Ron,
With respect to your recommendation: "Since most of what Mary does is
government-generated, my suggestion is that she cite the National Records
Act and give the boxes to the agency that created the material."
When we contract out for archaeological services, we stipulate in writing
that all field collections and associated field/laboratory documentation
gathered or generated in pursuit of the contracted project are the property
of the government are to be tendered to our office or a designated
repository upon completion. We expect to get the original documents and, in
fact, have held up final payment until all the deliverables were received.
Of course, our in-house storage faciliity is now bursting at the seams,
too, but I would have to agree with your opinion that the onus of perpetual
curation should be on the Federal agency that requires the work unless
other appropriate arrangements are made. Whether one can simply cite an Act
of Congress and give the materials back to the agency, absent such
contractual stipulations, is another question altogether.
If recall my brief time working in Illinois CRM, 20-some years ago,
accurately the State Museum provided curation services for CRM firms and
independent consultants for a one-time fee based on cubic footage. Many
projects there were done for non-Federal government entities who had to do
archaeology before they did build new infrastructure (like put up a new
municipal water tower under State of Fedeal licensing requirments) or
perhaps for Federal agencies that had no curation capability. The projected
repository fee charged by ISM would appear as a line item in the budget
proposal. Not that you could know precisely how much cubic footage of
material would result from the project, but if you estimated that way low
in the proposal you probably got the field and laboratory time grossly
wrong, too, and were already taking a loss on the contract by the time you
got to curation. So it goes.
Of course, archaeologists have traditionally attended to the needs of
artifact curation to the detriment of associated archives. Further, it has
only been in recent years, as the curation crisis has mounted, that we have
begun to gauge the true cost of keeping all this stuff we collect and
maintaining our collections in accessible conditions. Finding the money to
do so years after the projects have been closed out is an even greater
challenge, no matter who pays the bill.
Vergil
Ron May
<[log in to unmask] To: [log in to unmask]
> cc: (bcc: Vergil Noble/MWAC/NPS)
Sent by: Subject: Re: old notes
HISTORICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY
<[log in to unmask]
>
11/14/2007 12:28
PM EST
Please respond to
HISTORICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY
All this talk of electronic and microfilm media miss the point raised by
Mary Maniery. She has boxes of original and copies of field data, research
mater
ials, and materials not used in her reports and wanted guidance on what to
do. I am especially concerned with all the research notations and other
details
in field forms that get summarized or lost in administrative reports. Since
most of what Mary does is government-generated, my suggestion is that she
cite
the Natioinal Records Act and give the boxes to the agency that created
the
material. Failing that, the next place for archival material is the
information center created by the State Office of Historic Preservation
because the
backup material supported the Department of Parks and Recreation record
form
for each site in the state of California. There are a few collections
management programs in California that profitably charge $700 to $1,500
per box of
artifacts and perhaps she can find a place for the archival documents. I
doubt
she will find a home for the financial and business records, but who
knows.
When I do historical research, I always lament the business records of
building
and architectural firms never seem to have been saved.
And what do I do with said records? I am nearing the end of a 25-year long
research project in which the collection is stored in an underground bunker
on
a military reservation. The bunker has humidity and temperature
regulation,
is checked regularly, and security personnel check the locked steel door
every
fifteen minutes or more. At this time, I have a copy of my notes, photo
negatives, prints, and other materials in the bunker and plan to eventually
install all the original materials there. I may place the slides, a set of
prints, and copy of the notes in another institution in this region as a
backup.
All my other projects went to the agencies that created them (Army Corps of
Engineers, State Highways, etc.) and they have them at San Diego State
University or in the San Diego Archaeological Center. But talk is cheap and
I do feel
the concern about other people's original records and notes created on
sites
that have now been destroyed and the only record is the very stuff Mary
discussed in her message.
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.
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