A day at the Bronx Zoo

Yesterday, my friend Gloria and I took a trip to the Bronx Zoo. The story of how this trip came to be is kind of complicated, so I'll simply say that I'm glad that it happened. Although I am in many respects ambivalent about zoos, I appreciated having the opportunity to see animals I will likely never see in the wild. I also relished being able to catch up with Gloria, who worked for a long time as an archivist but whose work now centers upon research and grant writing. I don't see her as frequently as I did when we worked in adjacent offices, and yesterday's outing was a real treat.

We took a chartered bus to the zoo, and for some reason the driver opted not to take the New York State Thruway all the way down to the Bronx. Instead, we headed into New Jersey and then crossed the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan. I've driven over the GW several times, but have never been able to check out the New York skyline while doing so; it's not really possible to do any sightseeing while driving on a two-level, fourteen-lane toll bridge. Grey as the day was, it was nice to have the opportunity to take in the view.

When we got to the zoo itself, we began in the Amphibian House, which is housed in Zoo Center, a Beaux Arts structure that features splendid sculptures of animals. One of the most striking things about this particular zoo is the attractiveness of its grounds. Many of the zoo's 19th- and early 20th century buildings are still standing, and the grounds around them are still are still carefully landscaped. The newer buildings are less ornate but nonetheless complementary, and the grounds have a sylvan, tranquil quality that makes it easy to forget that one is in an urban environment.

The Wildlife Conservation Society, which operates the Bronx Zoo, was founded in 1895. It maintains its own archives, and detailed information about its holdings is available through the New York State Historical Documents Inventory.

We then moved onto the Monkey House, which features a host of captivating small monkeys from South America. The Silvery Marmoset is native to Bolivia and Paraguay.

I kept my camera's flash turned off during my visit to the zoo. Although I'm sure that the animals are used to flash photography and all sorts of other disruptions -- kids sometimes yell at animals, tweens and teens sometimes strike out on their own, and parents don't always instruct or supervise -- I thought it only fair to minimize the amount of disturbance I caused.

We then moved onto the Madagascar exhibit, which is quite new. Fish swam around this partially submerged Nile Crocodile . . .

. . . which was resting its head on rocks above the water line.

This Day Gecko is also a native of Madagascar.

The lemur area sits at the center of the Madagascar exhibit. The Bronx Zoo has at least two Collared Lemurs and at least half a dozen Ring-tailed Lemurs. Photographing them was really difficult: they are fast, active animals!

We moved on to the Birds of Prey area. I loved the almost comically grim look of these Cenereous Vultures, which are native to southern Europe and northern Africa and can be found as far east as China. I vividly recall a sequence of Peanuts strips in which Snoopy pretended to be a vulture . . . until a real vulture landed beside him and scared him senseless. I think that Charles Schultz used a Cenereous Vulture as the model for his drawing of said vulture.

Although we somehow managed to miss the great apes, we spent quite a bit of time in the Africa section of the zoo. The baby Giraffe on the right, who was born in February of this year and dubbed Margaret by zoo personnel, was keeping a close eye on her mother and the other adults.

It's just about impossible to see the entirety of the Bronx Zoo in a single day, and we didn't have the chance to take the monorail that allows visitors to see the elephants and many other large African animals. We saw only this skull, which belonged to a male African Elephant that in 1989 was illegally killed for its tusks. The zoo has situated this skull on the periphery of the Giraffe habitat and posted signs that discuss the problem of poaching and the Wildlife Conservation Society's efforts to combat it.

This Lion cub, named Moxie on account of her playful, gutsy personality, was relaxing in the shade with her mother. Her father was resting nearby.

I mentioned above that I have mixed feelings about zoos, and seeing this Polar Bear brought all of my negative feelings to the fore. As the zoo's Web site indicates, Polar Bears are solitary, highly mobile creatures: a given bear's home range is between 93-186 square miles, and adults travel alone unless they are seeking a mate or raising young. The habitat of the bear pictured above is smaller than my apartment. The bear itself seemed listless and bored; toys, occasional treats, and the opportunity to smell noisy humans and their food are poor substitutes for the freedom to roam, hunt, and reproduce at will.

The Grizzly Bears, who live next to the Polar Bear, seemed slightly happier, if only because they are more social and can be housed as a group and because their habitat is slightly larger than that of their next-door neighbor. Moreover, as the zoo's signage makes it plain, these bears cannot live in the wild. All of them originally came from Montana or Wyoming, and all of them were deemed "nuisance bears" because they persistently visited areas settled by humans. If the Bronx Zoo hadn't taken them in, wildlife authorities would have killed them.

The zoo's signage also indicates that most of these bears carry permanent reminders of their past encounters with humans: x-rays have revealed buckshot or bullets embedded in their flesh. The bear pictured above constantly shakes its head as it walks -- not normal for a bear -- and Gloria and I wondered whether this behavior is the result of past head trauma.

The Tiger habitat, which is much newer than that of the bears, is much larger. The Tigers have a relatively large wooded area in which to roam, and the zoo makes a conscious effort to keep them mentally and physically active. "Enrichment" sessions involving toys or treats (or toys containing hard-to-get-at treats) take place several times a day.

These Père David's Deer exemplify the good work that zoos can do: originally native to China, these deer are now extinct in the wild. The Bronx Zoo and other zoos that hold captive populations of these animals are now trying to reintroduce these deer to their native habitat.

The Bronx Zoo has a lengthy history of helping to rebuild wild animal populations. The American Bison who live at the zoo are descendants of a small group of animals brought to the zoo in 1899. Other descendants of the zoo's American Bison were returned to the West, and most of the 20,000 wild American Bison that roam through Yellowstone National Park and other protected areas trace their lineage to the Bronx Zoo herd.

We ended our day with a late lunch at the zoo's cafe, where we were joined by one of the resident Indian Peafowl. Native to the Indian subcontinent, these beautiful, noisy creatures have the run of the zoo and move freely from habitat to habitat; however, they seem to have sense enough to avoid the areas housing the lions, tigers, and bears. The peafowl and ducks, which are also free to move about the zoo's grounds, have little to no fear of people, and this peacock was not shy about seeking handouts from the humans seated outside the cafe.

We left the Bronx Zoo tired and wet (spring in the Northeast has been cool and very wet, and yesterday was no exception), but very glad we came and enthused about the prospect of making a return trip at some point in the future.

Electronic records potpourri

Lots and lots of stuff relating to electronic records (and Web 2.0) this week . . . and it's only Tuesday.

This week's New York Times Sunday Magazine features a lengthy article about data centers -- those huge, ever-growing, geographically dispersed, and interconnected banks of servers that support Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Blogger (l'Archivista's host), and Web-based e-mail, gaming, and applications. If you've ever wondered what makes all this stuff work (and how much power it consumes), this article furnishes a good non-technical overview . . . .

. . . . And if you've ever wondered about the robustness of the networks that support our online lives, check out what's happening in Iran: the government may be limiting access to social media in an effort to hamstring the opposition, which has been using Twitter and other tools to coordinate protests and disseminate information. (More info here, here, and here. If you want to see how these tools are being used, Andrew Sullivan and crew have been compiling and linking to English-language information sent out by Iranians involved in the protests. You can also follow real-time updates on Twitter.)

The Spring/Summer 2009 issue of the American Archivist is out, and it includes articles concerning cell phone-generated archival records, collaborative efforts to preserve electronic data, and conversion of electronic records to preservation formats.

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration anticipates that President Obama's administration will create petabytes of archival electronic records.

Ian Wilson, the just-retired Librarian and Archivist of Canada, reflects upon Library and Archives Canada's digitization program, efforts to capture the federal government's Web presence, and records management initiatives.

Finally, every electronic records archivist has to contend with vendors that believe (or at least hope) that they've managed to develop a permanent storage medium for electronic records. Invariably, each vendor is the sole source of the medium it trumpets, and after a while the high-pressure sales pitches and breathless news releases make one a bit cynical -- which is why Bruce Sterling's snarky reaction to a giddy news article about a nanoscale storage research project brought a big smile to my face.

Catching up: Cologne Archives; the Stasi and recent German history

I planted three "Tiny Bee" Asiatic lily cultivars last year, and they didn't do very well. I didn't expect them to survive, and was very pleasantly surprised when they sprang to life earlier this spring. As of today, they have more than a dozen full blooms and a like number of buds. Interesting things -- most of which aren't as pretty as these lilies -- sometimes pop up unexpectedly . . . .

Sorry for the light blogging over the past week. I've been struggling to meet multiple deadlines at work, combating (organically and non-lethally) the squirrels that are attacking the lettuce, beets, and other produce in the container garden, and getting used to the feeling of having a trio of staples in my scalp; there's nothing like a minor household accident to keep an archivist's life interesting.

Next week's blogging may be similarly light: I'm planning to attend a National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program grant partners meeting during the last full week of June, and as a result must devote next week to wrapping up some loose ends, meeting some additional deadlines, and preparing for departure.

However, before any more time elapses, I wanted to comment on a couple of archives-related developments that have taken place in Germany. Neither one is particularly new, but the first is really encouraging and the second highlights the role of archives in shaping -- and, in this instance, destabilizing -- collective understandings of history.

The first piece of news concerns the records Historical Archive of the City of Cologne, which collapsed on 3 March of this year: the archive's staff and other experts on the site have been stunned and pleased by the condition of the records that have been recovered to date. As of 1 June, approximately 85 percent of the archive's holdings have been recovered (the remaining 15 percent is submerged in groundwater), and roughly 75 percent of the recovered material is relatively intact. Although archivists still anticipate that it will take approximately 30 years to recover from this disaster, they also expect that digital technology will aid the process: special software developed to reassemble documents shredded by the Stasi, the East German secret police, in the days before the collapse of the East German government may help them reassemble torn and badly damaged documents.

The other archives-related development of note also relates to the Stasi. The records concern an event that took place on 2 June 1967, when police officer Karl-Heinz Kurras shot and killed Benno Ohnesorg, an unarmed, at a political protest. Ohnesorg's death triggered mass protests throughout the nation and helped to shape the political views of countless young Germans who saw Kurras as a far-right extremist. Forty years after Ohnesorg's death, many Germans identify 2 June 1967 as an important date in their nation's history: the upheaval that followed in the wake of Ohnesorg's death profoundly affected life in the Federal Republic of Germany. Some Germans believe that it made the Federal Republic more democratic and more open, while others are convinced that it ushered in an era of social decay, but everyone agrees that it was significant.

on 21 May, two historians who were conducting research in the vast archives of the Stasi announced that they had inadvertently discovered compelling evidence that Kurras had been on the Stasi's payroll since 1955. Kurras, who was tried but never convicted of any crime, roundly denies that the Stasi ordered him to shoot Ohnesorg, and to date, no records indicating that the Stasi ordered Kurras to kill have surfaced. However, it is widely known that the East German government actively sought to destabilize the Federal Republic, and questions about Kurras's motivations have led many Germans to ponder their nation's recent past. If Kurras's Stasi ties had come to light sooner, would the the mass student and women's movements fueled, directly or indirectly, by outrage over Ohnesorg's death have been as large or as influential? Would the left-wing terrorist groups that plagued the Federal Republic in the 1970s existed had young radicals widely known about Kurras's true political beliefs? Would the Federal Republic be better or worse off?

In sum, a handful of archival records may ultimately cause an entire nation to reassess and reinterpret its recent past.

International Archives Day

International Archives Day 2009 poster from Japan. Image courtesy of the International Council on Archives.

Today is the second International Archives Day. Most American archives and archivists have yet to focus on International Archives Day, but repositories and archives professional associations are taking the opportunity to highlight the importance of archives to collective memory and governmental accountability and transparency.

Among the many archives that have chosen to observe International Archives Day are:

• Glasgow School of Art Library (United Kingdom)
• Macau Historical Archives
  
• National Archive of Andorra
  
• National Archives of Malta
• University of Glasgow Archive Services (United Kingdom)
  
• Wellcome Library (United Kingdom)
  

International Archives Day likely hasn't gotten much traction in the United States because of its newness and the established nature of American Archives Month, but it would be great to see lots of American repositories organize around International Archives Day 2010: as the International Council on Archives, which established International Archives Day, points out, it offers "countries which already have well-established celebrations at other times of year . . . another chance to reinforce key messages about the significance of archives."

Tip o' the hat to Felipe Diez of Solidarity Köln Historisches Archiv.

New York Archives Conference, day two

The 2009 New York Archives Conference wrapped up yesterday afternoon, and everyone in attendance seemed to have a great time.

The first morning session I attended, “Exploring the Possibilities of Web 2.0 for Cultural Heritage Websites,” gave attendees an introduction to the world of Web 2.0 and some of the ways in which archivists could make use of it.

Greg Bobish (University at Albany, SUNY) provided an overview of some of Web 2.0’s core concepts and then noted the characteristics that Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, and social networking sites share: they are available online from almost any computer (or other device), require minimal technical skills, and encourage and participation and creation and editing of content. Bobish’s presentation, which is a great introduction to Web 2.0 principles, is available online.

Nancy Cannon and Kay Benjamin (both from the SUNY College at Oneonta) then outlined how Web 2.0 technology could be used to make primary source materials freely available to students, teachers, and researchers. They obtained permission from the Delaware County Historical Association to reproduce materials that shed light on life in the county prior to the Civil War, and Cannon drafted historical essays that placed the primary source materials in context. Cannon and Benjamin then used basic HTML coding to create their site, Voice of the People: Daily Life in the Antebellum Rural Delaware County New York Area.

Cannon and Benjamin used Google Maps to add interactivity to sections of the site documenting an 1851 sea voyage from New York to California and a Delhi family's 1823 journey through upstate New York. Benjamin then gave a practical demonstration of how to set up a Google Maps account and then combine maps with text, images, and multimedia materials. As she noted, Google Maps can be of great use to archivists and librarians who want to create interactive online content on a shoestring.

I next attended “Digitizing Audio and Video Materials.” My colleague Monica Gray opened the session by explaining how the New York State Archives used a one-time allocation of $25,000 to outsource the digitization of 53 motion picture films, 98 video recordings, and 34 audio recordings.

In preparation for digitization, Gray conducted an inventory of holdings, did a lot of background research into digitization standards and best practices, and worked with colleagues and vendors to select materials that were of interest to researchers or in formats on the verge of obsolescence. She stressed that archivists need to specify exactly what they want from their vendors, determine in advance whether to add title frames, etc., and anticipate the need to provide access to the resulting files.

As a result of this project, the State Archives now manages preservation master copies (.wav format, 44.1 kHZ, 16 bit), and access copies (.mp3 format) of audio recordings and preservation master copies (.avi format) and access (.wmp format) copies of moving image materials. It is now focusing on providing access to its use copies.

Gray also outlined some easy preservation measures that all archivists can undertake:

• Store media vertically, not horizontally.
• Rewind all recordings to the start.
• Remove all record tabs from video and audio cassettes.
• Remove papers from film canisters (dust is the great enemy of tape and film).
• Use film strips that measure the extent of vinegar syndrome in motion picture film.

Andrea Buchner (Gruss Lipper Digital Laboratory, Center for Jewish History) then discussed the results of her repository’s year-long, grant-funded pilot digitization project. Staff digitized 94 oral histories on 142 audio cassettes, 79 hours worth of recordings on 193 reel-to-reel tapes; they also produced transcripts of 23 oral history interviews. Each hour of preservation master recordings comprises 1 GB of data, and Buchner determined that it cost $80 to produce, catalog, and store one hour of digital audio data.

Library staff created preservation master files of each recording (PCM.wav format, 2 channel stereo, 48.1 kHz, 24 bit). Derivative access copies were produced in .mp3 format. They also created a MARC21 catalog record for each recording and incorporated data captured during the digitization process into each record.

Buchner noted that the digitization process itself was easy compared to other challenges that staff encountered:

• Unreliable metadata: people hadn’t listened to these tapes in decades, and existing catalog records weren’t always accurate.
• Copyright: in some instances, staff had to make use of the “library exception” in U.S. copyright law; i.e., they made a limited number of copies and must restrict access to onsite users, include a copyright notice, and inform users that they should not exceed the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law.

Melinda Dermody (Belfer Audio Laboratory and Archive, Syracuse University) then outlined how her repository digitized some of its approximately 22,000 cylinder recordings, 12,000 of which are unique titles. The Belfer Audio Archive received a $25,000 grant for this ongoing three-year project; a gift that made possible the purchase of a new digital soundboard has made it much easier for staff to work on this project.

The project’s core team includes Dermody, a music librarian, the core metadata librarian, and the digital initiatives librarian, and the Belfer's sound engineer. The group’s goal was to make available online 6,000 audio files (300 are currently available), and to create create preservation master (.wav format, 44.1 kHz, 24 bit) and access (.mp3 format) copies of each recording.

The group determined which cylinders had already been digitized by another university, identified cylinders in fragile condition, and assessed the interests of music faculty and researchers. The digitization of selected recordings is being done by Belfer Audio Archive staff, and staff have created or revised a MARC record for each recording. They use a MARC-to-Dublin Core crosswalk to populate the metadata fields of CONTENTdm, which is being used to provide access to the use copies of the recordings.

After the second session ended, all of the attendees convened for lunch and a great talk by Syracuse University Archivist Ed Galvin, who outlined how the Syracuse University Archives was drawn into the production of The Express (2008), a film about the life of alumnus Ernie Davis, the first African-American winner of the Heisman Trophy.

Preparations for the filming of The Express brought Universal’s production designers and other Hollywood personnel to the SU campus, and Galvin and his staff spent the next 18 months responding to their requests. The filmmakers were intent upon reconstructing Davis’s life on campus as faithfully as they could, and developed a wide-ranging and sometimes surprising list of items they sought and questions they wished to have answered. Galvin and his colleagues supplied detailed information about uniforms, etc., and other aspects of campus life and gave production staff access to yearbooks, copies of the student newspaper, copies of football programs, other campus publications and memorabilia, images of the coach’s office and other SU facilities.

The SU Archives also led licensing negotiations with Universal on behalf of the entirety of the university at large; however, much of the SU material in the film came from departments other than the archives.

Completion of the film, most of which was shot in Chicago, brought additional challenges. The film’s world premiere was held in Syracuse, prompting SU’s marketing unit and development office and a California film marketing firm to request additional materials from the SU Archives. Three days after the film’s premiere, Universal asked the archives to locate footage that could be used to produce a bonus featurette for the film’s DVD release. The archives also received requests for materials from alumni, politicians, History Day students, and other interested individuals.

Galvin made it plain that he and his staff often enjoyed working on this project, but also emphasized that archives approached by film studios should draw up detailed contracts and specify fees before any work begins; SU received only $4,000-$5,000 -- which did not even cover reproduction costs -- for 18 months of intense work on The Express.

NYAC conferences typically don't have overarching themes, but it struck me on the way home that just about every speaker I heard at this year's meeting centered upon clearly articulating one's expections -- about security measures, vendor deliverables, project specifications and outcomes -- and documenting whether or not they have been met. We as a profession haven't always excelled at doing so, and it was really heartening to hear so many colleagues assert the need for this sort of activity.

New York Archives Conference, day one

Grewen Hall, LeMoyne College

Yesterday was the first day of the New York Archives Conference (NYAC), which is being held at Lemoyne College in Syracuse. One of the things I really like about NYAC is its informality: many people either know each other or know of each other’s work, and the atmosphere is intimate and convivial as a result.

Today was jam-packed with sessions and other activities. IT started with a plenary session led by Maria Holden (New York State Archives), who outlined how the State Archives has responded to a recent internal theft and left the attendees with the following advice:

• It is up to you to take ownership of security. It isn’t something that just happens or is the concern of a handful of people.
• Do not wait until something bad happens. Addressing security issues before trouble occurs helps to avert problems and makes it easier to manage change and secure staff support.
• Become with security standards and guidelines relating to cultural heritage institutions.
• Do your due diligence: develop policies and procedures, and document what you have done to improve security.
• Remember that security is as much about protecting the innocent as it is about protecting collections. Employees need to understand that good security practices help to ensure that they will not become suspects in the event that a theft takes place.

The “Everyday -- Ethics (or What Do I Do Now?)” session touched on a host of related issues, and all of the panelists made some great points.

• Geoff Williams (University at Albany, SUNY) asserted that archivists need to question whether they should use their own holdings when conducting their own scholarly research; any archivist who does so will have to figure out what to do when other scholars want access to the results of their research and determine what to do when other users want to see the records that they’re using.
• Kathleen Roe (New York State Archives) discussed the thorny issue of collecting manuscripts, ephemera, and artifacts that fall within their own institution’s collection parameters and concluded that the safest course of action is to avoid collecting anything that, broadly defined, falls within the collecting scope of one’s employer; this approach avoids both the actuality and the appearance of impropriety -- and frees one to develop new collecting interests.
• Trudy Hutchinson (Bellevue Alumnae Center for Nursing History, Foundation of New York State Nurses) discussed how her nursing background informs her understanding of archival ethics and how, as an undergraduate majoring in public history, she had been required to develop a written personal code of ethics. She has since updated and expanded this code, which she discussed with her current employer during the interview process, and would like to see all archives students develop such does. (This is a great idea for current professionals, too.)
• Patrizia Sione (Kheel Center, Cornell University) discussed a variety of ethical issues that she has confronted, and noted that she would like to see employers develop written policies relating to scholarly research undertaken by staff. She also emphasized the importance of working with donors to ensure that the privacy of correspondents, etc., is appropriately protected; doing so will ensure that appropriate access restrictions are spelled out in deeds of gift. Finally, she noted that archivists need to be sensitive to the ways in which the pressure to assist researchers with ties to high-level administrators can conflict with their ethical obligation to treat all users equitably.

In the next session, “Can We Afford Not to Act? Strategies for Collection Security in Hard Times,” Richard Strassberg (independent archival consultant) and Maria Holden (New York State Archives) outlined a wide array of low-cost security measures.

Richard Strassberg noted that the recession makes protection of collections particularly important: instances of shoplifting and employee theft are on the rise, and archivists and researchers face the same financial pressures as everyone else. He also noted that the increasing prevalence of online finding aids and digitized images has had mixed results: although they make it easier for honest dealers and collectors to identify stolen materials, they also make it easier for dishonest individuals to hone in on valuable materials.

He then outlined what he called “minimal level protection” strategies for cultural institutions, all of which require staff time but don’t cost much:

• Have a crime prevention specialist employed by the local or state police do an assessment of your facility.
• Establish links with the local police so that they know that you hold valuable materials.
• Have a fire inspection conducted (but make sure that your management knows in advance that you’re planning to do so -- the fire department will close your facility if it finds serious problems that management isn’t able to fix).
• Get a security equipment quote; even if you don’t have the money, the cost might be lower than you expect, and having the quote will give you a fundraising target.
• Do an insurance review and have your holdings appraised; doing so will help you in the event that you suffer a loss.
• Protect your perimeter by tightly controlling keys and, if possible, screwing window sashes shut.
• Avoid drawing attention to valuable materials. Don’t put up red-flag labels (e.g., “George Washington letter”) in your stacks and be cautious about what you display to VIPs and other visitors.
• Tighten up on hiring. Conduct background checks if you can, and carefully check references by phone.

Strassberg emphasized that these measures will protect collections from “conditionally honest visitors,” but will not guard against thefts by staff. Moreover, they are not sufficient for repositories that hold materials of particular interest to thieves (e.g., collections relating to politics, sports, Native Americans, African Americans, and literary figures); such institutions will likely have to invest in electronic anti-theft technology.

In the event that a theft occurs or is suspected, contact, in the following order: your supervisor (or, if s/he is the suspect, his/her boss), the police, the donor (if applicable and he/she is still around), and your staff. Staff must be cautioned not to talk about the theft with family, friends, or co-workers. Also, develop a local phone tree -- external thieves tend to hit all of the repositories in a region within a short amount of time, and your colleagues will appreciate being informed. Avoid sending out e-mail alerts; you don’t want to document suspicions that might be unfounded.

Strassberg concluded by noting that librarians and archivists must be trained to confront suspected thieves in a legal and appropriate manner -- or how to set the process of confrontation in motion by contacting security or the police. They also need to know that they cannot physically prevent anyone from leaving the research room; in New York State, they might be guilty of battery if they attempt to do so.

Maria Holden then focused upon internal theft, which is the most common security threat that archives face. Employee theft is a complex problem, and full understanding of it is hard to come by. Theft is motivated by a variety of factors: personality disorders, gambling or substance abuse problems, retaliation for actual or perceived slights, and feelings of being unvalued.

We need to create a work environment that discourages theft and to control when, where, and how people interact with records; doing so protects not only the records but also innocent people who might be otherwise be suspected of wrongdoing. There are several ways we can do so:

• Hiring should be done carefully and with due diligence. The references of prospective employees should be screened carefully, and their collecting habits should be scrutinized carefully; the results of these checks should be documented. Many archives compel staff to adhere to codes of ethics and sign disclosure statements re: their collecting and dealing habits. The code of ethics developed by the Association of Research Libraries might be a good model.
• A number of recent thefts have been perpetrated by interns and volunteers. Develop a formal application process for interns and volunteers, document the process, and supervise interns and volunteers at all times.
• Keep order in your house. There is growing evidence in the literature that disordered environments can encourage delinquent behavior. Order begets respect for collections.
• Keep collections in the most restricted space possible. The State Archives has looked at every space in which records might be found (research room, scanning lab, etc.) and then figured out when it’s appropriate to bring records into a given space and how long they should remain in it. Develop overarching rules governing removal and return of records to the stacks.
• Keep collections in the most secure space possible, grant access rights thoughtfully, designate spaces for storage, work, and research, and establish parameters for working hours; many internal thefts occur during off-hours.

During the question and answer period, Kathleen Roe made an important point: Sometimes, people start out honest, then fall prey to gambling or other addictions or personal problems. We have to make it difficult for desperate people to steal from our holdings.

Richard Strassberg also emphasized the research proves that most people are conditionally honest, i.e., they won’t steal from their friends. We need to create work environments that make people feel valued.

I took part in one of the late afternoon sessions, “The Challenge of the New: Archivists and Non-Traditional Records,” which focused on various electronic records projects at the New York State Archives. Ann Marie Przybyla discussed our new e-mail management publication, Michael Martin detailed our Web crawling activities, and I discussed the processing and description of a series of records relating to the “Troopergate” scandal.

At the end of the day, we went to a reception and a great tour of the LeMoyne College Archives led by College Archivist Fr. Bill Bosch. Afterward, I went out to dinner with my State Archives colleagues Monica Gray and Pamela Cooley, Capital Region Documentary Heritage Program Archivist Susan D’Entremont, and Nathan Tallman, who just graduated from the University at Buffalo’s library school and is a project archivist at the Herschell Carousel Museum. We had a great time, and all of us would recommend Phoebe’s to anyone visiting Syracuse.

New York State Cyber Security Conference

I’m doubling up on conferences this week. Yesterday, I got the chance to sit in on a couple of sessions of the New York State Cyber Security Conference, which is always held in Albany. I then headed for Syracuse to attend the annual meeting of the New York Archives Conference, which started today.

The first session I attended, Acquiring Computer Communications: Often a Treacherous Task, focused on the use of electronic communications as evidence in legal or disciplinary proceedings. Stephen Treglia, an Assistant District Attorney with the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office, highlighted the many problems that employers and law enforcement agencies in New York State must confront. The legal terrain is laden with pitfalls.

The search and seizure of electronic communications (e.g., e-mail) has been the subject of a substantial amount of case law, and many of the non-computer issues relating to search and seizure translate well to computer issues. However, to date, most of the case law pertaining specifically to electronic communications has focused on child pornography. The courts are only now turning their attention to search and seizure of electronic communications relating to white-collar crime, and archivists and records managers should note that very little case law focuses upon search and seizure of electronic communications that document improper recordkeeping.

As if the situation weren’t murky enough, and most of the case law is federal. New York State law tends to be more respectful of individual rights than federal law, and not all federal case law is applicable in New York.

Treglia then provided an overview of current case law, with a particular focus on the workplace. He emphasized that current case law regarding employer searches of staff computers indicates that office policies trump individual privacy concerns. However, the court that handed down the prevailing opinion noted that the employee did not assert that he did not know about the policy, and future defendants may make this argument. As a result, employers should establish computer and Internet use policies and have each employee sign a statement indicating that s/he is aware of these policies and of the penalties for violating them.

Treglia’s presentation, which highlighted many inconsistencies and oddities in case law, made it plain that legislators and the courts have a lot of work to do to bring the law into line with the age of the Internet and that law enforcement personnel, attorneys, employers, schools -- and even some parents attempting to monitor their children’s Internet and cell phone usage -- will find themselves stumbling across uncertain terrain for some time to come.

The next session I attended, Incident Response Using Open Source Forensic Tools, focused on the New York State Digital Forensics Workgroup’s testing of open source alternatives to commercial forensics packages such as EnCase. The Digital Forensics Workgroup is headed by the New York State Police and consists of staff employed by many other agencies. Tom Hrbanek of the State Police, who initiated the discussion, noted that many agencies struggle to find the resources needed to do forensics work, and the workgroup wanted to see whether open source software would lower training and other costs. It also wanted to determine whether open source tools would make it easier for the workgroup to expand its focus to include live capture of evidence as well as post facto incident response.

John Griffin of the New York State Multi-Agency Digital Forensics Analysis Center, which focuses on state employee misconduct, explained how the workgroup conducted its tests. It spent about $400 to purchase a desktop computer that ran Linux and installed several open source forensic tools. It then downloaded and ran a hypothetical hacking scenario created by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). This scenario is accompanied by 31 questions that forensic analysts should be able to answer, and the testing team was able to answer all 31 questions with the open source tools and to validate the results with commercial forensics applications.

Mike Gibbs of the New York State Office of Children and Family Services then outlined some of the technical dimensions of the project. The forensics tool that the testing team used is called PTK, which runs on a variety of Linux distributions and on Mac OS X, and he discussed some of the problems they encountered. He also directed attendees to more information about the project and the software used.

Tom Hrbanek concluded by noting that work on the project continues and that it will expand to include capturing live memory dumps and data moving across networks, etc., and that the group will present its findings in detail at the International Conference on Digital Forensics & Cyber Crime, which will be held at the University at Albany, SUNY in September.

Although some components of this presentation exceeded my technical expertise, it was fascinating to hear that forensics personnel focus on issues of authenticity and integrity and use some of the techniques (e.g., fixity checking, keeping computers offline) that we often use. There are of course huge differences between the two fields -- they're trying to put away bad guys, and we’re trying to keep records intact and accessible across time. It’s always fascinating to see how the digital era has forced professions that formerly had little in common to focus on some of the same concerns.