Mudd Manuscript Library Annual Report, FY2012

 

Summary

The staff at Mudd Library had a very successful year in 2012 with notable highlights that include:

• Prepared for the launch of Aeon on July 1, 2012.  This required significant work from both public and technical services staff.
• Significant work done to upgrade access tools, in particular a new finding aids site launched in beta, and other work done to prepare for integration of EAD data into Primo.
• ACLU project completed, with almost 2,500 linear feet of records described as part of NHPRC-funded processing project.
• In addition to ACLU, 1,800 linear feet of other policy and archives materials described, including the Harold Medina Papers.
• The Daily Princetonian digitization completed, with the years 1876-2002 now online.
• Dissertation submission procedure altered to provide full-text, online access via OIT’s DataSpace.
• Hosted IMLS intern Brenda Tindal
• Continued high level of use of collections, both in-house and remote, with great degree of patron satisfaction, with PDF requests surpassing paper copies.

Major Activities

Public Services

In the past year, the staff of the Mudd Manuscript Library served 1,686 patrons, 211 of whom had visited Mudd prior to FY12 and 678 who were new researchers. We circulated 8,531 items (2,761 University Archives boxes/items, 5,812 Public Policy Papers boxes/items, 34 Gest rare books and 14 other items). For more on particular collections used, see Appendix A: Most used Archives and Policy collections in FY2012.

Staff also filled 354 photocopy orders totaling 39,431 pages, of which 265 orders were delivered as PDF files totaling 27,338 pages and 89 orders were fulfilled on paper, totaling 12,093 pages, so a PDF continues to be the preferred method for the majority of our users.  Scanning continues to be the default method by which we provide images for patrons and last year we filled 90 orders for 266 scans.

We responded to over 1,900 pieces of correspondence (including 882 pertaining to the University Archives and 403 to the Public Policy Papers; 16 requests for permission to quote) which arrived as follows: 1,317 e-mail; 111 telephone; 23 surface mail and 1 via fax.  Individual correspondence totals:  Maureen Callahan, 64; Christa Cleeton, 7; John DeLooper, 15; Kate Dundon, 20; Lynn Durgin, 108; Dave Gillespie, 9; Adriane Hanson, 81; Dan Linke, 207; Christie Lutz, 184; Christie  Peterson, 88; Amanda Pike, 340; Dan Santamaria, 27; Brenda Tindal, 18; Kristen Turner, 35; Helene van Rossum, 5; Rosalba Recchia, 82.   The staff also responded to more than 500 brief telephone calls.

Collectively, the staff worked with 9 different classes relating to junior papers and other research/writing projects with a total of approximately 115 attendees.

In addition, a large number of visitors took advantage of Mudd’s digital camera program as 279 patrons photographed 6,419 items from our collections, totaling 73,338 images.

John DeLooper left Mudd in September to accept a reference librarian position, and in early December, Christa Cleeton joined the Mudd staff as the new SCAIV for public services (front desk position). Christa, who had previously worked at Firestone, quickly and efficiently assumed the duties of the position, from greeting and registering patrons to overseeing student workers to carrying out special projects for Dan Linke. Significantly, Christa became the coordinator for Mudd’s social media efforts, responsible for our blogs, Facebook page and Twitter feed, all of which she has energetically attended to. She has been attending the University’s Social Media SPIN meetings, and working directly with the University’s director of social media to implement best practices and draw more attention to our social media output. Christa also assisted Lisbeth Dennis in creating a Facebook page for RBSC.

The biggest change in Mudd’s public services operations this year was the implementation of the Aeon circulation management system, done in conjunction with the rest of RBSC. All Mudd staff attended training sessions in January, with Lutz, Pike and Cleeton participating in extra training and numerous meetings regarding implementation, use, and workflow issues. Full implementation took several months, but in June we conducted preliminary tests of the system, and starting in July, began using the system.  Lutz, Pike and Cleeton worked to alert current and future Mudd researchers to the changes through our website, social media outlets, and in exchanges with patrons. Both experienced and new Mudd users have been quite receptive to the new system and particularly appreciate that they can submit requests for materials prior to their arrival at Mudd. While there was some concern among staff that we must first send researchers to the Access Office in Firestone to obtain Special Collections identification cards, we have not heard many patron complaints over the need to make this extra stop. However, this stop is a temporary measure until Mudd obtains the hardware and software necessary to create the ID cards here at Mudd.

Throughout the year, we received accolades from patrons for the quality and efficiency of the reference services we provided.

Technical Services

This was a very important year for Mudd technical services.  In addition to continued processing and description work, several projects begun this year, including the development of a redesigned EAD delivery system for finding aids, the integration of EAD data in Primo, and the implementation of Aeon for automated requesting and circulation, will have a profound impact on both our own operations and the way patrons access and use our material.

Processing levels continued to reach impressive levels in 2012.  A total of 4,298 linear feet was described online in fiscal year 2012, including 3,428 linear feet of public policy papers and 870 linear feet on University Archives.^[*]

Fortunately, FY2012 was stable in terms of staffing with all Mudd Library Technical Services positions filled with full-time staff members for the entire year – the first time this has been the case since 2007.  The stable staffing had a very significant impact on the work and achievements listed below.

Processing: Public Policy Papers

The main focus of Public Policy Papers processing in FY2012 was the NHPRC-funded ACLU grant project, led by Adriane Hanson.  All descriptive work on the project, encompassing 2,468 linear feet, was completed by the end of June 2012, though restriction review is ongoing.  ACLU work completed this year included the following:

• ACLU inventories completed (65 linear feet)
• ACLU restriction review (1,760 linear feet)
• ACLU description, including series level finding aids, EAC record, and enhancing the inventories by researching acronyms and incomplete case names
• ACLU boxes labeled and moved to correct order (2,468 linear feet after appraisal)

Other major policy processing projects included the reprocessing of the Harold Medina Papers (330 linear feet) and work on the Bill Bradley Papers (circa 700 linear feet), both managed by Maureen Callahan. The Bradley work was nearing completion by the end of the fiscal year but was not yet described in a finding aid and thus not counted in this year’s total.

Processing: University Archives

University Archives processing had a strong year due to the work of Christie Peterson as University Archives Project Archivist. Portions of 92 different collections were processed totaling over 592 linear feet.  In addition, Christie redesigned several databases used to describe special format material, including audiovisual material, memorabilia, and photographs, work that will allow data to be entered in a more consistent manner and be mapped and converted to formats such as EAD.  In addition to the linear footage totals above, the following material was processed and described:

• 293 audiovisual items
• 282 artifacts
• 257 oversize items
• 20 oversize folders
• 1 flat file drawer
• approximately 2,200 volumes (P collection and AC123)

Accessioning: (Public Policy and University Archives)

Our revised accessioning procedures, begun in 2008, continue to be employed.  This requires a baseline level of processing for everything received at the library and continues to require a substantial amount of work on accessioning new material. As such, we continue to count the linear footage total below as processed material.

Public Policy Accessioning (Callahan)

• 41 accessions totaling approximately 630 linear feet.

Notable Policy Accessions

• Association on American Indian Affairs additional records
• James A. Baker III additional papers
• Harwood L. Childs additional papers
• American Civil Liberties Union additional records
• Council on Foreign Relations additional records
• An additional 19 Derso and Kelen cartoons
• John Lewis Gaddis interview transcripts and recordings related to George Kennan
• Peter Kenen Papers
• Nadine Strossen Papers
• Women’s World Banking additional records

University Archives Accessioning (Durgin)

• Accessioned 168 donations and university transfers totaling 278.32 linear feet (AR.2011.046-AR.2011.150; AR.2012.001-AR.2012.065)

Notable Archives Accessions

• Harold W. Kuhn Papers on the Committee on the Structure of the University, 1968-1973, AR.2011.063
• Harold Medina Papers regarding Service to Princeton University, 1942-1966, AR.2011.088
• Department of Politics Records, 1926-1971, AR.2011.097
• Fireplace Bricks from Osborne Field House, 1891-1892, AR.2011.099
• Professor Thomas Roche, Department of English, Files, 1905-2003, AR.2011.111
• Princeton Prize in Race Relations Records, 1999-2011, AR.2012.001
• Undergraduate Women’s Leadership Committee Records, circa 2009-2011, AR.2012.004
• Materials Related to Fidel Castro’s Visit to Princeton, 1959, AR.2012.065

During fiscal year 2012 Lynn Durgin also oversaw a project to normalize and input legacy accessions data in the Archivists’ Toolkit which resulted in 898 improved records and 246 records created from legacy data.

Other

As noted above, the implementation of Primo, Aeon, and particularly the redesign on the EAD finding aids website were all major projects in FY2012.  This work required very significant project management, coordination, and testing.  The beta release of the EAD website was released on June 20, 2012 and has received very positive feedback inside and outside the library.  Aeon and Primo were also ready to be implemented by the end of the fiscal year, though held up by some infrastructure issues. As part of the Archival Description Working Group, Santamaria and Callahan were heavily involved in this work, though all staff made contributions.

Christie Peterson worked towards developing a baseline electronic records processing program and made very significant progress.  Due to Peterson’s pending departure in September for a permanent position at Johns Hopkins, this work will likely be suspended.

We accepted 362 dissertations and over 1,200 senior theses in FY12 under the supervision of Lynn Durgin.  More importantly Lynn managed the transition to online submission of dissertations which involved coordination with ProQuest and OIT; customizing the online submission site and the Mudd website; communications with the Graduate School, graduate academic administrators and graduate students regarding the new policies; as well as staff training.

Digital Projects, Content, and Delivery

The most significant work related to Digital Content in 2012 was the development of infrastructure to deliver digital content through finding aids.  This will allow us to increase digital content tremendously when the new finding aid site goes into production in Fall 2012.  Mudd staff also continued work to increase our digital content in FY12, including the projects listed below:

• Daily Princetonian digitization project completed through 2002.  This completes the major phase of the project.  Preliminary fundraising and work to ingest the next ten years of the paper is underway.
• Princeton Weekly Bulletin Project nearly completed.
• In-house scanning of the 20^th century Princeton Board of Trustees continues, with a planned OnBase implementation scheduled in FY13.
• Several Digital Studios Projects planned for FY2013 including Western European Theater Collection Digitization, and Industrial Relations Section Records Digitization projects.
• NHPRC Digitizing Historical Records Grant submitted.  If funded, this will allow the digitization of more than 400,000 documents related to the origins of the Cold War held within six Public Policy collections.

 Records Management

During the past year Anne Marie Phillips, University Records Manager, has continued work on the development and implementation of the records management program. Her work has been focused on:

• Financial records management
• Outreach and training
• Program infrastructure development
• Ongoing work with academic and administrative departments, programs, and centers
• New records management consultations with various units
• Building constituencies

Phillips has done extensive work with the Office of Finance and Treasury, inventorying the records of the department and identifying retention requirements for those records. Phillips was invited by Executive Vice President Mark Burstein to make a presentation at the June Academic and Administrative Managers Group detailing the goals and status of the records management program. The presentation allowed Phillips to reach out to a large number of people representing the vast majority of university staff who will be implementing records management. Phillips met with university departments (approximately 40 in FY2012) to gather and disseminate information, provide records management direction and training, and gather records inventory information to incorporate into records retention schedules.

Program infrastructure development has included the development of records management policies and procedures as well as work on the creation of a revised and update records management website (scheduled to be launched fall 2012).

Phillips also continued the work of establishing and strengthening relationships with related university departments, including the Office of General Counsel, the Office of Audit and Compliance, several departments within the Office of Information Technology, and other policy creators at the university.

Collection and Financial Development

See the sections on accessioning within the Technical Services portion of this report for collections of note acquired in this fiscal year.

The James Baker Oral History Project conducted six additional interviews this year:  General Colin Powell, journalist Sam Donaldson, and four European diplomats: Joachim Bitterlich, former Foreign and Security Policy Advisor to Helmut Kohl; Roland Dumas, Foreign Minister under President François Mitterrand; Markus Meckel, the penultimate foreign minister of the GDR (East Germany); and Hubert Védrine, diplomatic adviser of President Mitterrand.

Linke continued to raise funds for The Daily Princetonian digitization project, as the alumni board wants to bring the online issues up to the present, an additional ten years.  Linke raised another $30,000 toward this this year, bringing the grand total raised to nearly $300,000.

Santamaria wrote the majority of a grant application to the NHPRC to digitize Cold War records (as described elsewhere), which if funded, will bring in $110,000.

Exhibitions, Public Relations, and Outreach

Maureen Callahan, Amanda Pike, Christine Peterson, Helene van Rossum, Rosalba Varallo Recchia, and led by Christie Lutz comprised a Mudd ad hoc exhibition committee that assembled the well-received “She Flourishes: Chapters in the History of Princeton Women” in the Wiess Lounge.

The Mudd Manuscript Library and Reel Mudd blogs saw a combined total of 53 new entries this year:  50 on our main blog and three entries on The Reel Mudd. At the conclusion of the fiscal year, our Facebook page had nearly 500 people sharing stories about our page. This includes liking the page, posting to the wall, liking, commenting on or sharing of our posts, mentions of our page, or checking in at our place. In addition we had over 450 wall posts and 373 “Likes.” On Twitter, over 400 tweets were sent out to followers of @muddlibrary and we had over 700 clicks on links within a tweet.

Films on our Reel Mudd blog were the inspiration for a video that the Communications Office produced on Charter Day in October that Linke narrated, and he appeared in another video about the senior thesis that the Development Office released in April.

With the help of an advisory committee, Linke sought and reviewed proposals for an edited edition of the George Kennan diaries and selected Frank Costigliola of the University of Connecticut as the editor.  Ads were placed in the Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Review of Books, as well as on various listservs.  Costigliola plans to produce a volume by early 2014.

Linke continues to serve on the Princetoniana Committee and assists the group with its Oral History project, which conducted almost 20 interviews during the last year.

Building Issues

A leaky pipe in the wall between the men and women’s restroom caused problems throughout the year but after the third repair in June, it appears to be fixed.   Starting in April, electricians added motion sensor light switches on the third floor and began work on the second floor that is not yet complete.

Professional Development

Maureen Callahan is vice-chair/chair-elect of the Delaware Valley Archivists’ Group and a member of the Spring 2013 MARAC program committee. She gave a talk at the Spring 2012 MARAC meeting about gender, labor and the archival profession, and is currently writing an article with Shaun Ellis for Code4Lib Journal about rapid prototyping and user testing.

Adriane Hanson continued serving on the MARAC Finding Aids Award Committee, including work to modernize the awards criteria, and presented at the Spring MARAC Conference on processing large collections.

Dan Linke continues to serve on the MARAC Steering Committee.  In addition, he assisted in planning and then judged at the regional NJ History Day competition held on Princeton’s campus in March and taught “Introduction to Archives” for the masters in public history program at Rutgers-Camden.

Christie Lutz continues to serve on the CAPES advisory board. She was a member of the Program Committee for the MARAC Spring meeting in Cape May. In November, she delivered a paper at the Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association annual meeting in Philadelphia entitled “’In the Pines’”:  Albert Music Hall and the Preservation of a Pine Barrens Musical Tradition.” She was invited to present on this topic again at the national Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association annual meeting held in Boston in April.

Christie Peterson completed service on the 2011 Society of American Archivists (SAA) Program Committee. She was appointed to a two-year term on the Meeting Model Subcommittee of SAA’s Annual Meeting Task Force and a one-year term on the SAA Research Libraries Round Table Steering Committee. She presented and chaired a session on Audio Transfer and Evaluation at the Fall meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC). At the Spring MARAC meeting in Cape May, she served on the local arrangements committee and chaired a session.

Dan Santamaria continued to teach SAA’s “Implementing More Product, Less Process” workshop (taught twice in FY2012, though additional instructors taught several other sessions), and spoke on hiring and management at the Spring 2012 MARAC.  He was named to SAA’s Standards Committee and signed two contracts to write books for SAA’s fundamentals series and for ALA publications.

Goals for FY2012

• Implement Aeon for registration and other public service functions
• Several Digital Studios Projects planned including Western European Theater Collection Digitization, and Industrial Relations Section Records Digitization projects
• If funded, begin NHPRC-funded Digitizing Historical Records Grant on selected Cold War collections
• Collection development: continue to build the Policy collections through donations and efforts such as the Baker Oral History Project
• Continue high level of public services
• Complete Princeton Weekly Bulletin digitization project
• Continue to exploit our blog, Facebook, and other social media as part of outreach efforts.
• Continue to build a records management program

Submitted by Dan Linke, who acknowledges the contributions of the Assistant University Archivists and the Records Manager for contributing much of the text for their sections.

July 31, 2012

List of Mudd Manuscript Library Staff

 

Maureen Callahan, Public Policy Papers Project Archivist

Christa Cleeton, Special Collections Assistant IV, Public Services (hired December 2011)

John DeLooper, Special Collections Assistant IV, Public Services (left in September 2011 to take professional librarian’s position with Union County Community College)

Kate Dundon, Summer 2011 John Foster and Janet Avery Dulles Archival Fellow

Lynn Durgin, Special Collections Assistant V, Technical Services

David Gillespie, SCAII, ACLU Project (hired August 30, 2011)

Adriane Hanson, ACLU Project Archivist

Dan Linke, University Archivist and Curator of Public Policy Papers

Christie Lutz, Assistant University Archivist for Public Services

Christie Peterson, University Archives Project Archivist

Anne Marie Phillips, University Records Manager

Amanda Pike, Special Collections Assistant V, Public Services

Gene Pope (67% FTE), Special Collections Assistant I, Public Services

Dan Santamaria, Assistant University Archivist for Technical Services

Brenda Tindal, IMLS Project Archivist (started September 2011)

Don Thornbury, Head, Technical Services for Rare Books and Special Collections

Kristen Turner, Special Projects Archivist (30% FTE)

Helene Van Rossum, Special Collections Assistant IV, Technical Services (Reduced service to minimal hours starting in October, as she became the archivist at the Curtis Institute of Music, working 0.75 FTE there)

Rosalba Varallo Recchia, Special Collections Assistant IV, University Archives Project/Public Services (50% FTE)

Appendix A:  Most used Archives and Policy collections in FY2012

Boxes pulled    Collection Name

626                  American Civil Liberties Union

549                  George Kennan

314                  John Foster Dulles

305                  Council on Foreign Relations

220                  Allen Dulles

219                  Bernard M Baruch

210                  George S. McGovern

170                  Franklin Book Programs

166                  Dwight D. Eisenhower Library files relating to John Foster Dulles

166                  George W. Ball

Boxes/items pulled     Collection Name

829                              Senior Thesis

222                              Historical Photograph Collection: Campus Life Series

126                              Undergraduate Alumni Files 1748-1920

122                              Historical Subject Files

88                                Board of Trustees Records

64                                Princetoniana Collection (“P Collection”)

60                                Grounds and Buildings Subject Files

59                                Historical Photograph Collection: Grounds and Buildings

56                                Undergraduate Alumni Files 1921-2005

44                                Historical Photograph Collection: Student Photograph Albums