SAA 2011: Theft Transparency in the Digital Age

At long last, here it is: the last post concerning the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists. I’m really glad I got the chance to attend Session 705, Theft Transparency in the Digital Age: Stakeholder Perspectives, and my only regret is that so few people were able to do so: Irene caused a lot of East Coasters to leave Chicago on Friday evening or Saturday morning so that they could get home in advance of the storm. (My friend Maggi and I opted to remain in Chicago until Sunday -- a decision that turned what should have been a one-day, fourteen-hour car trip into a two-day, twenty-two hour adventure, but not a decision that I particularly regret.)

This post is going to be long, but the topic of archival security is an important one -- and one that is all too often overlooked until one’s own repository is affected. I work at a repository that recently experienced major theft, and, I urge you not to wait until a theft comes to light and your working life is upended by the experience. Archival security is every archivist’s responsibility.

My former colleague Brittany Turner opened the session by highlighting recent changes in the ways archivists deal with theft: the older view that theft is a shameful thing that should not be discussed is being replaced by a new emphasis on openness and transparency, new technological tools can help archivists and rare book dealers recover stolen materials, and a new conception of stakeholder relations is leading to the creation of a united front against theft.

Travis McDade of the College of Law, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign noted that, thanks to the Internet, archival theft is a growth industry and that thefts of archival materials are now outstripping thefts of rare books. He also stressed that repositories, which often experience the process of criminal prosecution as long, tedious, and frustrating, are starting to explore other ways of taking action against thieves. For example, after federal prosecutors declined to take action against a nighttime library supervisor who was stealing and selling materials from the Kenyon Review archives, Kenyon College successfully filed a civil suit against him. This individual, who was ultimately prosecuted and spent a year in jail, will spend the remainder of his life paying several hundred thousand dollars in restitution. The Mariners Museum in Newport News, Virginia, also won a civil suit against its former director, who was later convicted of stealing materials from the museum.

Mimi Bowling, consulting archivist and co-instructor of SAA’s archival security workshop) focused on the importance of being open about theft. She began by highlighting the damaging effects of sweeping theft under the rug. Several decades ago, Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscripts Library discovered that one of its graduate student assistants stealing materials. A search of his home uncovered thousands of manuscript items and rare books, but the library’s director and staff kept quiet because they feared that an influential benefactor would find out and withdraw a large bequest. A grand jury investigation commenced and, as luck would have it, the benefactor was one of the jurors. He was outraged by the library’s failure to inform him of the theft and opted against leaving money to the institution. Moreover, staff learned that the young man had also been a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania and had been caught stealing from the university’s museum -- but no one at Penn ever disclosed this fact. Had his past been known, Columbia would never have hired him.

She then discussed some of the benefits of publicizing theft. When the Edison National Historical Site (now the Thomas Edison National Historical Park) discovered that a board member was stealing archival materials, it called in the FBI, which searched the individual’s house and discovered thirty-three cubic feet of stolen materials. The Edison National Historical Site staged a press event highlighting the recovery of these materials and as a result many collectors of Edisonia came forward and said that they had bought materials from this individual. As a result, many items that might have been permanently alienated from the Edison National Historical Site’s collections found their way back to the repository. (Bowling later noted that, several years after the first Edison theft came to light, a dealer contacted indicated that the culprit was again selling material. The Edison National Historical Site recovered an additional three cubic feet of material as a result.)

Sarah Baldwin, the current president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA), discussed recent ABAA efforts to stop the trade in stolen materials. Members of the ABAA, which has long had a Security Committee, contend not only with theft but also with forgery, credit card fraud, and other scams. There is little or no formal security training for rare book dealers, but no reputable dealer wants to buy or sell materials of questionable status: dealers who trade in stolen materials are professionally and financially liable for doing so.

In order to combat the trade in stolen materials, ABAA now maintains a security blog. Since its creation last year, it has been used to disseminate forty-two security alerts. Repositories and dealers wishing to have information posted on the blog should e-mail or phone the ABAA’s executive director. After the information is vetted, it will be shared via the blog, and the ABAA's Twitter feed and listservs.

Baldwin also noted that in some instances, it’s not easy to determine whether an item has been stolen. This is particularly true of 19th-century and older government documents, many of which entered into private hands shortly after creation. This flow into private hands was seen as legitimate at the time, but these records are now often subject to replevin. Some dealers prefer to donate the materials back to government archives in an effort to avoid remaining at risk of replevin.

Scott Peterson, a collector of original letters of U.S. Supreme Court justices, manuscripts dealer, board member and past president of the Manuscript Society, and a partner in the Chicago office of the law firm of Holland and Knight, which has been involved in a number of cases involving manuscript materials, offered an interesting perspective on archival security.

As a collector and dealer, Peterson has returned materials that turned out to be stolen, and as a board member and president of the Manuscript Society, he has helped to develop policies relating to theft and stolen materials. As an attorney, he has represented several individuals who were accused of stealing or holding materials –in large part because state governments have started trying to get back records that were alienated centuries ago. Many manuscript collectors view replevin as theft, and they are suspicious of archivists as a result; some people would prefer to shred a record than be subject to replevin. (I don’t know how other attendees reacted to this statement, but my heart skipped a beat.)

Peterson noted that the legal doctrine of laches, or “sleeping on one’s rights,” is in some instances a successful defense against replevin actions. If a defendant can prove that a government knew or should have known at some point in the past that a record had been offered for sale or was in the hands of a known individual but didn’t take action to recover it, it has essentially forfeited its right to recover the record.

The Manuscript Society been working with the Council of State Archivists to come up with some sort of replevin policy. It is also working with the ABAA; Mansucript Society and ABAA members are among the first people to be offered stolen materials, and it makes sense for us to work together.

Peterson also recommended reaching out to international archival organizations. The market in stolen materials is global, and anti-theft efforts should also be global.

Peterson then outlined a four-point plan for combating theft: proper security and monitoring, stiff warnings re: prosecution, inventory control, and a reporting protocol for theft (local law enforcement, groups and associations, press releases). Repositories should also be prepared conduct their own internal investigations, monitor the Internet and dealers’ catalogs, and to prosecute and to sue in civil court.

Building upon Peterson’s remarks, Bowling emphasized the need for archivists to get to know local dealers and establish broader contacts. Most dealers are honest, and establishing a relationship facilitates communication in the event a problem comes to light. She also urged reformatting of materials whenever possible. Doing so passively prevents theft by enabling researchers to use reformatted surrogates and provides clear proof of ownership.

During the question-and-answer part of the session, the panelists identified a number of other problems and needs:

• There is no central clearinghouse for reporting thefts at present, and the reporting mechanisms that exist are not always tailored to librarians’ or archivists’ needs. For example, missingmaterials.org, which is maintained by OCLC, makes it possible to annotate appropriate WorldCat records. It has fostered recovery of rare books, but archives aren’t using it: the types of materials that are typically described in WorldCat are not the materials that are most likely to be found in archival repositories.
• Libraries’ deaccession procedures vary widely, and as a result and the presence of an institutional stamp doesn’t necessarily mean anything; a book lacking a “withdrawn” stamp or other marker may well have been legitimately deaccessioned. This is frustrating, and dealers are less aggressive as a result.
• We are just starting to explore cross-organizational collaboration. The ABAA has worked with the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the American Library Association and OCLC on missingmaterials.org and has explored possibility of having an RBMS security workshop every year, but everyone who has a stake in archival and library security must be able to exchange suggestions, protocols, etc., across professional and organizational boundaries.
• We have yet to figure out how to enlist researchers in archival security efforts. (None of the panelists was quite sure how to do this, and I’m not either, but it strikes me as an important and overlooked subject: in the wake of my own repository’s theft case, I was struck by the frequency with which researchers were deeply outraged the culprit’s actions. Honest researchers value archives, and they can’t abide people who steal, destroy, or corrupt our holdings. Surely they have a role to play in safeguarding our collections.)
• We need an online mechanism for disseminating photographs and information about people arrested for or convicted of theft and quieter means (e.g., phone trees) of sharing information about researchers who behave suspiciously but haven’t been apprehended.

Good suggestions all. I really hope that the communication capabilities of the Internet, which to date has proven to be a superb mechanism for facilitating the theft and sale of cultural heritage materials, will soon become an equally superb mechanism for deterring and detecting thievery.

Photo: the main branch of the Chicago River and the corncob towers of Marina City, as seen from the 29th floor of the Hotel 71, 22 August 2011, 9:14 PM.

SAA 2011: Skeletons in the Closet

This just about beats the record for tardy posting, but below you'll find the slides from my Society of American Archivists presentation, which was part of Session 101, "Skeletons in the Closet: Addressing Privacy and Confidentiality Issues for Born-Digital Materials." In it, I outline the current climate in which government archives operate, discuss how my repository responded to two sweeping freedom of information requests, and detail some of the lessons we learned as a result of these experiences.

Personal Privacy and Freedom of Information in the Digital Age: Challenges and Strategies for Government A...

I'll have a post concerning session 705,"Theft Transparency in the Digital Age: Stakeholder Perspectives," up later this weekend.

2011 Capital Region Archives Dinner

The 16th Annual Capital Region Archives Dinner will be held on Wednesday October 5, 2011 at 6:00 PM.

This year's dinner will be at the storied Jack’s Oyster House in Albany, N.Y. The keynote speakers are Paul and Mary Liz Stewart, founders of the Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region (URHPCR). The URHPCR seeks to acknowledge the active Underground Railroad movement in our region, to raise awareness about and stimulate interest in this little recognized and inspiring part of our history, to understand it in its historic context, to encourage the recognition of local historic figures, and to preserve that history.

The cost to attend this year's Archives Dinner is $37.00 per person, payable by check to "Archives Dinner" and mailed to Kathleen Newkirk at 331 Clapper Road, Selkirk NY 12158; other members of the Archives Dinner Committee (l'Archivista included) can also accept your check. Please be sure to indicate your choice of entree: Chicken Tuscan, Herb Encrusted Salmon, or Rigatoni Pomodoro (vegetarian).

If you have any questions about the Archives Dinner, contact Brian Keough (bkeough-at-albany.edu).

The Capital Region Archives Dinner is the annual celebration of our documentary heritage in the greater Capital Region. Each year during Archives Month, the Archives Dinner Committee recognizes individuals and organizations which have advanced the appreciation of our documentary heritage in northeastern N.Y. For more information, please see the Archives Dinner Web site.

September 11: electronic records, service, and remembrance

The New York State Archives has just published Ground Zero from the Air, an online exhibit that features aerial photographs, thermal images, and flyover simulations of the World Trade Center site created in September and October 2001. These records were created by EarthData, a mapping firm working under contract to the New York State Office for Technology, which ultimately transferred them to the State Archives for long-term preservation.

I helped to put this exhibit together, and I have to say that the experience was, in some respects, profoundly rewarding. The records document an event of profound significance and are visually compelling (the level of detail in the aerial photographs is nothing short of astounding). I got to work closely with several colleagues whose work typically doesn't overlap with mine, and I am once again in awe of their talent and dedication.

Moreover, all of these records were born digital, and this is the first time that electronic records have been featured in one of our online exhibits -- and incorporated into the Digital Collections section of our Web site. Electronic records can be every bit as haunting, fascinating, and visually arresting as paper records, and it's good to remind people -- archivists and researchers alike -- of this fact every now and then.

At the same time, the experience of putting together this exhibit was extremely difficult. Anyone who spends any time with these records will instantly be transported back to the days immediately following September 11. Magnify one of the aerial photographs of the World Trade Center site, and you'll understand instantly why the first responders who worked there always referred to it as "the pile." In some of the September 2001 images, you can see bucket brigades of emergency personnel removing debris by hand. In some of the October 2001 images, you can see tractor trailers carrying debris away from the site.

As glad as I am that these records exist and are in our holdings, sometimes I had to get up and walk away from them for a while. I wish with all my heart that the circumstances that led to the creation of these records had never come to pass, and I don't think that this wish will ever fade away.

There is, of course, nothing any of us can do to change what happened on September 11, 2001. However, we do have the power to determine how we respond to it. This morning, National Public Radio aired a quietly and profoundly moving story about Father Mychal Judge, the Fire Department of New York chaplain who died at the World Trade Center site. The story featured a substantial excerpt from the homily that Father Michael Duffy delivered at Father Judge's funeral, and I couldn't help but think that we should all strive to live as Father Judge did:

And he would say to me once in a while, “Michael Duffy,” he always called me by my full name, “Michael Duffy, you know what I need?” And I would get excited because it was hard to buy him a present or anything. I said, “No, what?” “You know what I really need?” “No, what Mike?” “Absolutely nothing. [MURMURING] I don’t need a thing in the world. I am the happiest man on the face of the earth.” And then he would go on for ten minutes, telling me how blessed he felt. “I have beautiful sisters. I have nieces and nephews. I have my health. I’m a Franciscan priest. I love my work. I love my ministry.” And he would go on, and he would always conclude it by looking up to heaven and saying, “Why am I so blessed? I don’t deserve it. Why am I so blessed?” But that’s how he felt all his life.

Father Judge knew that service, not self-aggrandizement, is the way to fulfillment and that meaningful work is a gift. The families of many of the men and women who were killed on September 11, 2001 also know these things: in 2002, they began pressing to have September 11 designated a National Day of Service and Remembrance focused on honoring the dead, helping the living, and recapturing the spirit of unity, generosity, and compassion that prevailed in the weeks following the attacks.

If you have a few hours to devote to community service on Sunday, Serve.gov can help you find an organization that could use a helping hand. If you live in the Northeast -- which has just suffered yet another round of catastrophic floods -- your help is particularly needed; if you do a Google search for "Hurricane Irene volunteer opportunities [your state]" you'll find ample opportunities. Of course, there are countless community organizations that can use your help not only on Sunday but also throughout the year; September 11 should be merely one day in a lifetime of service and purposeful work.

I'm going to spend Sunday morning sorting donations at an area food bank, and as I shift the canned goods, bottled water, and toiletries around, I'm going to reflect upon my good fortune: I have a home, my friends and family are safe, and I have work that gives me purpose and direction -- in large part because the archival profession is, on every conceivable level, a service-oriented profession.

I'm also going to think about the most important passage in Father Michael Kelly's funeral homily for Father Mychal Judge:

And so, this morning … we come to bury Mike Judge’s body but not his spirit. We come to bury his mind but not his dreams. We come to bury his voice but not his message. We come to bury his hands but not his good works. We come to bury his heart but not his love. Never his love.

Labor for Your Neighbor

Being in Albany is a little strange right now. Anyone who stays close to the city and its environs could be forgiven for thinking that nothing's out of the ordinary. The bundles of tree limbs that appear on the curbs on trash day make it plain that a storm recently passed through, but that's par for the course for upstate New York in August.

Less than an hour away in any direction, however, life is anything but normal. Irene wreaked havoc in and around the Schoharie Valley, the Catskills, the Adirondacks, and in Vermont. Eleven New Yorkers -- one of them the wife of a recently retired colleague -- and Vermonters died, hundreds of people -- among them a colleague's son and daughter-in-law -- have lost their homes, tens of thousands of others are cleaning up flooded homes and businesses, and many others are largely cut off from the outside world as a result of washed-out bridges and roads. Farmers in eastern New York and Vermont have suffered devastating losses of crops and livestock.

It's increasingly apparent that history is one of the casualties of Irene: historic covered bridges in nearby Schoharie County and in Vermont were swept away by flood waters, the Revolutionary War-era Guy Park Manor in Amsterdam, New York may have to be demolished, and several of my colleagues have helped local governments salvage water-damaged records. All of them have come back to the office visibly shaken by what they've seen.

I realize that Irene's impact wasn't limited to New York and Vermont -- people in twelve states are dead as a result of this storm -- and that several other states are also dealing with severe flooding. However, I also know that a disproportionate number of this blog's tens of regular readers live in the Albany area, so I'm focusing on local matters in this post.

If you want to help your flood-affected neighbors, you have several options:

• Governor Cuomo is asking New Yorkers to take part in a “Labor for your Neighbor” volunteer effort on Labor Day weekend to assist in local clean-up efforts in the Schoharie Valley, Catskill and North Country Regions. Volunteers will devote a few hours on Sunday or Monday in the affected regions helping people in flood-stricken areas clear their homes of the mud and debris Irene left behind. The New York National Guard and the New York State Office of Emergency Management will coordinate volunteer efforts and transport volunteers. If you are interested in taking part, sign up here. (N.B.: Advance registration is mandatory -- you can't simply show up and expect to be put to work!)

• If other commitments or health issues prevent you from taking part in Labor for Your Neighbor, you can donate to the United Way of New York via the Labor for Your Neighbor Web page. All contributions will be funneled to reputable charitable organizations serving the affected areas.

• If you're looking for other ways to help in New York, the Albany Times-Union has posted a list of organizations seeking volunteer assistance (advance registration required!) or monetary donations. N.B.: the list includes a historic site and a public library.

• If you want to help our neighbors in Vermont get back on their feet, the Vermont indie newsweekly Seven Days has posted a list of ways you can do so.

Please, please do what you can.

Coming home to a disaster

I have a post in the works about 2011 Society of American Archivists annual meeting session 705, Theft Transparency in the Digital Age: Stakeholder Perspectives, but circumstances have forced me to shelve it for a few days.

I was away from Albany for a little more than a week, and in that time the area experienced two earthquakes -- the big one with the Virginia epicenter and a little one with an Altamont, NY epicenter -- and the after-effects of Irene. The first earthquake jolted people but didn't do any damage (at least around here) and the second one seems to have slipped by without much notice, but Irene has done horrific damage and may do still more: at the time of this writing, water levels in several New Jersey and Connecticut waterways are still rising and new evacuations have been ordered.

Eight New Yorkers -- including the wife of a former colleague -- are dead, and more than thirty people in eleven other states have lost their lives. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers are still without power, and an estimated 500 homes have been destroyed. Prattsville, Maplecrest, Windham, Margaretville, and several other Catskills communities have suffered grievous damage, as have Keene and several other Adirondack communities. Flood waters entered Schenectady's Stockade District, which features homes built by Dutch settlers and their immediate descendants, and several historic neighborhoods in Troy. Roads and bridges throughout central and eastern New York are washed out or under water. The historic Blenheim Bridge in Schoharie County, which was until Sunday the longest covered bridge in the world, is among the casualties.

At present, several communities in New York and Vermont have lost all roads linking them to the outside world; the National Guard is airlifting essential supplies to several of the affected Vermont localities. Pervasive road and bridge closures make travel difficult if not impossible, and it may be weeks before anyone can truly assess the extent of the damage.

New York cultural heritage institutions affected by this disaster should be aware of the following resources:

• The New York State Archives and New York State Library have created a special Web page that outlines the services that they can provide to libraries, state agencies, local governments, and other entities affected by Irene. The State Archives and State Library are also responsible for gathering information about disasters affecting cultural heritage institutions and can point to additional resources. Both institutions can be reached by phone or via e-mail.
  
• The Library of Congress has published an online guide to recovering from floods and other water disasters; of particular note are videos showing how to clean CD's and audio and video cassettes that have been immersed in flood water.
• Heritage Preservation has posted a 10-minute video outlining how to recover materials affected by water-based disasters and other helpful resources.

If you're an individual attempting to salvage damaged family treasures, the following resources may be helpful:

• The Library of Congress has published a guide to salvaging and preserving family history materials affected by various types of disasters.
• The Heritage Preservation video about recovering from floods and other water disasters contains a lot of good advice for anyone seeking to save water-damaged materials. Heritage Preservation has also compiled a handy list of links for people seeking to save family treasures damaged by disaster.

If you would like to help those affected by Irene, consider donating your money or your time to one of these reputable charitable organizations.

Practical Approaches to Born-Digital Records: Archivematica

Archivists mingle around a full-sized skeleton cast of Sue, the largest, most complete, and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever discovered, during a Society of American Archivists reception at the Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois, 26 August 2011. Sue is 42 feet (12.8 m) long and 12 feet (3.66 m) high at the hip.

I’ve always feared getting sick at the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists, and yesterday it happened. I stayed in bed and missed all of yesterday’s sessions and a section meeting. I somehow dragged myself to the last few minutes of evening reception at the Field Museum, but I felt quite like Sue, the magnificent T. rex who presided over the festivities: an empty-headed and mildly scary-looking dead thing.

I was still a bit shaky today, and I managed to miss all of this morning’s first session and part of Session 610, Practical Approaches to Born-Digital Records: What’s Coming Next, which focused on Archivematica. Archivematica is a digital preservation platform that brings together a wide array of open source anti-virus, metadata extraction, file conversion, and other tools and supports automated processing of archival electronic records. We’ve just started experimenting with Archivematica, and I really wanted to hear about other archivists’ experiences with it.

I didn’t get to hear Peter Van Garderen of Artefactual Systems discuss Archivematica’s development or plans for future enhancements and came in as Glenn Dingwall (City of Vancouver Archives) was wrapping up his presentation.

In lieu of recapping the presentations of Paul Jordan (International Monetary Fund) and Angela Jordan (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) or summarizing the question-and-answer component of this session, I’m simply going to highlight the most interesting points that arose during its second half. I think that Archivematica holds great promise, and many of the presenters and audience members were of the same opinion, so don’t let this post deter you from investigating it yourself. However, you should keep in mind that Archivematica:

• Is not a complete digital preservation system. It creates Archival Information Packages (AIPs) that can be preserved over the long term, but it doesn’t provide for storage of these AIPs.
• Is designed with scalability in mind. It can be run on a desktop in a small repository or on a very large server array. From a technical point of view, the chief bottlenecks limiting large-scale implementations are processing speed and capacity and limits on the time of staff needed to obtain intellectual control over the materials.
• Will be of particular interest to small repositories; however, not all of them will be able to meet the platform’s hardware requirements or acquire the requisite technical knowledge.
• Requires some degree of technical know-how and quite a bit of willingness to get one’s hands dirty. Archivematica requires a real or virtual Linux environment. Most archivists aren’t familiar with Linux and must be willing to learn. Moreover, the installation process isn’t as straightforward as it could be. Fortunately, Michael Bennett has written really useful installation instructions and Angela Jordan has posted about her experience; FWIW, I’ve also posted about our own installation experience.
• May require customization. For example, the International Monetary Fund will have to do figure out how to keep classified documents that should be included in AIPs out of the Dissemination Information Packages that Archivematica creates.
• Requires some additional development. (Given that it has yet to reach the beta stage of development, this need isn't surprising.) Session participants articulated several desired improvements that would give archivists the ability to specify which preservation/normalization formats will be employed, enable them to reinsert or otherwise deal with files or folders that Archivematica rejects, and shed light upon why the ingest process sometimes stalls. Participants also wanted to see Archivematica support creation of Submission Information Packages, improve processing of e-mail, and integrate records management.