• Institutional History Division
• Archives Division

A renewed emphasis on preservation and conservation activities took place this fiscal year. OSIA simultaneously engaged in rehousing initiatives, environmental studies, and staff preservation training throughout the year. More importantly, preservation collection assessments of our holdings were conducted on a massive scale.

Institutional History Division

Preservation contractor Tara Turluk completed rehousing, cleaning and mending the James Smithson Collection (RU 7000), through a grant from the Research Resources funding pool. A revised and expanded finding aid to the Smithson Collection will be completed in FY1998. IHD also received a $15,000 grant in July 1997 from that same source to preserve, process and make available the interviews of Smithsonian staff, volunteers and visitors recorded at the 1996 Festival of American Folklife.

Archives Division

Preservation Planning: A major preservation planning initiative dominated activity this fiscal year, supported by a Smithsonian Research Resources Grant. This grant secured the services of Tara Turluk, an independent conservator, who was in residence at the Archives for much of calendar year 1997. Working with associate archivist Paul Theerman and archives technicians Thomas Harley and Michael Horsley, she undertook the first-ever comprehensive study of OSIA's collections, facilities, policies, staffing, and budget.

The planning process required a three-fold analysis of OSIA collections. With the assistance and advice of Dianne van der Reyden and Fei Wen Tsai of the Smithsonian's Conservation Analytical Laboratory (CAL), Turluk developed a plan to survey OSIA collections. With the assistance of OSIA staff, all OSIA collections were evaluated for their reference use and archival value. Then preservation staff, contractor, and summer interns Alyssa Pease, Patricia Rettig, and Christa Savino completed intensive preservation assessments of those collections deemed to be of high value. By the end of the fiscal year, 845 collections had been assessed, amounting to 42.7% of OSIA's physical holdings.

Specific recommendations and actions developed from the preservation planning process. These included establishing a mold abatement program, treating portions of two collections for mold, and isolating portions of 15 others; calibrating hygrothermographs, securing digital temperature and relative humidity dataloggers, and purchasing dehumidifiers to bring the summertime relative humidity of the Arts & Industries building under control; and purchasing a photo cabinet to better store photographic materials. Ms. Turluk also extensively trained SIA staff on-the-job in preservation techniques.

The final portion of the planning process was an analysis of the potentially broader role of OSIA in terms of archival preservation at the Smithsonian. Aiding in this analysis was the work that OSIA preservation staff accomplished in connection with a general move of collections to a leased archival storage facility. In FY1997, OSIA leased a facility from National Underground Storage (NUS) located in Boyers, Pennsylvania, that provides 5,000 cubic feet of archival storage space, of which 50 percent is devoted to OSIA needs and 50 percent to those of other SI repositories. As the principal lessor, OSIA established the criteria for relocating records to NUS, including that the records be free of pests, mold, nitrate-based film stock, and degrading acetate-based film stock, and that the records be safely packed for transport. During FY1997, selected staff began to inspect records--both from OSIA and other SI repositories--to see that they met these criteria. In the process, Turluk and staff provided advice to the Archives of American Art, the Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies Archives, the National Air and Space Museum Archives, the National Anthropological Archives, and the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History. In the process, preservation staff and contractor Turluk gained valuable experience of other SI repositories.

Research Resources Grants: With another Research Resources Grant awarded this fiscal year, OSIA was instrumental in helping provide collections furniture and archival supplies in support of two projects in the National Museum of Natural History: the scientific illustration collection of the Department of Botany, and the dinosaur collection of the Department of Paleobiology. Both projects were initiated several years ago by CAL conservator Dianne van der Reyden and have had the active recent support of CAL conservator Fei Wen Tsai. Over the years, OSIA staff have provided archival advice as needed, and in FY1997, this was supplemented by contractor Turluk's assistance. A combined Research Resources Grant application, supported by CAL, OSIA, and NMNH, requested a herbarium cabinet and archival rehousing supplies. It was partially funded, allowing these projects to proceed in FY1998.

Facilities: In June 1997, the Front Royal, VA cool-storage vault was emptied of microfilm and photographic negatives in preparation for the facility's formal transfer back to the Conservation and Research Center. The lack of trained archives personnel at the facility, coupled with difficulty in securing maintenance, made it cumbersome to use. The Archives plans to secure cool- and cold-storage facilities at NUS next year. In the meantime, the NASM Archives has graciously offered us temporary storage for the materials formerly held at the vault.

Rehousing of Collections: In ongoing efforts to deal with damaged and deteriorating materials, 72 reels of deteriorating master microfilm were transferred to new masters during the year; 157 deteriorating nitrate negatives were deaccessioned and transferred to the South Quad Hazardous materials facility. A major preservation project that advanced significantly this year was the reprocessing of Record Unit 95, the general photographic collection of the Archives. Intern/contractor Pease devoted her energies to this effort. By year's end, the first series of this record unit had been completely rehoused and an amplified finding aid produced. In addition, volunteer Pat Breen undertook the rehousing of approximately 4,000 negatives and prints from Record Units 7004, 7089, 7172, 7177, and 7313. Volunteer Heather Cohen rehoused Record Units 26, 28, 34, and the SIA collection of Smithsonian Magazine, and began a major rehousing project on Record Unit 613, Secretary's records. Intern Patricia Rettig rehoused Record Unit 27 as part of her internship.

Outgoing Loans: As in the past, preservation personnel oversaw the lending of various archival materials for exhibition during the year. In FY1997, OSIA holdings were lent for the following exhibitions: to the Office of Architectural History and Historic Preservation, for a display of architectural drawings of the Castle in the Regents' Room of that building; to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, for its exhibition, The Collection in Context: Raymond Duchamp-Villon; to the National Museum of American History for its exhibitions American Families in Photographs, Extending the Legacy, Science in American Life, and Trans-Alaska Pipeline; to the National Museum of Natural History, for its exhibition (co-produced with OSIA), Eyes on Science; to the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, for its exhibition (co-produced with OSIA and the Architectural History and Historic Preservation Office), From Smithson to Smithsonian; to the Inter-American Development Bank, for an exhibition co-produced with OSIA, Expeditions: 150 Years of Smithsonian Research in Latin America; to Mt. Holyoke College, for its exhibition, Photographers on Location, highlighting Charles D. Walcott's panorama photographs of the Rocky Mountains; and to the U.S. Department of Interior, for its exhibition on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Archives also arranged for materials to be reproduced for the exhibition, Audubon and the Smithsonian, produced by the National Museum of American History and the Smithsonian Institution Libraries; and received back a long-term loan of a portrait of Joseph Henry, on loan to the Office of Architectural History and Historic Preservation.