Digital Archives Offer Window To The Past

Online Database Gives Unprecedented Access To Collections At 13 Northwest Institutions

By Megan Dann Fesinmeyer

The Northwestern states are bound by shared geography, culture, and history. For decades, archivists in this region have taken pride in preserving the physical evidence of history in libraries, universities, and government archives. Each preserved artifact is like a single thread, woven with others into a colorful tapestry of Northwest history.

Finding Northwest treasures can be as simple as stepping into your local library. The items in these archival collections range from mundane business records to bizarre photographs, and they are usually freely available to researchers and the general public. Since most archival collections contain items that are one-of-a-kind or unpublished, many artifacts exist behind a veil of obscurity. The only clue to their existence is a document known as a finding aid, a guide that details the contents of an archival collection and places it in historical context.

Until recently, most archives in the Northwest recorded their finding aids in a variety of electronic formats. Some chose to write their finding aids in Microsoft Word, and others used HTML. Without a standardized finding aid format and without the technology required to link finding aids from different institutions, remote access to Northwest archival collections has been variable. It is easier for large institutions with existing digital infrastructures, and next to impossible for small institutions with limited staff and resources. With these disparities in mind, the Northwest Digital Archives (NWDA) was born.

Funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the NWDA went online in September 2004, offering unrestricted public access to archival finding aids from 13 Northwest institutions.

"In the past, you had to go to every one of these small institutions just to find out what was in the collections," says NWDA project director Marsha Maguire, who is manuscripts and special collections cataloging librarian at the University of Washington (UW) Libraries. Now, seeking out rare and unusual artifacts is as easy as opening a web browser.

Besides the UW, institutions participating in the NWDA are University of Idaho, Montana Historical Society, University of Montana, Oregon Historical Society, Oregon State University, University of Oregon, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Pacific Lutheran University, Seattle Municipal Archives, Washington State Archives, Washington State University, and Whitworth College. Future collaborations with additional Northwest institutions are planned.

The original goal of the NWDA was to include 2,200 finding aids by the end of 2004. Having met this goal, the number of finding aids in the database continues to grow, with over 2,300 currently in the NWDA.

With so many collected finding aids, there's something for almost every taste in the archives. If you're interested in visual artifacts, the NWDA has over 400 archival finding aids listing photographs as well as dozens with moving images. If you're a salmon enthusiast, 172 finding aids await exploration. If you have a penchant for Nobel Laureates, you're in for a treat.

One of the most eminent figures to come out of the Pacific Northwest is peace activist and chemist Linus Pauling. Born in Portland, Ore. in 1901, Pauling and his wife, Ava Helen, accumulated 4,437 linear feet of material, all of which is archived at Oregon State University (OSU) and indexed on the NWDA. In addition to listing the contents of the collection (which boasts two Nobel Prize medals), the finding aid includes a timeline of major events in Pauling's life and a link to OSU's Special Collections website, where users can view digitized photographs.

While the collection housed at OSU contains a dizzying amount of archival material pertaining to Linus Pauling, it is by no means exhaustive. An NWDA search on "Linus Pauling" turns up hits in four separate collections, including a finding aid for the Knute Hill Papers held at Washington State University (WSU). Hill was a U.S. Representative from 1933 to 1943 who received a letter from Linus Pauling and preserved it in his personal papers.

As further evidence of the NWDA's power to find dispersed archival information, Maguire remembers an unexpected discovery about collections related to Isaac Stevens, the first territorial governor of Washington. After UW archivists contributed a finding aid for a collection of Isaac Stevens' personal papers to the NWDA, they found a finding aid for another collection they were unaware of: Stevens' political papers, housed at the Washington State Archives. Maguire says that this is an example of the "wonderful, primary, unpublished material that people can find" in the NWDA, even without knowing what they're looking for.

Whether searching for a specific artifact or aimlessly browsing, the NWDA is easy to use. The homepage features digitized photographs from participating institutions, which offer a tantalizing glimpse of the artifacts indexed inside. A simple click takes users to a search page, where they can enter search terms or browse by topic, place, or type of artifact. For users unfamiliar with searching archival materials, the "What's a Finding Aid?" link on the search page may be helpful.

One of the first hurdles in establishing the NWDA was getting participating institutions to use a standardized finding aid format. The consortium adopted the Encoded Archival Description (EAD) standard, which is maintained by the U.S. Library of Congress in partnership with the Society of American Archivists and is used by many institutions in the U.S.

According to NWDA consortium director Larry Landis, many institutional archivists were hesitant to commit resources to buying software and training staff to adopt the EAD standard on their own. "At the same time, many of us in the Northwest were realizing that there were significant commonalities to our collections," he says.

Landis says that by pooling their existing resources and obtaining this NEH grant, participating institutions were able to overcome geographical and financial barriers to establishing a collaborative archive of finding aids.

In the Special Collections Reading Room in the Allen Library on the University of Washington campus, photography assistant Shannon Lynch encodes EAD finding aids for inclusion in the NWDA. On a typical morning, the basement room rustles with quiet activity as white-gloved archivists sort and examine artifacts. At a computer terminal, Lynch works on a nearly complete finding aid for a collection relating to the ill-fated Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

Although any text editor can be used, the UW uses XMetaL XML authoring software to encode its EAD finding aids. As she clicks between fields on the computer screen, Lynch explains that the UW adopted an XMetaL template to facilitate EAD encoding for experts and novices alike. "It gives you lots of guidance, which I think is very, very helpful," she says. Lynch has also encoded EAD finding aids for the Seattle Municipal Archives, another NWDA institution.

The NWDA stewards hope that using EAD finding aids will avoid future problems with outdated file formats. According to Maguire, the UW has hundreds of finding aids written in Microsoft Word and in Samna, a word-processing software package used in the 1980s. While the content of MS Word documents can be copied into XML, modern computers can't even open the older Samna finding aids. For those files, "we probably have to start over," says Maguire.

NWDA institutions send their completed finding aids to WSU in Pullman, where database manager Alan Cornish oversees the database. Cornish explains that multiple safeguards are in place to ensure the safety of finding aids and the associated applications.

The NWDA recently received a $300,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a second phase of the project, which will involve including additional institutions and finding aids in the archive. The consortium also plans to increase the amount of digital content in the database, including documents and video and audio clips. As Maguire acknowledges, "People want to see the stuff, not just guides to the stuff." However, digitization takes additional time and money and may be out of reach for smaller NWDA institutions without outside funding.

While it is hoped that the NWDA will enhance public interest in archival materials, it is not known whether increased use will damage delicate objects. Maguire explains that strict access rules are already in place to minimize damage, but if some collections prove too popular for their own good, the UW Libraries may elect to digitize those materials as funding allows. Online access to digital collection items would protect fragile originals from too much handling.

Limiting research to one or two archives is like viewing a threadbare tapestry: a faint outline of the subject is visible, but the complexity is lost. UW Special Collections visual materials curator Nicolette Bromberg agrees that the great value of the NWDA is its ability to show researchers collections on the same topic at various archives.

To the archivists who have worked to bring the NWDA to fruition, the cooperative nature of the project is rewarding in itself. "The experience has made me realize even more that I have a wonderful group of archives colleagues in the Northwest," says Landis.

Anyone interested in Northwest history can explore the NWDA by visiting http://nwda.wsulibs.wsu.edu.

Megan Dann Fesinmeyer is a graduate student at the Institute for Public Health Genetics at the University of Washington.

Images:

Top: Jessie Van Olinda, wearing a large leaf, n.d. Archival photographs offer a glimpse into the (sometimes unusual) past. Photo: UW Special Collections

Middle: Linus Pauling standing in his lab, working on an experiment with a glass apparatus. "LP in his lab - early 50's at Caltech." The Special Collections of Oregon State University contain hundreds of photographs and other artifacts documenting the professional and personal history of Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling. Archives: Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers, Photographs and Images, 193?i.023, Special Collections, Oregon State University. Courtesy of the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers, Oregon State University Libraries.

Bottom: Aerial view of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge after its collapse, November 8, 1940. The University of Washington Special Collections includes many photographs documenting key events in Washington history, including the construction and collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Photo: UW Special Collections