Records management at Apple

I've been meaning to post about this matter for a few days, but haven't had the chance . . . .

During the past few months, Apple and Psystar have been engaged in a running legal battle: Apple alleges that Psystar, which sells computers that come with Mac OSX installed, is guilty of copyright infringement, and Psystar alleges that Apple, which does not want other companies to sell computers that have Mac OSX operating system software factory installed, violates antitrust laws. Psystar's antitrust claims have just been dismissed, but it looks as if Apple's suit is going to make it to court in 2009.

From an electronic records angle, the most interesting aspect of this dispute is that it's led Apple to disclose some information about its electronic records management practices. The Industry Standard, which was apparently the first media outlet to make note of this fact, reproduces in its entirety a document outlining Apple's and Psystar's agreed-upon rules for responding to each others' requests for evidence; you can either view this document via the Justia.com scroll box that appears at the bottom of the page or download a copy in PDF format.

The good stuff is on pages 7-8 of the document, which contains Apple's statement about its routine records management practices and the actions it has taken as a result of the lawsuit:

At Apple, individual employees are tasked with maintenance of their own files including hard copy documents, emails, voicemails and other electronically recorded materials. Apple has not implemented any programs that result in the automatic deletion of emails. Similarly Apple does not determine which voicemails are saved or deleted by an individual recipient. However, the voicemail system is set up to delete saved messages after ninety days. At the institution of this lawsuit, Apple identified a group of employees who could potentially have documents relevant to the issues reasonably evident in this action. Apple then provided those individuals with a document retention notice which included a request for the retention of any relevant documents, including but not limited to emails, voicemails and other electronically-recorded materials relating to the issues in this lawsuit. As a result of the counterclaims asserted by Psystar, Apple has also sent out a follow-up retention notice asking for the retention of documents reasonably relevant to the antitrust and unfair competition claims asserted by Psystar. Apple will be working with Psystar to narrow the list of individuals from whom documents will be retrieved for purposes of this lawsuit.

As the Industry Standard asserts, it's a bit startling that a large (no. 103 on the 2008 Fortune 500 list), publicly traded technology company would have such a . . . decentralized approach to the management of its records. However, I don't think that Apple's approach is inherently "negligent," as an unnamed attorney specializing in e-discovery is quoted as saying. I also have to take issue with the Industry Standard's assertion that Apple has "no company-wide policy for archiving, saving, or deleting" records. Apple's policy is indeed company-wide -- it just makes individual employees responsible for managing the records they create or receive.

Is Apple's policy as good as it could be? No. Records managers concur that the best approach to the management of electronic records involves use of recordkeeping systems that have built-in records management applications. These applications manage records centrally, inform records managers when a given grouping of records has reached the end of its legal retention period and can thus be destroyed, and enable them to suspend the destruction of records that might be needed as a result of litigation.

However, it's plain that Apple is not the only large corporation struggling with electronic records management issues. Cohasett Associates' 2007 Electronic Records Management Survey: A Call for Collaboration reveals that although companies have begun addressing e-discovery concerns, incorporating electronic records into records schedules, and moving responsibility for day-to-day management of electronic records out of the hands of IT staff, they still have a lot of work to do:

• For most organizations, a great deal still remains to be done to achieve credibility in the management of their electronic records and, in time, a sustainable “best practice” level performance.
• Major gaps and risks related to the handling of archival and backup media were confirmed.
  
• Significant gaps in accountability for day-to-day management of all types of electronic records were reported.

So Apple isn't alone in having a less-than-perfect policy, and I can think of several reasons it hasn't adopted an more technologically oriented approach to records management. To date, it hasn't developed any recordkeeping/records management products of its own, and its vertically integrated business model, secretive corporate culture, and legitimate security concerns may militate against use of products developed by other tech firms.

Short of implementing a recordkeeping system that has a built-in records management application, how could Apple improve its records management policy? Well, one key element that Apple doesn't seem to have addressed (at least in this filing) is training, which is a prerequisite for the success of any records management policy. Sending out policy notices to staff is one thing. Explaining -- on more than one occasion -- the reasons for the policy, the importance of adhering to it, and how records management fits into the day-to-day operations of the organization is another, and organizations that fail to do so often find that their policies aren't producing the desired results.

Apple's statement also neglects to mention the extent to which its records management policy has executive support. Are the policy directives being distributed by counsel or mid-level managers with little fanfare, or are Steve Jobs and other senior managers repeatedly driving home the importance of adhering to these policies -- and ensuring that staff have the time needed to do so?

Finally, what of Psystar? Judging from the filing outlining Apple's and Psystar's agreement regarding responses to discovery request, it doesn't have any sort of records management policy in place. Here is the full text of Psystar's statement concerning its records:

Counsel for Psystar has personally counseled the principals of Psystar as to the retention of documents and other information as they pertain to the issues in this lawsuit. A retention notice was subsequently issued to the principals of Psystar memorializing the same. Retention of documents includes but is not limited to electronic mail, physical documents and things, and other electronically-recorded materials.

I get the distinct impression that even though Apple is falling short of the mark, it has devoted much more attention to records management issues than Psystar has. However, given that Psystar seems to have appeared out of thin air (even its physical location is a bit of a mystery), perhaps that's not surprising.

Update, 29 November 2008: In the interest of full disclosure, I've been an Apple user since the mid-1980s, when my parents purchased an Apple II-series machine, and my trusty (so far) mid-2007 MacBook is my constant companion. However, I don't believe that the company is infallible or that its products are flawless: I know two people who have had serious problems with the hard drives of brand-new late 2006 and late 2007 MacBooks, and I have my own Apple horror story involving a PowerBook 150.

Questions for the next Archivist of the United States

The Government Accountability Office has just released a new report, Confirmation of Political Appointees: Eliciting Nominees’ Views on Management Challenges within Agencies and across Government, that provides an overview of the core questions that people nominated to head each federal agency should be able to answer.

The report is broken down into 35 appendices, 7 of which concern topics that the head of any agency must able to address: acquisition management; collaboration; financial management; human capital management; information and technology management (alas, no mention of records management); results-oriented decision making; real property management and security.

The other 28 appendices contain questions specific to each of the 28 major executive branch agencies. Appendix XXI (found on page 100 of the report) concerns the National Archives and Records Administration. Somehow, in all of the excitement surrounding the election, I failed to realize that Allen Weinstein might leave NARA shortly after the inauguration; I just hope that if he opts to resign or President Obama requests his resignation, the circumstances that propel the nomination of his successor prove less contentious than those that surrounded Dr. Weinstein's nomination.

Interestingly, the GAO has identified only four questions that should be asked of any prospective Archivist of the United States. All of them concern electronic records:

1. Have you guided or advised transitions from paper to electronic records before? What experiences could you bring to this position that would enable you to effectively lead the government’s transition to electronic records?

2. What challenges in managing and preserving electronic records have you helped address?

3. Please describe your experience or knowledge related to managing, implementing, or using records management tools or principles to ensure that critical business information, such as information in e-mail messages, is available to those who need it when they need it.

4. One of NARA’s most critical projects is the development of the Electronic Records Archive [sic], which is to preserve and provide access to federal and presidential records. Have you led the development and implementation of large systems before? What, in your view, are the critical factors for successfully managing such an effort?

I'm looking forward to hearing the nominee's responses.

New York State Archives e-mail guidelines, part three

A few days ago, I noted that New York State Archives' new publication, Developing a Policy for Managing Email, had been released. At the time of my initial post, the PDF version of the publication that was on the State Archives site was a bare-bones version that lacked a cover page and other niceties.

Now, our parent agency's design personnel have created a new cover and layout for it. We still have to fix a few minor formatting quirks, but we've made the new version available via the Web.

To the best of my knowledge, Developing a Policy for Managing Email is the most attractive technical publication we've ever produced. Of course, its content would have be just as good if it were hand-written on scrap paper; I'm nonetheless happy that it's been packaged so nicely.

I'm particularly glad that my colleague Ann Marie, who spent months grappling with e-discovery, records scheduling and retention, information security, and other issues associated with e-mail management while writing this publication, got to choose the final cover design. She put a lot of thought and effort into this publication, which deserves an appealing design.

CBGB records

CBGB, the legendary New York City club that introduced the nation to punk, closed its doors for good in 2006. I never availed myself of the opportunity to see a show there: when I first started spending time in New York City, I was in grad school and too poor to go to clubs, and by the time I got out of grad school the Village Vanguard was more my style. However, friends and I were hanging out in the Bowery on one cold night in January 1997 and ended up in front of CBGB. We were all impoverished grad students (we were in the city because the American Historical Association was meeting there) and most of us disliked the band that was playing that night, so we ultimately decided not to go in. We nonetheless got just a bit of the CBGB experience: as we were standing on the street, debating whether we could or should cough up the cover charge, a young woman ran out of the club and threw up into the gutter. Classic.

After the club closed, its innards were pulled out and sent to various places: the bar went to some place in Connecticut, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame took the iconic awning bearing the club's name, and the furniture and all kinds of other stuff was boxed up and taken to a self-storage unit in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; check out this disorienting panoramic view of the space.

The self-storage unit also serves as the offices of the new business operated by Louise Parnassa-Stanley, who served as the club's manager for 22 years:

There is grim commentary to be found in the fact that Ms. Parnassa-Staley — who once booked acts like Hatebreed and Cattle Decapitation — now makes business calls for CBGB Fashions, a clothing operation run from the storage unit that sells T-shirts, belt buckles, onesies for kids, even a CBGB dog vest for your poodle. That ghastliness is matched only by the news that the club’s former barman, Ger Burgman, son-in-law of the deceased owner, Hilly Kristal himself, is now the customer service representative for online accounts.

The commodification of rock is, of course, as old as feedback; still, the thought that CBGB, the cradle of punk, has, if not exactly sold out, then perhaps entered "a period where new opportunities are being explored," is enough to make you want to bang your head. The one saving grace in all this disillusionment is that the offices are at least punk rock. For one thing, they’re in a mini-storage unit. Beyond that, the desk where the orders come in is the old admission desk from the club.

I guess we all have to grow up and get day jobs. However, this article caught my eye not only because it made me painfully aware of my advancing age but also because the club's business records are among the things sitting in that Williamsburg self-storage space:

Among the opportunities being explored is what to do with the club’s vast trove of paperwork, now contained in several Rolling Rock and Budweiser boxes: set lists, guest lists, band contracts and numerous notebooks used for audition notes and in-house music reviews. It amounts to an archive on the New York scene from 1973 to roughly when the club shut down.

Someone, for instance, has written of the band Communiqué: "Idiots." And when Mindless Self Indulgence played the club, it was said: "Two coked-out moms. Two guys trying to get it on in the bathroom. And the police are here."

I hope that these records will ultimately end up in a repository. If they do, they won't be the first major archival collection to document the development of punk music and culture: Richard Hell, who has morphed into a novelist, film critic, and occasional book reviewer for the New York Times (some day jobs are cooler than others), sold his personal papers to New York University's Fales Library:

Given the ephemeral nature of downtown literature and punk rock, to say nothing of the lifestyles of the people who made it, Hell's archives are a marvel of accumulation. In his life Hell walked away from his Kentucky upbringing, his family name, his musical career and a drug habit. But if you sent him a letter, or if he started a poem, it probably found its way to a box or filing cabinet in his small, cluttered apartment, in a building where Allen Ginsberg once lived . . . .

In pristine surroundings, scholars will soon be able to pore over old set lists, posters, videotapes, audiotapes, drafts of lyrics, manuscripts and erotic drawings. The papers will be part of the library's extensive collection of documents from the downtown art scene of the 1970's and 1980's.

Judging from the container list, the Richard Hell Papers contain some really interesting stuff, including: journals, business records and other materials from small press imprints and journals that he started, records documenting his membership in the bands Television and the Voidoids, and materials relating to his roles in the films Blank Generation (named after the first album he and the Voidoids released) and Smithereens.

Fales Library paid Hell $50,000 for his papers, and its director, Marvin Taylor, anticipated that they would be used:

''Students at N.Y.U. come to us and they want to do papers on tattoos, graffiti and punk rock,'' Mr. Taylor said. ''They know that they can come in . . . [because] some crazy punk guy came and talked in their class.''

Some people might question whether records such as those created by CBGB warrant preservation; after all, Richard Hell is now a respected writer, but CBGB was always a drunken (among other things) and riotous place. However, CBGB's records do shed light upon a wide array of musical and (counter) cultural trends, and we archivists strive to document society in all of its complexity. Let's hope that Fales Library or some other repository takes them in.

Several years ago, I found a copy of Blank Generation in the bargain DVD bin at KMart. It's not a great film, but it's not a bad one, either.

"The war is still there"

We archivists are always telling funders and other stakeholders that archival records are of interest not only to genealogists and academics but also to a wide array of other people and that the information contained in some of our records may be life-saving.

Case in point: photographs and other records held by the Air Force Historical Research Agency, which is part of Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. An article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal highlights how its holdings enable German construction forms to locate, remove, and safely detonate unexploded ordinance:

During World War II, American planes dropped 1.5 million tons of bombs on Europe. Perhaps nine out of 10 exploded on impact.

In a library in Alabama, Dietmar Staude hunts for the 10th.

Mr. Staude, a German consultant, has perfected the art of using World War II air-raid records and aerial photographs to find unexploded bombs. It's a lucrative business designed to help German construction companies comply with laws requiring them to clear live ordnance before breaking ground . . . .

Over the years, Mr. Staude's work has uncovered, among other explosives, 21 live bombs on the site of a planned industrial park, a 500-pound bomb just 50 yards from a new water park and another weapon that landed and then tunneled 45 feet without exploding . . . .

Several German states require builders to conduct unexploded-ordnance surveys. Failure to carefully do so can prove deadly. In 1993, a crew building a retaining wall in Berlin hit the nose fuse on a British bomb, killing three people.

Although Staude does a lot of research at the Air Force Historical Research Agency, his work has also taken him to many other repositories in the United States and Europe:

One of Mr. Staude's projects has been going on for 14 years. On Aug. 16, 1944, B-17 heavy bombers from the 8th Air Force raided an oil refinery at Rositz, in eastern Germany. Half a century later, the state government decided it wanted to turn the site into an industrial park for environmental-technology companies.

Searching through document collections in Germany, England, Alabama and the U.S. National Archives in College Park, Md., Mr. Staude pieced together a history of the raid.

He discovered photos, taken from a hot-air balloon in 1917 and printed on glass, that showed the refinery surrounded by farmland. He found an RAF reconnaissance photo taken in 1943, showing tar-storage tanks ill-concealed under camouflage netting. He found the briefing document used to guide the pilots to the most vital target buildings; on top it read, "Not to be taken into the air." He found photos showing 500-pound bombs tumbling through the air toward the complex that day in 1944, as well as pictures showing dark smoke, sprouting like a giant cauliflower from the burning factory . . . .

Five days after the raid, a Royal Air Force plane snapped clear pictures that showed the facility and nearby farms pocked by bomb craters. Most resembled moon craters, with a big hole in the middle surrounded by blast marks in the dirt.

One, in a field, showed a circular spray, but no large hole in the center. Mr. Staude concluded that the bomb had landed in soft dirt, splashing mud but failing to detonate.

Another showed a tiny mark alongside what appear to be bales of hay. He concluded that a bomb had punctured dry earth on that spot, but didn't explode. "This is a dud," [Mr. Staude] said, pointing to the spot on the photo.

Both bombs, he figured, were still buried on the site. Over the years, explosives experts have dug up 21 bombs, including one that penetrated about 20 feet into the soft ground, bounced off a subterranean gravel bed, traveled sideways 45 feet underground and finally came to rest six feet from the surface, pointed upward.

Staude cannot always travel to the Air Force Historical Research Agency to do research, so Archie DiFante, one of the archivists on staff, sends copies of photographs and maps to Germany upon request. Information supplied by DiFante helped Staude and his colleagues locate one of the two unexploded bombs at the Rositz site; it was buried adjacent to the site of a future water park, and the park's developers had already begun digging.

As DiFante, who has become a good friend of Staude's, points out: "We bombed the living daylights out of everything in Germany. The war is still there." However, thanks to archival records documenting the bombings and to the work of archivists such as DiFante, Mr. Staude and other researchers trying to track down unexploded bombs are helping to ensure that it doesn't claim any more lives.

What's all this, then?

A couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune to attend a New York Library Association session on blogging. Jill-Hurst Wahl and Ken Rothman both stressed the importance of clearly defining the mission and scope of one's blog. It struck me that I had been less than clear -- in both my mind and this blog -- about my goals for this blog and that a little clarification might be in order.

For the past several years, I've spent most of my working life dealing with electronic records, and the archival profession is still grappling with how best to appraise, acquire, preserve, and provide access to archival electronic records. I see this blog as a means of contributing, in a modest and informal way, to these ongoing struggles and to share information that comes my way.

I first started thinking about starting a blog earlier this year, when I attended an Arlington, Virginia meeting sponsored by the Library of Congress's National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program (NDIIPP). NDIIPP has awarded grant monies to a number of collaborative projects that seek to preserve a wide array of electronic archival records and publications, among them the Persistent Digital Archives and Library System PeDALS project, in which my repository was involved. In July, it brought representatives from each project partner to Arlington to exchange information and ideas, and as a result I got to hear not only about other state government projects but also about the Global Digital Format Registry, efforts to preserve virtual worlds such as Second Life, the nuts-and-bolts aspects of collaborative work, and lots of other interesting things.

I kept thinking that it was a shame that there were only roughly 100 people present: many of the presentations were fascinating, would no doubt be of interest to other archivists and other cultural heritage professionals. However, I wasn't quite ready to make the commitment to blogging at that time; fortunately, all of the presentations delivered at the Arlington meeting have been posted on the NDIIPP Web site.

I finally took the plunge in mid-August, but I did so largely because of one of my other goals for l'Archivista: to create an immediate and accessible record of some aspects of my own life. I finally purchased a digital camera, and I was planning to take a few days' vacation in San Francisco before the Society of American Archivists meeting convened there at the end of the month, so I knew I would have something to write about. As a result, most of the initial entries in this blog constitute a travelogue, not a commentary on professional issues or events.

Jill Hurst-Wahl and David Rothman both advocate maintaining separate personal and professional blogs. I can certainly understand why they take this position: people who read professional blogs generally don't want to wade through tons of baby pictures, political diatribes, etc. Moreover, an excess of such content on a professional blog can give the impression that one lacks seriousness or judgment.

However, at least at this point in time, l'Archivista is my only blog. I view the world through an archival lens, and as a result my first response to new experiences, current events, or the culture at large is often: "How did this come to be? Are there records documenting its origins and evolution? If so, who has them?" Life is a big, messy, records-centric blur, and this blog is in some respects a record of my responses to and involvement in it. This record isn't exhaustive -- it doesn't capture the minutiae of my workdays or my time away from the office -- but it does document many of the things that catch and hold my attention, at least for a few minutes or hours, if not longer.

Finally, this blog allows me to highlight events and developments that may be of interest to archivists who don't work with electronic records. In grad school and as a younger archivist, I worked with paper records and every now and then I still do so. I still pay attention to paper records when they're discussed in the media and the professional literature, and I don't think I will ever stop doing so. Sometimes, the things I read bounce around in my head for some time, and blogging about them helps me to fix my thoughts and move onto the next issue or concern.

So that's why I blog. I enjoy doing it, even though it takes even more time than I had initially anticipated, and I hope that you find at least some of my posts to be worthwhile.

Living in a tank, diving in a tunnel

Last April, a friend and I were in Scranton, Pennsylvania for the Spring 2007 meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference. After the meeting ended, we went on the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour. A retired miner shepherded our group into a mechanized mine car that took us approximately 300 feet below ground into a mine that had opened in the 1860s and been shut down over 100 years later. We then spent about half an hour walking through a modern section of the mine, which had electric lights and current safety equipment; it was nonetheless damp and dimly lit, and the air had a petrochemical smell that one could almost taste.

The tour emphasized the horrors of nineteenth-century mining life -- long hours, wretched pay, employment of boys not yet in their teens, omnipresent danger, utter indifference to worker safety and welfare on the part of managers and owners -- but it was abundantly plain that mining is still an incredibly demanding job. Throughout the tour, I kept thinking about my late uncle, a taciturn, gentle man who spent almost all of his working life as a coal miner and whose decades of exposure to coal dust hastened his death, and all of the other men on my mother's side of the family who worked in the mines of southern West Virginia.

After the tour ended and we were once again enjoying the warmth and sunshine above ground, my friend turned to me and said, "What a fascinatingly horrible job!" I knew exactly what she meant. Mining is physically and psychologically arduous, but people do it and become accustomed to it -- and the rest of us are thoroughly dependent upon the fruits of their labor. Miners (and others who perform other fascinatingly horrible jobs) make modern life possible. Even this little blog, which is brought to you via electricity (a little less than half of New York State's electric power is generated by coal-burning or nuclear power plants), metal wires, and computers with metal parts, wouldn't be possible without it.

Those of us who are fortunate enough to have reliable and safe running water and sewage systems are also dependent upon people who do grueling work. The system of reservoirs and tunnels that supplies water to the five boroughs of New York City extends over one hundred miles to the north and west of the city, and maintaining and upgrading the system is a complicated and never-ending task.

One of the tunnels that forms part of this system -- the the Rondout-West Branch tunnel that moves water from the Catskills to the city -- has been leaking rather badly: according to the New York Times, the New York City Department of Environmental Preservation (NYC DEP) estimates that the tunnel loses an average of 20 million gallons a day and that on some days as much as 36 million gallons have been lost.

After tiptoeing around the problem for many years, and amid mounting complaints of flooded homes in the Ulster County hamlet of Wawarsing, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection has embarked on a five-year, $240 million project to prepare to fix the tunnel — which includes figuring out how to keep water flowing through New Yorkers’ faucets during the repairs. The most immediate tasks are to fix a valve at the bottom of a 700-foot shaft in Dutchess County so pumps will eventually be able to drain the tunnel, and to ensure that the tunnel does not crack or collapse while it is empty.

If the fixing of this valve isn't fascinatingly horrible work, I don't know what is:

. . . . The city has enlisted six deep-sea divers who are living for more than a month in a sealed 24-foot tubular pressurized tank complete with showers, a television and a Nerf basketball hoop, breathing air that is 97.5 percent helium and 2.5 percent oxygen, so their high-pitched squeals are all but unintelligible. They leave the tank only to transfer to a diving bell that is lowered 70 stories into the earth, where they work 12-hour shifts, with each man taking a four-hour turn hacking away at concrete to expose the valve.

. . . . Three divers at a time climb into the steel bell, an orb that is lowered down the shaft for 20 minutes to reach the pumping equipment in the tunnel. The bell is tethered to a bundle of cables carrying air, communication lines, electricity and water. Each diver works for four hours and rests underwater for eight before returning to the tank at the surface, where 32 more employees of Global Diving and Salvage, the Seattle company running the project, pass meals, clothes and books through an air lock.

. . . . The divers can request whatever food they like, including steak and fresh salads. But the air pressure in the tank dulls the taste buds, so they use a lot of Tabasco, salsa and jalapenos; bread goes flat, more pita than challah. Once the operation is complete, the divers must remain in the tank for a week to gradually wean themselves off helium.

“They lose a lot of weight because they’re burning so many calories,” said Robert Onesti, who is running the project for Global Diving. “It’s not for everybody. It’s heavy construction work, and it’s deep.”

According to Global Diving and Salvage, living in a pressurized tank for the duration of a project is actually better for the divers, who are less exposed to the threats associated with decompression. However, as the firm points out, it's also better for the company and for governments and corporations that contract with the firm: the divers spend less time acclimating to pressure changes and more time working, and they can work in shifts around the clock.

I wonder how many New Yorkers ever think, in any sort of serious way, about the source of their tap water, the complexity of the infrastructure that delivers it to them, and the human sacrifices that are needed in order to keep the system running. Of course, New York City isn't unique in this respect: running water is one of the everyday miracles of modern life, and all of us owe a debt to the people whose hard and unpleasant work makes it possible.

Owing to the sheer size and scope of the New York City water system, archival records documenting its development and maintenance are held by the New York City Municipal Archives, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYC DEP hired its own archivist/records manager several years ago, but I don't know if she's still with the department),
the New York State Archives, county, town and village clerks' offices throughout the region (the Ulster County Clerk's Office has created an online exhibit relating to the Ashokan Reservoir), and historical societies, college and university special collections departments, and other historical records repositories throughout the region. Here's hoping that someone develops a comprehensive guide to these widely dispersed holdings, that Global Diving and Salvage has a good records management program and is keeping records of enduring value, and that some enterprising oral historian interviews at least a few of those divers . . . .

Update, 28 November 2008: As I was preparing to send a link to this post to the friend who found mining to be a "fascinatingly horrible job," I noticed that I had forgotten to link to the article that inspired this post and from which all of the block quotes come. I've amended the body of this post so that a link to the article is incorporated, but for the record here's the full citation: Ken Belson, "Plumber's Job on a Giant's Scale: Fixing New York's Drinking Straw," New York Times, 22 November 2008, online edition.

This inadvertent and mortifying error is the end result of blogging while overly tired, which I'll try to avoid in the future; the "Save as Draft" feature in Blogger exists for a reason.