It’s been said that we live in a post-truth society, one in which appeals to emotion and beliefs are more influential in shaping opinions than facts and reason. While skepticism is nothing new, it seems particularly in vogue in the social media age to insist that because no one source is completely infallible there is no reason to place particular value on authoritative sources or expertise. This is an issue of primary concern for libraries and archives whose core values include the curation of, and provision of access to, reliable sources of information. What does post-truthism mean in terms of practical operations of collecting organizations, such as regional archives which often fall within the purview of public libraries? To begin with, how does one archive fake news?

Context

Context is key. Information is shaped by various internal and external contexts^.1 Therefore, preserving the cultural and semantic context that clearly marks the information as false is critical when archiving misleading or inaccurate information. But what exactly constitutes fake news – does this include satire, advertisements, clickbait? Other problems have to do with the “digital born” nature of most contemporary fake news and the “no such thing as bad publicity” angle – even obviously fake news is perceived as more credible when exposure is repeated, as can easily happen when digital material goes viral. Thus making such data available digitally may serve to lend weight to ideas even when context is provided that marks the material as false or inaccurate. This is less of an issue in traditional “hard copy” archives.²

Format

Typically libraries strive to provide information in multiple formats to increase accessibility. When it comes to disinformation that is preserved for archival purposes, this approach can backfire because digital material is more easily manipulated and taken out of context. Unique quandaries are faced by libraries that include archives of extremist literature. Groups with fringe beliefs often seek to boost credibility by discrediting mainstream and authoritative sources of information.³ Unique challenges in this arena include providing context for offensive materials, presenting them in an objective manner for scholarly use, and ensuring those with valid research interests know about and have access to collections while mitigating potential exploitation for nefarious purposes.⁴ Format plays a large part in this as “hard copy” material requires more effort to access on the part of users and tends to attract primarily those with research interests. Offering the material in digital format makes it easier to access but also increases the possibility that its context may be misrepresented.

Objectivity

Some interesting issues related to objectivity and historical archives are raised in “Imperial Shrines: How Presidential Libraries Distort History⁵ by Benjamin Hufbauer. Hufbauer argues that presidential libraries are becoming less conducive to research and more like shrines celebrating the achievements of presidents, due to competing interests of organizations that share in their design and upkeep. Presidential library archivists and curators are hired and funded by the federal government and the archives are run by the National Archives. However, museum elements -including exhibits- are privately funded and have become more elaborate over the years, tending to glorify presidents and their achievements. Hufbauer points out cases in which more controversial aspects of a presidency have been drastically under-represented by the library. Similar conflicts of interest can impact even small regional archives when donors or benefactors aim to influence the manner in which collections are presented or interpreted.

Volume

The challenges facing archivists are growing as electronic formats exponentially increase the amount of material to be sorted. Hufbauer points out that, due to electronic formats, the number of documents per president has vastly increased, with pages numbering in the tens of millions as of 2008⁶ (this quantity surely has exploded even more in the decade since). The dilemma posed by the pervasiveness of “digital born” material is evident in a 2017 blog post by the Library of Congress (LOC)⁷ explaining its decision to end a 2006-2017 agreement with Twitter which gave LOC access to all public tweets for their archive. The LOC will no longer collect all tweets, only those surrounding nationally significant events. The sheer volume of digital-born material is making it impossible for archives even as lofty as the LOC to keep up with the organization of such data. This necessitates drawing boundaries and being transparent about limitations.

Anticipating and planning for issues of context, format, objectivity, and volume will continue to be a challenge for collecting agencies, including libraries of all kinds. If your library has ideas for dealing with such issues, please add them in the comments.

References

1. Nicole Cooke, “Posttruth, Truthiness, and Alternative Facts: Information Behavior and Critical Information Consumption for a New Age.” Library Quarterly, 87 no. 3 (2017): 211-221.
2. Corrie Commisso, “The Post-truth Archive: Considerations for Archiving Context in Fake News Repositories.” Preservation, Digital Technology, and Culture, 46 no. 3 (2017): 99-102.
3. Lee McItyre, Post-Truth, (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2018), 62.
4. Maria R. Traska, “EXTREMISM @the LIBRARY.” American Libraries, 45 no. 6 (2014): 32–35.
5. Benjamin Hufbauer, “Imperial Shrines: How Presidential Libraries Distort History.” The Christian Century, 125, no. 11 (2008, June 3): 12+. Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A179658870/SPJ.SP00?u=fairfax_main&sid=SPJ.SP00&xid=499438be
6. Hufbauer, Imperial Shrines, para 11.
7. Library of Congress. “Update on the Twitter archive at the Library of Congress.” (2017, December). Retrieved from: https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/files/2017/12/2017dec_twitter_white-paper.pdf

The post The Post-Truth Archive first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Thousands of hours of Navajo oral histories recorded onto film reels were miraculously discovered in a jail cell in the late 1960s. These oral histories were eventually transferred onto VHS tapes to be used as a historical tool for Navajo preservation. Their backups had already been destroyed in a fire, so all that was left were the originals. The Navajo Nation Library “is asking the Navajo Nation Council for $230,520 to digitize the five dusty filing cabinets of tapes so the collection can be protected, distributed to schools, and made available to others.”[1]

The Navajo Nation once saw funding for this sort of preservation. In 1968, funding from the Federal Office of Economic Opportunity “was used by the Navajo Office of Economic Opportunity to begin recording oral histories.”[2] Funding for the project ran out and the tapes were left idle until 1978, when the Navajo Nation Library acquired them. Nobody knows for sure what the plans initially were for the recordings, but their historical significance can be respected today and the need to preserve these oral histories that highlight daily life among the Navajo can easily be appreciated.

“The content of these recordings are very culturally sensitive. There are some legends we only tell at certain times of the year and the nine-night ceremony is very sacred, very private,”[3] stated Irving Nelson, Navajo Nation Library Program Supervisor. Indeed, because of this sensitivity, the library plans on coordinating with Navajo religious authorities to determine when and where certain recording should be played. The library also plans on coordinating with local educators to help promote Navajo history as well as develop curricula on the subject.

Nelson stated that “the benefit of restoring these tapes extends beyond the reservation, since the tapes share a lot of the local history that’s of significance to the area. The state histories of Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona will all become richer when these personal histories are known.”[4] This is a new chapter for the Navajo Nation and could be the start of something very special.

References

[1] Claire Caulfield, “Navajos hope to digitally preserve thousands of hours of oral history,” Cronkite News (Arizona PBS), December 21, 2016.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Irving Nelson, ibid.

[4] Ibid.

The post Navajo Library Seeks To Preserve Rare Oral Histories first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Perhaps not as common is the concept of crowdsourcing research. Though it operates on a model similar to crowdfunding; instead of providing financial assistance, participants contribute their time and knowledge to help foster discussion and verify findings. When the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif., acquired over sixteen thousand Civil War telegrams between Abraham Lincoln, his Cabinet, and the Union Army—over one-third of which was written in code—they turned to crowdsourcing research to help make the collection available to the public.^[1] Huntington is working in collaboration with Zooniverse, a platform that provides “people-powered research”^[2] to places like Huntington that wish to engage in large scale projects that would not be possible without the participation a huge number of people.

The Huntington Library originally thought to simply scan the ledgers and codebooks and make them available online with a traditional finding aid. But they soon determined that they needed more “points of access” for the people searching the collection.^[3] Through Zooniverse, Huntington called on “citizen archivists” to help decipher and transcribe the telegrams.^[4] “We have the collection organized and archived in the traditional manner, the finding aid is here, but now we will be able to place the papers online with transcriptions that will make it accessible to so many more,” says Mario Einaudi, the Kemble Digital Projects librarian at Huntington, “Truly wonderful.”^[5] A project of this scale can be a long process. Each individual “subject” or page from the collection will be viewed by multiple transcribers before being added to the collection.

“For a subject to be retired, pulled from the transcription queue, it needs to have been transcribed ten times.” Einaudi confirms, “So ten separate citizen archivists have been the given the page to transcribe, transcribed it, and marked it done. Those ten transcriptions are run through an algorithm, compared, and the consensus copy built. If the ten volunteers agreed with each other, say 95 percent of the time, then the page is transcribed. If there is a lower agreement rate, then the subject and the consensus transcription will be sent to human editors for review. [The process] is fascinating and really shows the power of crowdsourcing.”^[6]

While this is the Huntington’s first foray into crowdsourcing, Einaudi is hopeful that the library may be able to use the model to benefit other parts of its collection in the future. Its success may also pave the way for other libraries, both public and academic, to make use of crowdsourcing research as a valuable way to involve/include patrons in building and maintaining the very collections they use. Interested in contributing to Huntington’s project? See its Zooniverse website, take a brief tutorial, and get to work!

References

[1] “Huntington Announces Launch of Crowdsourcing Project to Transcribe, Decode U.S. Civil War Telegrams,” press release by The Huntington, June 21, 2016.

[2] “What is the Zooniverse,” About, Zooniverse, date.

[3] Mario Einaudi, Kemble Digital Projects librarian at Huntington, in an e-mail Interview with the author, August 12, 2016.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

The post People-Powered Research Enables Large Scale Projects first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

With greater interest, I read further that they recently inter­viewed four greats together: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Fats Domino. But they ran into some difficulty. Little Richard dominated the interview, and they had to tape the other three individually the next day. These museum curators were unaware of the dangers of the multiple-person interview. Less can equal more. Oral histories are most effective when the interviews are one-on-one.

How do I know this, and why is it of interest to me? Over the past ten years at Way Public Library (WPL) in Perrysburg (OH), I have conducted dozens of oral history interviews.

If you consult the March/April 2004 issue of Public Libraries you will find an article explaining our library’s initial experiences with this oral history project. This earlier piece reported the nuts and bolts of conducting interviews, such as preparing questions, tech­nical elements (including taping one person at a time), preserving the finished product, and general marketing of the project. This effort resulted in greater promise than we realized at the time. These interviews were transformed into a local history book.

History Series Sells Itself

When WPL started the Oral History Series in 2002, the objective was to record, on video, the memories of longtime community residents using Perrysburg as a frame of reference. Part of any public library’s mission is to provide and preserve information unique to the area it serves. WPL began to contact residents and request interviews. Sometimes it took persuasion, other times not. People will talk. After the interview, with the participant’s approval, these videos were added to the local history collection.

True stories can be fascinating. With the interviewees’ permis­sion, we began to share them with the community in print form as well. The tapes were transcribed, excerpted, and submitted to our local newspaper, the Perrysburg Messenger Journal. They struck a chord. Readers enjoyed the stories, and the project was able to advertise itself, inspiring others to come forward to record their memories. This led to transcribing full interviews and writing more comprehensive stories. This went on for many years, resulting in a stack of oral history tales.

Important to the oral history project was the opportunity to collect town and family photographs. I encouraged the inter­viewees to bring in any photos, as well as scrapbooks, clippings, letters, journals, or diaries. I copied or scanned everything I could get my hands on. Photos kindle people’s memories, and they would often hold and describe the pictures on camera. Borrow­ing and copying these photographs was also an economical way to build the local history collection. Over the years, hundreds of photographs were collected, many now accessible through our library’s website.

The level of detail in many people’s journals was surprising. For example, one woman consulted her journal of a road trip she took with her husband in the 1930s. They went to Canada to see (from a distance) the then–world famous Dionne Quintuplets. She had a record of each day: what they saw, where they roomed, what they ate, and how much money things cost. (The opera glasses were fifty cents, by the way.) There is no better history than a record of this type.

Another written record included a complete customer list from a retired bar­ber. He reflected on the names, which in­cluded many prominent and well-known village figures—many now passed—and fondly reminisced about them from his unique viewpoint. People leave more than their hair at the barbershop.

Transcribing Stories, Selecting Pictures

Eventually, it fell into place to collect these stories into a book. I remembered that Ardath Danford, who was the direc­tor of WPL in 1966 at the time of our city’s sesquicentennial, had written a book called The Perrysburg Story, bringing our then–150-year history to life. I even vis­ited her in retirement at her out-of-town home to tape her unique and important input. In like manner, our city’s bicenten­nial was approaching. As local history librarian, I thought WPL could again play an instrumental role in 2016 as we marked that great moment in our community.

I had interviewed a cross-section of people from our village over the years from many walks of life, all rich in local color. It didn’t hurt that I was a fifth-gen­eration local myself. I had the advantage of knowing many people, and they knew me, trusting me with their words, some even inviting me to their homes to tape them and show me their scrapbooks or family photo albums. It may have been bad manners, but on occasion I even man­aged to persuade people to loan pictures displayed on a bureau or hanging from a wall. Perrysburg’s first municipal judge, who I interviewed for the series and who would later write the book’s foreword, told me, “Richard, you are in the ideal position to do this project,” a point which further motivated me.

Oral histories came from hometown business owners, doctors, lawyers, realtors, and bankers. There were police officers, firefighters, educators, city and factory workers, and mothers who raised families. There were twenty-one World War II veterans, and their military experiences became part of many stories. I also interviewed representatives of local and civic groups such as a garden club, a boat club, and a board that led organized teenage recreation. And there were my favorite interviewees, the farmers. Even though I never lived on a farm, I enjoyed the Depression-era growing-up-on-a-farm stories the best.

In 2011, I started reviewing these videos one by one. I had transferred the early ones, originally recorded on VHS, to DVD some time earlier, so I was able to view them conveniently on a computer. All were interesting. Some people were livelier, some people told a better story, and others had better photographs. And photos were important. Although this was not a picture book, I still planned to enhance the book with photographs, and finding the best ones was challenging.

The photos ranged from the 1800s to the mid-twentieth century. Many were casual family photographs shot with Brownies or other inexpensive box cameras popular at the time. The subjects in the snapshots always seemed small. You couldn’t see faces well. To me, faces make the image. Many were not usable for book purposes. Baby, childhood, church, school, or wedding pictures were the best, as most were professionally shot. Service photos were also generally shot professionally and usually in portrait style, highly suitable for book purposes and fitting for stories featuring a veteran.

I vowed not to rush and meticulously worked through each interview. Transcrib­ing is tedious work. I had other library duties in the meantime. But I began to be­lieve in the value of the project and made the time, often on my own. Sometimes I would contact the person I was reviewing, reveal the book plan, and let them read what I wrote. I was able to incorporate new material, correct errors, and some­times get additional photographs. This revision process led to much improve­ment.

By 2012, I had fifty of the most promis­ing interviews written. I say written, but what I actually did was write down what the person said and organize the account into a readable manner, although I did not tinker with dialogue. I always made sure to put names in whenever I could. People like to read names, because they color the stories with real life. I limited each story to 1,600–2,000 words. I kept paragraphs short so they were pleasing to the eye while creating a sense of action. Although my voice was present, I kept it soft and succinct. I connected passages, inserted occasional personal observations for clarity, and periodically added a historical grace note to introduce or round out a particular tale or account.

Like with interviewing, I found that less is more when it comes to writing. I interviewed two farmers who had been lifelong friends, and they insisted on being recorded together. When it came time to write their chapter, I couldn’t get their stories to gel. It finally struck me to organize their stories separately, and that did the trick. These are things you learn as you go along. Even though they were re­corded together, they made two separate crackerjack chapters in the book.

I selected the photographs carefully. Some were cautiously cropped so as not to damage historical integrity of the im­age and all were retouched to be as clean and bright as possible. Efforts were made during the layout process to enlarge those photos that featured smaller im­ages. Content was identified and carefully captioned, making note of the year the photograph was taken or as close as it could be determined. History does not make sense without dates.

The photos were grouped together at the end of each story. I thought it would make browsing more emphatic than interspersed images throughout the text. There was always one contemporary photo of the person, often amusing for comparison with younger versions of the same. And you could see them on the same or opposite page.

Money, Money, Money

So how do you convert these elements into an actual book? Writing is easy, rais­ing money to publish a book, less easy. I wrote the whole thing on speculation and faith. I put together a prototype, assem­bled inexpensively by one of the big-box office stores. I showed it to Perrysburg’s mayor and he realized its historical impli­cations. He agreed with me that the book could play a complementary role in our city’s approaching bicentennial, perhaps even providing a focal point. With great foresight, he provided seed money from the city’s Municipal Development Fund, an account used for miscellaneous city ex­penditures, including historical purposes. Your public library’s city or town may have a similar fund.

Next, the Way Public Library Founda­tion & Friends (WPLFF) was approached. It was founded by a group of citizens who understood that a strong public library does not live by public funding alone. The foundation’s role is to advocate for library services and facilitate private donations for WPL use. The board was enthusiastic from the outset and declared their sup­port.

Once initial funding was secured, we needed to determine printing costs. With help from our local newspaper, the Perrysburg Messenger Journal, a company was located. The company estimated it would cost about $25,000 to print one thousand copies. So far, there was start-up money from the City of Perrysburg and other financial support from the WPLFF but other fundraising would be necessary.

Enter DAR and Other Contributors

In early 2013, the Fort Industry Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) from nearby Toledo presented me with the group’s Local Media Award for WPL’s oral history project. It proved to be divine intervention. I told them of my project to transpose these interviews to print. Officials of the group realized it had tremendous potential for a historic preservation grant offered by the Na­ tional Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR).

The NSDAR grants program was start­ed in 2010. Funding is awarded to support projects in local communities which ex­emplify the organization’s mission areas of historic preservation, education, and patriotism. Fifty are awarded each year. Public libraries are sitting in the catbird seat for this type of grant.

With the help of these DAR officials, we submitted an application for a historic preservation grant to the Special Grants Committee of the NSDAR in December 2013. In 2014, we were elated to hear that we had won a $10,000 matching grant to publish the book of local interviews, now titled Perrysburg Village Voices: Hometown Stories of the Past, and subtitled Celebrat­ing Perrysburg’s Bicentennial 1816–2016. It later turned out that it was the only grant awarded by the NSDAR in Ohio in 2014, and the largest donation received for the book’s publication. Quite a distinction for the Fort Industry Chapter DAR, the Ohio Society DAR, and WPL.

Fundraising gained traction. Along the way I had interviewed the Country Garden Club of Perrysburg, and their story had been included in the book. They provided a generous donation. Another civic group, Historic Perrysburg, also contributed. There were many military veterans in the book; Perrysburg Post 28 American Le­gion and VFW Post 6170 made donations. The First Federal Bank of the Midwest of Perrysburg added money to the cause.

Private benefactors came forward. Some were individuals who were in the book or who had family in it. And there were others who simply thought this local history book would be a huge boon for our community. Our grant match was made and then some. In fact, we had to close fundraising, facilitated by WPLFF, having reached our goal of $25,000. Not a bad problem to have, but in all modesty, that is Perrysburg.

The Rest of the Story

In the spring of 2014, the book was proofread. By mid-summer 2014 the page designer took over. Using Adobe InDesign, the book’s 204 pages with 175 photographs were assembled. The liaison with the printer was the Perrysburg Messenger Journal, whose graphic artist insured all file content was compatible for the printing process.

The City of Perrysburg’s computer systems administrator contributed to the dust jacket, a clever design of old and new Perrysburg city maps blended together, also with a black and gold color scheme.

By July 2015 the book was finalized. All that was left was to print the books and ship them to us. The one thousand books arrived at the end of July.

A book prerelease party was held at WPL for those interviewed in the book and their families. Benefactors were also invited. It was a huge success, drawing 250 people, including past and present city mayors. Many Fort Industry Chapter DAR members were also in attendance. There was speechmaking and much socializing. At least three hundred books went out the door.

The general release of Village Voices was held at Perrysburg’s Harrison Rally Day, an annual festival commemorat­ing William Henry Harrison’s victory at nearby Fort Meigs in the War of 1812. The city holds a huge street fair. Nearly one hundred books were sold at the WPLFF display booth. It was the perfect prelude to our bicentennial. More books were sold at WPL and other local venues, as well as online from the WPLFF website.

Time has passed since this project began. Some of the individuals who participated in these oral histories are no longer with us but forever suspended in time, just as they were when their voices were recorded and their minds alive with memories. Preserving the past and mak­ing it live is a lovely task.

Being a “local” local history librarian worked to my advantage, but any public librarian could do this, too. Public libraries are ideal platforms for creating historical works. These archives will add cultural en­richment and prove useful and interesting to a wide variety of patrons. What I did, you can do at your public library, too.

The post FEATURE | Quintuplets and a Barber’s Memory: It’s All Local History to Me! first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Which is why I was all the more excited when a couple years ago I stumbled upon a under-utilized collection of oral histories made by Lancaster Public Library dating from the 1970s, with a few from the early 1990s. While not complete, it included more than 200 interviews with a wide range of people from around the county. On these tapes are captured memories from people who in many cases are no longer around and represent a priceless local treasure.

There was the young boy making rural deliveries, on foot, in the middle of the Blizzard of ’88. Yes, that would be 1888. He wanted to make an impression and do his job, but fortunately an older couple took him in before he froze and helped him warm up until the storm subsided. Afterwards the husband took him in their carriage back to the boy’s home.

Fast forward a few decades and there’s the story of teenage girls shopping at the long-gone but still-legendary department stores in downtown Lancaster.

One recording that I haven’t listened to yet, but am looking forward to, tells the story of how the city’s first airport came into existence.

Memories that old may not be completely accurate, but it’s how they remembered these and other events that made them the people they became. We’ve just started to digitize them and I can’t wait to start posting them online to share these often amazing recollections with the community that helped to create them.

As someone who’s relatively new to public libraries, it’s this kind of community engagement that excites me. If you have histories like these in your collection I hope you are doing something with them. Our 40-year-old tapes are beginning to degrade and if they had stayed in storage much longer they might have been lost to history entirely.

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