the materials recovered are two manuscripts written by medieval German theologian Albertus Magnus, dozens of medieval codices, and four of the five volumes of the 16th-century chronicle written by Cologne Councilman Hermann von Weinsberg. Of course, the condition of the records varies widely: some are in astonishingly good shape, while others are wet, torn, or both, and others are likely unsalvageable.

Some amazing photos of the recovery effort and recovered materials are available via Bild (mouse over the image to make scrolling arrows appear), the Kölnische Rundschau, and the Express; American readers should note that the Express page may include content that would likely be considered NSFW in the United States.

(Hat tip: Felipe Diez of Solidarity Köln Historisches Archiv)

More on the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne

The news from Cologne is, in many respects, profoundly disheartening. Earlier today, recovery personnel found the body of one of the young men who had been missing after the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne collapsed on March 3, and the authorities believe that the other missing man is also dead.

The archival losses are also staggering:

The archive's collection of original documents included thousands from Cologne's golden age. The founding charter of the University of Cologne, signed in 1388, was inside, along with the documents that established Cologne as a free imperial city under Emperor Friedrich III in 1475. Two of the four manuscripts in the hand of Albertus Magnus, considered the greatest German theologian of the Middle Ages, were kept in the archive's rare books collection.

For historians trying to reconstruct the past, the greatest loss may be the more quotidian papers: Tens of thousands of receipts issued by the city government between 1350 and 1450, for example, or the 358 volumes of decisions and minutes of the Cologne City Council dating back 700 years.

The archives also contained the personal papers of almost 800 prominent German authors, politicians and composers, including Konrad Adenauer, the first post-war chancellor of Germany. The manuscripts and letters of Nobel Prize winner Heinrich Böll and Jacques Offenbach, a 19th century cellist and opera composer, were stored at the archive. Weimar Republic politician Wilhelm Marx and German-Jewish composer Ferdinand Hiller were among the other notables whose collections have been buried under tons of concrete.

The German archival community is working feverishly to salvage as much of this priceless material as possible, and my thoughts and prayers are with them. Archivists working at the site have already recovered some documents. The weather is not cooperating and the site itself is dangerous, but they press on nonetheless. Other archivists and conservators are in the beginning stages of organizing a mammoth recovery effort and collecting researchers' scanned images or digital photographs of materials held by the Historical Archive.

American archivists concerned about the fate of the Historical Archives owe a special debt of gratitude to Klaus Graf, who has tirelessly compiled and shared news about the disaster and the recovery effort. Many of us in the United States first learned about the catastrophe in Cologne from his March 3 messages to the Archives & Archivists listserv, and his Archivalia posts have been a crucial source of information for archivists around the world. Dr. Graf is also the administrator of a new Facebook group, Solidarity Köln Historisches Archiv, to publicize developments in Cologne, direct prospective volunteers to the organizations coordinating various aspects of the response, and highlight organizations that are accepting financial contributions for the victims' families and for the recovery effort; thanks also to Felipe Diez for starting this group.

Collapse of the Historic Archive of the City of Cologne

The building housing the Historic Archive of the City of Cologne (Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln) is now a pile of rubble. Fortunately, staffers, researchers, and onsite construction workers inside the building were alarmed by strange noises and left immediately before the structure collapsed earlier today. However, at the time of this writing, three people who were in buildings adjacent to the archives are still missing.

At present, the cause of the building's collapse is unknown. A new subway line is being built under the street in front of the facility, but the section of the tunnel adjacent to the building is apparently complete. The building may also have had structural problems.

Until today, the repository in Cologne was the largest municipal archives in Germany. It held 500,000 photographs and 65,000 documents dating back to 922, including manuscripts by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and materials relating to 20th-century writer Heinrich Böll. Government officials have promised to help salvage the archives' records, but street-level and aerial photographs of the building's remains suggest that many of the records are beyond recovery.

My heart goes out to the families and friends of the missing people, and I hope that all of them were able to escape before the building collapsed or are rescued as quickly as possible. My heart also goes out to the staff of the archives; the loss of records under one's care is incredibly painful. Finally, my heart goes out to the people of Cologne, who have lost a substantial portion of their recorded history.

I suspect that I'm not alone in wanting to send a message of support to my colleagues in Cologne, but at present I'm not sure how to do so. The Historical Archives of the City of Cologne has a "friends" organization, but its very small site lacks an e-mail contact; it does have a PDF copy of a flier about the organization, but the mailing address on the flier is that of the archives itself. I also checked the the Web site of the Federation of German Archivists (Verband deutscher Archivarinnen und Archivare e.V.), but at present it doesn't have any information relating to the collapse. I'll keep looking, and if I find an appropriate point of contact I'll be sure to post an update. And if anyone out there in cyberspace finds a suitable contact, please let me know.

Cultural Education Center in winter

It's been a momentous week, and all kinds of interesting records-related developments have taken place, chief among them President Obama's issuance of a new presidential records executive order. However, I'm going to wait until the weekend to post about them. I'm doing a ton of research and writing at work this week, and the thought of pulling together a long post is a bit much right now.

In the meantime, here's a picture, taken on a bitterly cold evening in late November of last year, of the Cultural Education Center, which houses the New York State Archives (our stacks and some offices are located on the building's windowless uppermost floor), the New York State Library, and the New York State Museum.

This photograph really doesn't have any sort of deeper meaning -- even though New York State's budget situation looks pretty dark and icy -- and I post it simply because I've developed a deep fondness for the Cultural Education Center and the Empire State Plaza of which it is part. I realize that not everyone shares my views (I despised the plaza when I first moved to Albany), and I'm fully aware that the plaza is laden with deadening modernist cliches. Nonetheless, it is kind of cool to walk around a complex that looks like the set of a sci-fi movie, particularly at night. At any rate, I hope you enjoy this nighttime view of my workplace.

Arizona State Archives in the news

"The Polly," 21 October 2008.

Last October, the good folks at the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records gave all of the archivists, librarians, and IT people who attended the PeDALS grant project meeting in Phoenix a tour of their brand-new facility, the Polly Rosenbaum Archives and History Building. It really is a fantastic facility, and my Arizona colleagues are truly blessed to have such a wonderful building -- and such public recognition of the treasures with which they work every day.

This morning, the Arizona Republic ran a lengthy article on "the Polly," which will be formally dedicated next Wednesday. It's a nice piece, and one of the most gratifying things about it is the comments section: after one commenter flippantly or ignorantly dismissed the facility as a waste of money, several others promptly and emphatically asserted that the state's history was priceless and that records of past decisions and events were needed to guide future policies. It's good to know that history and archives have friends out there . . . .

Polly Rosenbaum Archives and History Building

After the second day of the PeDALS partners meeting ended, we went on a tour of the Polly Rosenbaum Archives and History Building, the new storage, processing, and research facility of the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records.

Staff moved into the building last week and are in the midst of doing tons of setup work, so I'm not going to post any photos of the interior. However, the building, which was built specifically to hold cultural heritage materials, is chock-full of great features, including:

• A dedicated isolation area, with blast freezer and humidification chamber, for incoming records transfers
• A secure public reading room that can accommodate tables for 10 researchers and a dedicated area for approximately 10 microfilm/microfiche reader-printers
• Separate processing areas for paper records, photographs, electronic records and audiovisual materials, and artifacts
  
• Seven storage compartments featuring tall (16 feet high) compact shelving
  
• Cold storage for microform masters
• A server room with hard-wired uninterruptible power supply, backup generators, and a backup HVAC system
• A large conservation lab
  
• Four separate HVAC systems, all of which can be monitored remotely, that are designed to remove pollutants and maintain consistent temperature and humidity
  
• Security cameras -- with remote monitoring capability -- in the research room, staff work areas, and storage areas
• Wired and wireless Internet access throughout the building
  

Although the building was designed to accommodate the State Library, Archives, and Public Records' needs for the next 50 years, the architects (one of whom is the man in jeans and a khaki t-shirt in the photograph above) deliberately designed the building to allow for expansion on one side. The architects also listened to staff and designed the building with archival needs and workflows in mind. As a result, my Arizona colleagues have a building that is not only attractive but highly functional. I'm glad for them -- and just a bit envious.