Log. 9: Barbara Dent and the history of paper; no joke this was enlightening!!!

June 14, 2024

9:06am-5:10pm

UTEP

TiJeat Berry

Intern supervisor: Joy Urbina, Special Collections Supervisor: Claudia Rivers, Archival Project Supervisor: Susannah Holiday

Corner Boxes in Special Collections

Spent 40 mins taking inventory of what was in some boxes in the corner of the collections department.

Above: Working on the on more folders for the Barbara Dent Papers which incorporates information and oral histories about the history of the medical profession in El Paso. Moving

Barbara Dent Archival Project

Worked on additional boxes for the Barbara Dent papers by transferring materials into acid free folders and update the data on the folders to match what was on the inventory lists. This project helps with the most important part of archives is which is maintaining intellectual control by knowing what is in the collection and to match what is on the physical collection boxes with what has been input into the computer system.

On the old folders there is sometimes notes by people who have have provided additional information along with their signature; I assumed that this would be important for researchers and asked Claudia Rivers how I would go about preserving these notes along with the signature of the person providing the data" for citation purposes. Today I came across more obituaries, hand written notes about some of Dr. Jerome Dow Love's deliveries where he caused stress for his colleagues, detailed travel itineraries of Helen and Gertrude Goodman for 1945 and 1950 and , and a 1948 El Paso city ordinance to Karl P. Goodman to construct a spur track. All information that changes my perception about EL Paso and its history.

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(1) Discarded folders from the Barbara Dent writings collection, a mixture of acid free and those that are not acid free. Placed into acid free folders that better protect the documents from decay and handling (2) Document boxes pulled from the floor for inventory. CG4:A13:43D breakdown:; Document box located in position D on shelf; this box was given to the special collections department and they try to stick to her filing system 43 in Row A13 in cage 4 on floor 4.

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Informative!!!!!

The history of paper and the science behind acid and acid free

Their is a marker that the archival staff used to test for the amount of acid in the storage materials: folders and boxes.

Yellow = highly acidic

Green = some acid

Blue = Acid Free

In Log 1.2 click here the collections received a gift of some old books and we all gathered around and discussed that some of the pages were damaged in the newer material that had decent covers, and compared them to the older book that had a missing cover but the pagers were damaged but not too the same extent as the other items.

On this day, June 14, Susannah expanded on this that the reason that the pages of older materials were not as damaged is that they used different materials, such as parchment to print their materials and that it is more sturdy. The paper we use now is more acidic and wood based and this damages archival materials. This wood based type paper which was used a few decades ago is not only appealing to cockroaches, and I assume bookworms which is a general term for any insect that likes to live in books. I told her about an experience I had purchasing a book from a used book store in the city and in just a few days the pages of the book started to fall off and she stated it is probably due to the weak paper that was used at the time of its publication, meaning wood based. Other materials that writing paper is made out of:

1) Cloth paper; holds up well

2) Parchment

3) Animal skin paper

4) Plant based paper (not trees)

5) Wood pulp paper

Items in the Collection

Not everything that is given is processed into archival storage for preservation. It has to be decided before they are put into the inventory whether the items will be kept or not because once they are within the collection they become the property of Texas; once that occurs the Univ. must keep it unless given special permission from the state. There are some items which are donated with funds for processing, other means of monetary assistance comes from grants.

I spoke with Susannah and Alice about how the process of determining what will be put into the collection, what will be preserved, what will be available for browsing; the decision is not always straight forward. How I understood some of the issues that could impact the choice is exhibited in the following table:

Value Criteria	Item 1	Item 2
Importance	Not too important = 3	Item is very important = 5
Condition	Falling a part, in bad condition	In good condition

Item 1 would be preserved, Item 2 though more important will not be preserved at this time or not at all.

Barbara Dent

Coming towards the end of the first archival project. I worked on about 3 boxes of Barbara Dent papers and found that some of them had microfilm. The special collections department also has microfilm on the first floor in the M&M department. On the side of these boxes is metadata for the collection. MS534 is the Manuscript (MS) number given to this collection, when it was obtained. Box 3 of the papers for Medical History People, on the box closest to the screen you can see it is alphabetized, F-H, and the one next to it is C-E. At the very bottom of the document folder is the alphanumeric code that tells the archivist where the document box came from CG4 = cage on floor 4/A13 = aisle 13/and it is the 43 item in section C of that aisle.