not really an archivist
Jul. 18th, 2014 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauradi7dw I am reading Jill Lapore's book about Ben Franklin's sister Jane. I heard her speak a while back, and then noticed the book in the library.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17262121-book-of-ages?from_search=true
Letters, journals, court documents, newspapers - everything matters when you're trying to figure out something about the past. (probably the present, too, but then you could interview some of the people involved).
I've been thinking a lot about the value of seemingly boring or trivial items in archives. One of my volunteer gigs is helping the medical librarian for the Boston area VA hospitals. There isn't a physical library - it mostly deals with online journals and such, but paper exists. She has a box of clippings and newsletters from the 1990s, carefully kept by the public relations officer at the Brockton & West Roxbury VA medical centers. I have been given the task of cataloging them all in EndNote (bibliographical software). I tend to get a bit eye-rolly about a number of the clippings - will scholars of the future want to know that the VFW ladies auxiliary gave a St Patrick's Day party for 32 vets with spinal cord injuries in 1991? Well, maybe. I've entered over a hundred of these clippings so far, with possibly hundreds to go, and categories are beginning to form in my mind. There are lots like the example above - parties, elementary school performances, recognition ceremonies. There are things that are superficially nice with deeper implications, like the toys made by vets doing rehab in a wood shop (left unstated - was that getting them ready to return to a regular job? Would other kinds of occupational therapy have worked better?). There was a series of hard-hitting newspaper articles in the Herald (really) about neglect and incompetence in VA hospitals (1990). There were letters to the editor from family members who felt that their loved ones were saved by the care they received. There were articles about the worry leading up to the first Gulf War, the efforts to be prepared, the relief that (at that time) there weren't enough injured soldiers that they had to be spread throughout the system. There are things that make me sad in retrospect, unrelated to the current VA woes - one of the articles I did yesterday was saved because the doctor mentioned in the article worked at a VA hospital. It was written by Betsy Lehman, who would die three years later of botched chemotherapy treatment. Looking back at some of these makes me want to know the follow-up, so I sometimes look. I was pleased to see this
http://www.mass.gov/chia/consumer/betsy-lehman-center-for-patient-safety-and-medical-error-reduction/
I was glad that the patient in the article about his spinal injury 23 years ago seems to be having a happy and useful life now.
I didn't bother to check, but I bet the doctors who were preparing for a (then eventual) big influx of Viet Nam era vets with prostate problems received them.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17262121-book-of-ages?from_search=true
Letters, journals, court documents, newspapers - everything matters when you're trying to figure out something about the past. (probably the present, too, but then you could interview some of the people involved).
I've been thinking a lot about the value of seemingly boring or trivial items in archives. One of my volunteer gigs is helping the medical librarian for the Boston area VA hospitals. There isn't a physical library - it mostly deals with online journals and such, but paper exists. She has a box of clippings and newsletters from the 1990s, carefully kept by the public relations officer at the Brockton & West Roxbury VA medical centers. I have been given the task of cataloging them all in EndNote (bibliographical software). I tend to get a bit eye-rolly about a number of the clippings - will scholars of the future want to know that the VFW ladies auxiliary gave a St Patrick's Day party for 32 vets with spinal cord injuries in 1991? Well, maybe. I've entered over a hundred of these clippings so far, with possibly hundreds to go, and categories are beginning to form in my mind. There are lots like the example above - parties, elementary school performances, recognition ceremonies. There are things that are superficially nice with deeper implications, like the toys made by vets doing rehab in a wood shop (left unstated - was that getting them ready to return to a regular job? Would other kinds of occupational therapy have worked better?). There was a series of hard-hitting newspaper articles in the Herald (really) about neglect and incompetence in VA hospitals (1990). There were letters to the editor from family members who felt that their loved ones were saved by the care they received. There were articles about the worry leading up to the first Gulf War, the efforts to be prepared, the relief that (at that time) there weren't enough injured soldiers that they had to be spread throughout the system. There are things that make me sad in retrospect, unrelated to the current VA woes - one of the articles I did yesterday was saved because the doctor mentioned in the article worked at a VA hospital. It was written by Betsy Lehman, who would die three years later of botched chemotherapy treatment. Looking back at some of these makes me want to know the follow-up, so I sometimes look. I was pleased to see this
http://www.mass.gov/chia/consumer/betsy-lehman-center-for-patient-safety-and-medical-error-reduction/
I was glad that the patient in the article about his spinal injury 23 years ago seems to be having a happy and useful life now.
I didn't bother to check, but I bet the doctors who were preparing for a (then eventual) big influx of Viet Nam era vets with prostate problems received them.
