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The Archival Spirit, April 2003 (Spring Issue)
From the Chair: Documenting Strategies
In the bleak mid-winter (to borrow a line from Rossetti) there is time to consider what we do as archivists. Now is a good time to ask yourself the question, "What do I collect?" The easy and obvious answer is the records of our institutions. But for archivists of religious collections, I would suggest the answer is not so obvious. For our colleagues in the university, government or business settings, the answer is perhaps obvious. In those cases they often have well-defined collecting boundaries. While it may seem we have sharply defined boundaries as well I would suggest that those boundaries are actually much broader than we might think. That is because religion is more than an institution. It is about life, and how a particular faith community interacts with the world and society around it. Religion is in many ways, a field-encompassing field; it is a topic or area which actually involves many areas; communal life, institutional organization, social concern, educational opportunity as well as worship.
It is obvious that the aspects of religion, spirituality and worship would be included in this collection. But for many their religion propels them toward action out into society. There is a programmatic character stemming from a religious commitment which needs to be documented. That programmatic character could be anything from workshops to creation of schools and hospitals. Ask yourself if your archives is capturing the evidence of those programs. In many cases people are motivated by their faith to become advocates for various causes. They speak to society and the world from their faith in order to effect a change. Ask yourself if your archives is capturing the evidence of those statements. Finally there are those who are touched by a faith, but choose to express it in different ways than the mainstream. Their practice often challenges the status quo. Sometimes they are marginalized. Has the archives been able to document the evidence of dissent, challenge and growth?
A religious faith is lived out on many levels. As human beings and organizations we develop many strategies for expressing our faith. Our archival tradition challenges us to try to collect and preserve the evidence of the many ways a particular faith or religious-expression is lived out. So now is a good time to consider the ways we can document the many strategies and realities of our various faiths. It is also a good time to share with others in this newsletter just how your particular institution does this work. Let us hear from you on how you document the evidence about your community's life and influence.
REPORT OF THE ARCS NOMINATING COMMITTEE
Mark J. Duffy, Chair
The Nominating Committee is pleased to present the following slate of candidates for elections to be held at the Section’s annual meeting in Los Angeles in August 2003. Nominations for the position were received from those who attended last year’s meeting in Birmingham. Candidates were selected on the basis of their attendance at Section meetings, their willingness to volunteer, and their ability to represent the diversity of the Section's membership. Notice of the Committee’s nominations does not constitute an election and members are urged to use write-in ballots and nomination forms to suggest nominees for present and future leadership of the Section. Nominees were asked to prepare a statement on their goals and interests.
Candidate for Vice-chair of the ARCS Section (2 year term)
Loretta Zwolak Greene, CA
Archivist, Sisters of Providence Archives, Seattle, Washington
Background Experience and Education: For the past 18 years Loretta Greene has worked in the Sisters of Providence Archives, Seattle, Washington: 7 years as Assistant Archivist and the last 11 as Archivist. Prior to this position, she worked in large and small historical societies in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Loretta’s educational background has been history. She received an MA in History and a MSLS with an Archives concentration from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
Statement: Every place I have worked we have faced the same issues–limited staff and budget for the work to be done. At times it seems like we only tread water keeping up with the essential job responsibilities. At other times, we are able to set sights on and accomplish specific projects that enhance our collections, outreach, or patron service. There are myriad topics from which to choose: access, collections management (including the impact of HIPPA), databases, etc. The Society of American Archivists, this Section, and other professional organizations can provide the resources we need to enhance our skills and our collections; we don't need to reinvent the wheel. Too often the public fails to recognize the historical value of the collections we preserve and make available for research. Too often our repositories are simply seen as the administrative and personnel records of an organization and not as the treasure trove they are for research into social, economic, religious, and political topics. We need to promote our collections and the skills we have acquired to meet the challenges of a modern archive so others can learn from our experience. If elected as Vice-Chair/Chair Elect I will offer my energy to carry out the goals of the Section and support the Section Leadership. I will be open to the needs of you, the members, so this Section continues to be beneficial to you and your work.
Candidate for Representative at Large to the Steering Committee (2 year term)
Joan S. Clemens
Curator of Archives and Manuscripts, Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta
Background Experience and Education: Joan Clemens is currently the Curator of Archives and Manuscripts, Pitts Theology Library, Emory University (Sept 1995-present). Her previous work includes: State Government Records Archivist, Alabama Department of Archives and History (June 1989-Aug 1995); Archivist in CIDS Training Program, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. (Sept 1987-May 1989). Joan received her M.A in History, University of Southern Mississippi, 1990; M.L.S. (Archives Concentration), University of Southern Mississippi, 1987; and B.S., University of Montevallo, 1981.
Statement: Archivists of religious collections often face issues and opportunities that are unique to the material for which we care and the institutions with which we interact. I would like to work with the Archivists of Religious Collections Section to identify relevant programs and projects that will produce tools and/or information to assist section members with the challenges we encounter on a daily basis.
A Work of Collaboration: The Rescuing the Memory of Our Peoples Conference
Elisabeth Wittman and Bob Shuster
In the fall of 2002 occurred a unique gathering of people concerned with the preservation of Christian history. A few minutes walk from the site that almost two millennium of Christian tradition and evidence point to as the grave of Peter the Apostle, forty-five archivists and scholars from twenty-five countries and many Christian traditions gathered for the Rescuing the Memory of our Peoples conference. The meeting (which ran from September 29 to October 6) was jointly sponsored by the International Association of Catholic Missiologists and International Association of Mission Studies. It was held at the International Centre for Missionary Animation (CIAM) on the campus of the Pontifical Urban University in Rome. It built on the work of the 1980 joint IACM-IAMS archives conference, also in Rome.
The purpose was to learn how the documents of Christian history are being preserved around the world and to investigate ways that how Christian archives can cooperate in the task. The convener of the meeting, the Rev. John Roxborgh, Dunedin, New Zealand, and other "core group" members hoped that at least one outcome would be the development of an archives manual, useful to the Christian churches in all parts of the globe. An American archivist who was part of the "core group" and who was co-writer (with Rosemary Seton, archivist of the School of African and Oriental Studies of the University of London) of the archives manual is Martha Lund Smalley, archivist for Yale Divinity School Library. By the end of the meeting, the draft of the manual had been evaluated and the participants had suggested several changes.
Dr. Andrew Wall opened the conference with a moving address on the role of the archives of mission in the life of the Christian church. Other participants described the work going on at their own repositories, special sessions were held on oral history projects and photograph preservation.
In addition, Dr. Helmut Baier, president of the International Council on Archives, Religious Archives Section addressed the group and encouraged membership in the section. (SAA members in the Archivists of Religious Collections Section are also encouraged to participate in the ICA Section. The ICA section also distributes its newsletter to anyone who requested it, regardless of membership in ICA. Contact American Steering Committee members: Mark Duffy, Christine Taylor, Mark Thiel or Elisabeth Wittman.) Another speaker familiar to many American archivists, particularly those representing Roman Catholic institutions, was Archbishop Francesco Marchisano, the head of the Pontifical Commission for the Heritage of the Church. Both the addresses by the Archbishop, Dr. Baier and other presentations can be found on the web site for the meeting: www.missionstudies.org/rescue/.
Plans were made for ongoing cooperative projects, especially the completion and distribution of the manual and the publication of the proceedings of the conference. Another suggestion was to hold local and regional related conferences in conjunction with each other to connect archivists with researchers and supporters. The possibilities for archival training was also investigated and ways to develop opportunities for internships and funding for same. As noted at the outset, the range of economic circumstances are a challenge that must be understood and planned for. The importance of networking between Christian archives and service to all possible users was also stressed.
The conference is intended to be the starting point for continuing communication and cooperation among archivists. As they gather, preserve and make available the materials that tell of Christianity in every part of the globe, they should be aware that center of gravity for the Church shifts from Europe and North America to Africa, Asia and South America.
As Dr. Kwame Bediako stated in the concluding address of the conference, “Archive building starts, therefore, in the recognition that history is being made in an everyday sort of way in a whole range of situations and places, involving people sometimes in the most unlikely places. and in unlikely ways. What is required is a sense of kairos, a sense of the significance of the Christian movement and the church in history , and a painstaking dedication to the task. A work of collaboration is needed, involving church members, men and women and young people, church leaders, scholars, theologians, historians, archivists, students, all persons and groups who, in one way or another, share this vision to work together to gather and preserve this exciting body of new material that reflects the life, thought and witness of Christian communities around the world, in this the Southern phase of world Christianity .
The next IAMS conference in 2004, may provide a training opportunity along with gatherings planned in Singapore and in Auckland, New Zealand. Readers of this article may send suggestions and ideas related to "mission archives" to Elisabeth Wittman, archivist of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ewittman@elca.org), who also serves on the Steering Committee of the ICA Religious Archives Section.
Already Smalley and Seton have incorporated the changes proposed at the conference into a final version of the manual. By the end of March 2003, the book (entitled Rescuing the Memory of Our Peoples / Archives Manual) were available to the general public. Copies, at a cost of $US10 for printing and mailing, can be obtained from the Overseas Ministry Study Center, 490 Prospect Street, new Haven, CT 06511. Carl O. Bangs Collection Acquired
The Nazarene Archives (Kansas City, Mo.) has acquired the Carl O. Bangs Collection. A president of the American Society of Church History, Bangs was among the world’s leading specialists in James Arminius, the Dutch Reformation, and the development of the Arminian theological tradition. Bangs was also quite knowledgeable about the history of American Christianity and, after marriage to Marjorie Friesen, developed a keen interest in Anabaptist history, producing works in these areas also. His primary books were biographies—an intellectual biography of Arminius (1971) and a social and theological biography of Phineas Bresee (1995), primary founder of the Church of the Nazarene. Bangs spent most of his career as professor of historical theology at St. Paul School of Theology (United Methodist) in Kansas City. The Carl Bangs Collection contains over 50 c.f. of papers, including correspondence with colleagues around the world. Among other topics, the papers document Arminius research, Methodist studies, United Methodist theological education, and the practice of church history in the latter 20th century. The accession has an additional 35 linear feet of books dating from the 17th-19th centuries constituting Bangs’ personal Arminius research library. The papers are not yet fully processed, but the Arminius library portion is currently open for research. Contact: Stan Ingersol (816-333-7000 ext. 2437).
Episcopal Church Archives Creates Web-based Digital Archives
Episcopal Church Archives Creates Web-based Digital Archives
Development of the Archives’ Website has diverged from traditional archival approaches to online information services. Interviews and careful listening to the organizational dialog led the AEC archivists to observe that while a small number of scholarly research would benefit from elaborate representational description (traditional catalog data, finding aids, etc.), a far larger number of information seekers, made up of Episcopalians and other church goers, resource allocators, the press, researchers in contemporary religion, and the general public were far more interested in locating relevant information about the Episcopal Church in recent history: its statements, practices, positions, and general news. An archival understanding that history is the past that ordinary people and the organization can use to understand their lives today gave rise to the curatorial interest in transforming its paper records into an electronic Digital Archives.
The Digital Archives section of the Website is an in-house research and development product that is wholly based in XML-encoded documents. The data sets are derived from a process of appraisal and selection, careful and repeated data validation, and analysis for semantic features of the documents in order to create customized DTD schema. Style sheets and user interface testing have been used to create the electronic search and retrieval databases. The goals of the Digital Archives is not to replace the official record, but to create an electronic record that is from the outset a source of trusted information. The emphasis on trust is not, however, intrinsically associated with the historical or “archived” record, but rather from the integrity of the communication about credible processes for validation and authentication, which the Archives has marketed to the Church leadership as its particular area of expertise and concern. A particular feature of the databases is the use of history and note fields to annotate the original record, expanded document titles, abstracts, indexing, and links to supplementary text that together represent the kind of metadata that archivists excel at acquiring and maintaining.
At the present time the Archives offers four key data bases of historical data beginning in 1976: an archive of the resolutions of its national deliberative council, the General Convention; the resolutions of its corporate body or Executive Council; an archive of Press Releases from its national news center; and an archive of the leading independent Episcopal news magazine, The Living Church, (which deposits its archives with the AEC and shares copyright of the digital archive). Analysis of use since its launch in January indicates some surprises (genetics, Prayer Book reform, and canons) and some predicable interest (sex is still popular after all these years). Apart from raising the profile of the Archives with ordinary Episcopalians, the Digital Archives has brought budgetary dollars to the agency that will permit it to expand online access to traditional holdings descriptions without absorbing resources from other archival functions.
Billy Graham Center Archives Opens Several New Collections on Evangelism and Missions History
The Billy Graham Center Archives of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois collects documents on nondenominational North American Protestant efforts to witness to the Christian gospel. Each month a different document or photograph from the Archives’ holdings is highlighted at its online Bulletin Board at: www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/bulletin/bulletin.htm. The Archives has opened a number of new collections to researchers recently, some of which are described below. Anyone wanting more information about any of these collections can visit the Archives’ “What’s New" page at: www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/new.html or e-mail the staff at bgcarc@wheaton.edu.
Collection 461: Interviews of John D. Ellison. 1992.
Collection 460: Interviews of Phyllis Evelyn Taylor. 1992.
Collection 503: Interviews of Ian M. Hay. 1994.
Collection 493: Interviews of Stella Kasirye. 1993.
Collection 579: Records of the Asia-South Pacific Congress on Evangelism. 1968.
Collection 577: Papers of Vergil Glenn Gerber. 1966-1984.
Collection 472: Interview with Paul Contento. 1992.
Collection 498: Interviews of William E. Pannell. 1995-2000.
Archival Spirit is published three times a year by the Archivists of
Religious Collections Section of the Society of American Archivists. Feature
pieces as well as announcements of acquisitions and projects are welcome.
For membership information, contact SAA at: 527 South Wells, 5th Floor,
Chicago, IL 60607; (312) 922-0140; FAX: (312) 347_1452; e-mail: info@archivists.org.
[End of document. HTML document version prepared May 13, 2003.]
Mark J. Duffy, CA
Director and Canonical Archivist
In an effort to reach its main constituency of church members as well as other researchers, The Archives of the Episcopal Church USA (AEC) has re-designed and launched a newly revised Website at episcopalarchives.org. The Website sits on an XML-encoded data set that allows flexible update and robust content delivery. The most heavily used content on the site is the “Digital Archives”, an electronic resource that has become central to the Archives’ marketing and information services within the Episcopal community.
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Oral history interview in which Ellison talks about his parents’ work as missionaries for Christian and Missionary Alliance in French Indochina between 1924 and 1940; his own training at Nyack Institute; his and his wife’s work in Thailand among Cambodians from 1950 through 1980; and his work in the United States among Cambodian refugees.
Oral history interviews with Taylor in which she discusses her childhood and conversion, education at Wheaton College, her experiences as a Christian and Missionary Alliance teacher and evangelist among the Bantu people in the Belgian Congo from 1952-1966; her work in Taiwan from 1968 on as an independent missionary; teaching English as a means of evangelism.
Two interviews in which Hay describes his childhood, missionary parents and their work in Nigeria, comparisons between generations of missionaries, Hay’s spiritual growth and call to missions, education and training for missionary work, Sudan Interior Mission (later renamed SIM International) for which he worked (as a missionary, administrative executive and director), missionary work in Nigeria, indigenous church administration (particularly in the Evangelical Church of West Africa or ECWA), African church leaders (most notably Byang Kato, Tokunboh Adeyemo, Panya Baba), transition to national leadership, emergence of ECWA’s own missionary agency (Evangelical Missionary Society of EMS), paternalism of earlier missionaries and nationalism, his leadership of SIM, previous SIM leaders, organizational restructuring of SIM, wife’s role, Evangelical mission leaders, his own management philosophy, and integrity in ministry. Events in the interviews cover the time period 1910-1994.
Oral history interviews with Kasirye about her childhood in Uganda, her conversion to Christian faith while at school; her involvement in programs to reach street children; her efforts to develop programs of AIDS education and care among college students and the country at large, and observations on the church in Uganda and missionary efforts there. The time period covered is 1965 to 1993.
Audio and paper copies of speeches, and newspaper coverage of the congress, which was a regional meeting following up on the 1966 World Congress on Evangelism, sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
Correspondence, manuals, newsletters, reports and other materials relating to the Gerber’s work as teacher, writer, and leader in church growth studies and Evangelical missions. The collection also contains information on Evangelical missions in the 1970s, especially in Latin America.
Oral history interview in which Contento discusses his childhood, conversion, attendance at Moody Bible Institute, going to China in 1928 as a China Inland Mission worker, evangelistic work in Ningxia province (Inner Mongolia) and work among university students in southwest and northwest China, founding of the Inter-Varsity student movements in China, Singapore and Vietnam; Calvin Chao; the Sino-Japanese war; the communist takeover in China; founding of Singapore Bible College; evangelistic work in Singapore and Vietnam among high school and university students; and the war in Vietnam. The events described cover the time period 1900-1992.
Oral history interview in which Pannell talks about his boyhood in Michigan, his family, conversion as a teenager, his growing awareness of racism in America and especially its influence on American Christianity, education at Fort Wayne Bible College, involvement with the Brethren Assemblies, the part preaching has played in his life, the divide between urban and suburban culture and its impact on black and white churches and institutions, his work with Youth for Christ, his association with Tom Skinner, his attendance at the 1966 World Congress on Evangelism and other meetings, and his first experiences as an author.