Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with archives

How can I get my hands -- and ears -- on old Planet Money podcasts?

hungrytiger — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:47:01 -0800

I just fell in love with NPR's Planet Money podcast but can't figure out how to access back episodes. I just started listening to Planet Money and I'm excited about it. I'd like to go back and listen to the whole hundred-plus of them, but as far as I can tell they only have the last seven or so available on the NPR website.

Do any of you know another place where these podcasts might be archived/available? It seems odd that they're inaccessible...

DIY archivist!

liketitanic — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:45:45 -0800

How can I develop a plan to help a small community organization organize its archival materials (something like a self-accessioning plan, I guess)? What should I read? Who should I talk to? I'm not an archivist and have no information science training. There, I said it. But I have a pretty great opportunity to help a small community org self-accession and organize some records that could prove quite valuable to researchers. I don't yet know how big the collection is, nor whether they want physical or digital storage.

How do I go about learning what I might need to know to do this? Or how do I self-educate in archives work? Book recommendations? OpenCourseware recommendations? Software I should learn? Any suggestions?

Archivists: where can I find samples of 19th-century script?

Monsters — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:11:53 -0800

As a part of my academic research, I'm digging into the Edison Papers, and finding (mostly handwritten) archival materials from the late 19th century. I'm embarrassed to admit I can barely read the cursive handwriting of Edison and his colleagues. Does anyone know where I might find samples of 19th-century script to help me learn how to read this archival material? I know that there are various 'hands' that were popular in the past, and it looks like the papers are written with dip pens (according to my fountain-pen-nerd boyfriend). The script I'm struggling with looks most like the third column on this page of Copperplate samples, but even more stretched out.

I also found this tutorial by googling around, but I thought i might see if any Mefites with archival experience have any sources they prefer/tips for the Edison Papers specifically.

What categories exist for publication types?

ergibson — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 08:31:05 -0800

What type of publication has around 20 pages? I am organizing a collection of publications and I want to arrange them by publication type, i.e., newsletters, journals, broadsides, etc. I do not know which category to place items that are longer than newsletters but not long enough to be considered journals or magazines. I am further stumped by one item that consists entirely of reprints from a journal.

Who bombed the statue?

puckish — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:48:29 -0800

In response to this post: did the Weather Underground actually claim responsibility for the Cleveland Rodin bombing? The Cleveland Museum page claims it was the Weather Underground; Wikipedia doesn't mention it. Google results are thus far inconclusive. Where would I go to find the official word?

Finding my grandmother in the CBC archives

ocherdraco — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:28:25 -0800

How can I find recordings of my grandmother from when she was on CBC radio in the late 40s/early 50s? My grandmother grew up in Winnipeg and went to college in Toronto before transferring to the University of Kentucky for their Radio and Television program (now Telecommunication, I guess). Before she moved to the States, she was on CBC radio programs (I'm not sure if they were national programs or on local affiliates, and I don't really know what kind of programs they were). I'd like to find out if any recordings of these programs exist, and how to get them if they do.

A few years ago I tried to contact someone at the CBC archives, but never got any response (I tried phone and email). Where should I look? What strategies should I use?

Rescuing old "60 Minutes" episode from the memory hole?

cgs06 — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:20:25 -0800

Trying to find memory-holed "60 Minutes" episode from 1986... can anyone help? I've been trying to find either a video or transcript of a "60 Minutes" segment that originally aired on November 23, 1986 entitled "Out of Control." Unfortunately, it looks like CBS has memory-holed it (probably out of embarrassment.)

I haven't found it in any of the (extensive) library resources I have available in NY -- even the Paley Center for Media doesn't have it. And when I contacted CBS, I got the following response: "Unfortunately, this episode of 60 Minutes is not available for release in either video or transcript form."

Of course, this makes me doubly determined to get a copy.

Does anyone have ideas about where I might track it down? I can do an interlibrary loan... I just need to find someone who's got a copy of the darn thing.

Any assistance much appreciated... thanks, hive mind!

Is there a way to retrieve/download all my old Usenet posts?

Lazlo — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:28:26 -0800

Usenet was my first real online community -- it's coming up on twenty-five years (!) since I pushed my first clump of snarky, juvenile flamage out into the aether. I'd like to download copies of my old messages from Google Groups, but they don't make it easy, and worse, a lot of what Google used to have isn't showing up in searches anymore... About five years ago I searched Google Groups for all the old email addresses I could think of, and dug up around 8250 of my old Usenet posts from the late '90s back to 1984. It's enough to fill a sizeable book and the closest thing I have to a diary from that period, and I'm in the mood to go back and check it out again. But since my original research the Groups UI has gone to hell in a handbasket and many/most of those messages aren't coming back in searches anymore. I used to assume that this stuff would always be available -- stupid me!

Is there any way to do bulk downloads of raw Usenet messages from Google Groups? And if not, are there any alternate archives out there anywhere? I know most of the pre-1995 posts were filled in by came from "other sources" after Google acquired DejaNews; do those sources still exist, and if so, who/where are they?

(You could probably comfortably torrent everything posted on the pre-alt.binaries-era Usenet in a single weekend...and actually, I'd like to.)

How do I expand Now Compress archives?

NewGear — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:26:43 -0800

I'm trying to find a way to expand a file that's in an ancient Mac archive format (Now Compress). So I find myself needing to access some files I created back in the mid-1990s. Back then, I had everything on floppies (remember them?) which later on got archived on Jaz discs (remember those?) which were in turn copied over onto cds. There's a bunch of things in those files that I now find myself wanting to access.

Only problem is, most of the files have a ".now" extension. As I recall, that's the extension "Now Compress" used for their archived files. Fort hose that don't remember, Now Compress was part of "Now Utilities", which used to be THE utility package for the Mac back in the OS9 days. Now Compress was sort of Now's "Stuffit" program. It could compress files automatically, create archives, etc. I can barely find information on Google about the old program, let alone any suggestions of how to handle these files nowadays.

So the question is, does anybody know of a program that runs under today's OSX that can expand these files? I'm in a quandry!

Many thanks...

How can I access remote Outlook archive files with no lag?

NailsTheCat — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:25:20 -0800

How can I access remote Outlook archive files with no lag or easily back up (large) local Outlook archive files (PST) to the network? My wife works from home, connecting to her office via a VPN. She runs XP Professional and Office 2003.

Her company imposes a 100MB cap on Outlook accounts. She has a fair amount of email traffic and many of the emails are pretty hefty in size: 1 > 10MB. The size isn't just attachments, it's also in-line images. She has to be very diligent in filing to an archive (pst) file to keep below the 100MB limit. The company's IT policy is that the archive pst files should be kept on the network--otherwise they won't be backed up of course.

We discovered that when she was accessing large emails in her inbox, there was a 10 or 20 second lag while the email downloaded from the server. I switched her Outlook to Cached Exchange Mode. That solved the lag and now she can browse her inbox when she's not on the VPN. Super.

The problem is her archive: because its file is on the network, she suffers the same lag and cannot access it offline. But there is no notion of cached mode for archive files (of which I am aware). Any solutions that would help her easily browse her archive folders?

My first thought is to keep the archive files local but back them up to the network once a day. But how to do this automatically and relatively quickly?

XP's Offline Files would help with working off-line but not the lag issue I think since it would require (I think) its path to be to the network file. Therefore when she's on the VPN it would, presumably, access the file on the network rather than the local copy. Furthermore, I suspect it backs up whole files, rather than just the changed sectors so would be a significant upload at the end of each day. (I would think a "changed sectors only" mechanism would need something running on the network server to manage incremental synchronization.)

Thanks
(I've seen some related solutions here and here.)

What hurdles did you encounter in trying to get a personnel file on someone "famous"?

garfy3 — Fri, 08 May 2009 05:10:44 -0800

Have you ordered a US military personnel file (aka "OMPF," or "201 file"), for someone famous that was "released" under the Persons of Exceptional Prominence (PEP) program? How did that go? How long did it take? Did you have to go there in person? [Since I'm expecting a flood of people chiming in to tell me how they got their grandfather's personnel file from WWII, just want to point out that I'm only interested in files of persons covered by the "famous-people" program that is the Persons of Exceptional Prominence. Due apologies if that seems elitist or snarky.]

I'm working on a writing project concerning someone famous, who served briefly in the military, and whose military personnel file was "released" in 2006 under this program from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. I'm familiar with procedures for ordering those files (via FOIA, form SF-180), which are all rather lengthy, expensive, and fraught with bureaucratic obstacles. So apart from how the procedures may be described on some website (which usually aren't followed in actual practice), I'd like to know how this worked out for you.

Did you obtain a file of someone famous? Did you do it by mail, or in person? How long did it take? Were the copies they made even legible, or would it be a better route to travel there and obtain a digital copy? Do they actually allow digital reproduction of these "famous" files?

Thanks!

Records Management speciality - good idea for an MLS student?

onell — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:47:24 -0800

How's the field of records management / archives looking, for a new MLS? I'm a younger librarian with a job in public services, and someone working on her MLS recently asked me about records management as a specialty. I don't know much about it -- my library school didn't really focus on it, and it wasn't something I pursued. I think she's surveying her options and wondering if it would be an in-demand avenue for her new degree. I would guess so but don't really know. I confirmed that she's not interested in the special collections side of archives, and I know those jobs are hard to find and get. Thoughts?

Did you hear news? From three years, two months, and one week ago?

metajc — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:35:22 -0800

I'm looking for an easy way to browse the "popular" US political news stories of the past four years online ... by week. Wondering if there's a site that offers a "big stories of the week" feature. I'm being so specific because I'm writing a time line. I have no specific events in mind that I want to research. Rather, I'm trying to find events to research.

I've looked around in the following sites but haven't found an archive through which it's "easy" for me to sift:

NYT
WaPo
HuffPo
Politico
Memeorandum
CNN
BBC even

Maybe the capability is in one of these and I'm just not seeing it?

Please note: I know there are "archives" but, from my experience so far, these are generally so long that I can't browse them. I want something good but pared down in some way.

Examples of Onlne Archives that Allow Users to Add Metadata?

LarryC — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:50:36 -0800

I am looking for examples of online history archives that allow users to tag, annotate, and otherwise attach information to items in the collection. I know about Footnote.com where users may add annotations, dates, names, and searchable text to documents. I know about the Flickr Library of Congress photostream. What other examples should I know about before my institution embarks on a similar project? I have also read this previous AskMe about Museums and the Social Web which gave me some good tips.

I work at the Washington State Digital Archives and we want to take a fascinating set of territorial court records and put them on line. The index is already online, the plan is to scan the actual documents and put them up as well. We would like users to be able to add searchable metadata to the records. Thanks!

Rape records from early US history

billtron — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:26:06 -0800

Where can I find antebellum white-on-black rape statistics? How would you go about finding such things, given that slaves were considered property and, consequently, rape was charged, if ever, as trespassing on the owner's private property. Do archives exist in which criminal justice records from before 1865 would provide evidence that such crimes took place?

What's the worst part of being an archivist?

Roman Graves — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:02:53 -0800

I'm thinking of going back to school to study public history, but I'm not sure what angle yet. Tell me all the juicy (read: horrible) details about being an archivist. The stuff I'm not likely to get from schools or job descriptions.

Stuck on You...

nkknkk — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 12:53:23 -0800

My grandfather's old photos are stuck in deteriorating "magnetic" albums. How can I save them? I'm trying to rescue my grandfather's old photos, but they've been abominably stored in those "magnetic" photo albums. The more modern pictures (where there's plastic in the paper) come out with a little work, but the oldest cardboard- and paper-backed ones seem completely stuck in the nasty old glue. And of course these are the ones I'm most worried about.

Googling suggests "blasts" in a microwave to loosen the glue, putting in the freezer to freeze the glue, using a hairdryer, etc. Do any MeFites have experience or advice for doing any of these things? Other suggestions?

How do I get a book repair business started?

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:05:36 -0800

I'm thinking of starting up a home-based business doing repair and cosmetic work on old/damaged books and other artefacts. How do I get started? General knowledge about the logistics of starting a small, home-based business are also welcome. I work as a conservator/archivist in my day job, and every week or so someone will come in with something they are interested in having repaired. Legally, I am not allowed to offer advice about the conservation or preservation (or appraisal) of the object while I'm at work. Invariably, the person who brought the object will ask if I know of anyone who can do the work for them.

I usually have the skills needed to help them, whether its paper repair, book repair, or general artefact care. The materials to set me up in this job wouldn't be prohibitively expensive, and of course I wouldn't borrow anything from my workplace. I could do the work in the evenings or on weekends. I've even thought ahead and toyed with the idea of doing personal archives work, including organizing family papers, research, personal histories, etc.

How do I get the word out about what I'm offering? I've thought about fliers at libraries and craft stores, but is there another option I'm forgetting? Should I set up a website? How do I find customers in general?

Also, I've received varying advice about setting up an LLC. Is this necessary? Will it make tax stuff and write-offs for training and materials easier?

Finally, any advice about the logistics of operating a small business in limited space in one's home are also welcome.

Thanks!

George Carlin's Supreme Court defense

philosophistry — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:41:36 -0800

Where can I find a transcript of what George Carlin told the Supreme Court? On Slate, Joshua Mann refers to a transcript of George Carlin's defense in the Supreme Court case that he's famous for.

Where can I find this transcript?

How common is familiartity with .ZIP archives?

unmake — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 03:22:36 -0800

Is it safe to assume that anyone professionally employed in a computer-using job (secretary, assistant, ect.) is familiar with ZIP archives? What about the public at large? I was using LHZ almost 20 years ago, but most of my (less technically-inclined) friends have acquired their computer literacy in a more casual/disinterested manner - I cut my teeth on a lengthy textfile CLI tutorial that covered this stuff; I'd imagine it's covered by whatever courses today's 16-22 year-olds have to take, but how did contemporary ~30+somethings figure this stuff out, assuming it wasn't covered in the rudimentary computer courses we took (think: classrooms full of IBM PS/2's, Windows 3.1, and the LOGO turtle)..

This question is probably more applicable to Windows users, as Mac's tend to decompress archives to the Desktop by default.

Help me decrypt this mysterious stone ...

ryanshepard — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:28:57 -0800

I'm trying to find out what "J.S. of A." stands for. It's engraved on a stone included in an archival collection I'm processing. So far I've turned up nothing useful via the Web or the print acronym / abbreviation / initial dictionaries that I have access to. The stone is part of a collection of personal papers and artifacts owned by a Washington, D.C. family that date from from ca. 1895-1945 (though several members lived into the late 1960s). The bulk of the material appears to have been collected by two sisters who were D.C. / Maryland / Virginia history buffs. Some of the materials in the collection relate to Savannah, Oklahoma City and England, where the family had relatives and traveled.

I have no contact information for the donor, and all of the people named in the collection itself are dead. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Do I work in a toxic environment?

Tullyogallaghan — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:04:50 -0800

How unsafe is it to work in a warehouse filled with hundred + year old stuffed exhibits (buffalo, cougars, birds, snakes, etc.) It contains the archives of a natural history museum. One of the scientists there told me that, although they would like to get rid of some of these old specimens, no one would want them as they were taxidermed the old fashioned way with mercury and formaldehyde, etc. They, also, have a bar of radium from Madame Curie but its on a different floor. I've inquired as to how its packaged but I'd be surprised if its done properly in a lead box. I just read an article that made a connection with working around formaldehyde and ALS - my most feared disease. I only work (volunteer) there 2 days a week but am I in any danger doing so? Thanks

How do I find the playlist for multiple cds which were burned from my (initial) main music file, which has been added to extensively?

h00py — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 06:21:41 -0800

After burning a cd using Itunes, is a copy of the playlist automatically archived? And if so, how do you access it? I'm hoping that this isn't terribly obvious if only I'd looked more closely at the toolbar. Having said that, I did look and couldn't see a way to find what I'm looking for. I burned a bunch of songs to ten cds but the fifth one didn't work so I'd like to copy the songs I missed to another playlist for burning. It would appear that the playlist I burnt from was just my main music file which I have added to extensively.

Do you know what I'm looking for? Is it easy and if so, how?

Anyone still speak 2-D barcodese?

garfy3 — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 09:02:20 -0800

Help me solve the mystery of an obscure 2D barcode, indexing historically valuable documents from the Vietnam war! [apologies in advance for the length here, this gets complicated.]

During the Vietnam war the US side started a unit to exploit information from documents captured from enemy soldiers. This unit, (the Captured Document Exploitation Division, CDEC), compiled somewhere around 3 million pages of documents, estimated at containing 500K distinct "files" over the course of the war. Before the documents were turned over to the S. Vietnamese, they were captured on film, actually on 35mm movie reels, one frame per page. This vast amount of film is now in the hands of the U.S. National Archives, but there's no *useable* index for it.

Now here's the crux of the mystery: the 35mm movie reels were "indexed" using a special one-of-a-kind machine (built by a defunct California company called "FMA FileSearch"), which encoded indexing information into the *audio track* of the 35mm film, in the form of these 2D barcode-ey things.

Long story short, the machine that read this barcode was left in Vietnam, and no working replica has been located or fashioned ever since. No user manual for the machine exists either.

Now here's the crucial clue I happened upon: on the original reels containing the 35mm film, there is the FMA FileSearch logo, containing an image of the same barcode. I'm thinking that this 8x8 2-dimensional barcode/grid captures the name of the company (either FMA or FileSearch, or both?) and therefore can be used as a reference to decode how the barcode-ey thing contains its information.

But, alas, I'm lacking in the quantitative and old-time-computing experience to determine *how* exactly that company logo barcode says anything.

Am I wrong to assume it encodes some information in binary form? How much information could be packed into an 8x8 2-dimensional grid like this? I don't think there's a need for a "directional" reference in the grid, since the whole thing was designed to sit on a film strip with a known directional orientation. How can I go about decoding these index codes?

[For more on the history of the CDEC unit, and the document collection, here's a link to the Archives website (search on CDEC). Here's the only info I could find on the FMA FileSearch gizmo (p. 536 of this pdf). Haven't located any Patents that might correlate with this code yet either.]

Looking for suggestions for new archive camera

jb — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 14:17:28 -0800

Archive quality camera needed: I need to get a new camera to take photographs of very dirty and battered parchment, but I don't know where to begin. I was wondering if I could gather camera suggestions from people who know more than I do --

My beloved camera recently got sick - I'm not sure if it's hardware or software, but it will be a long time in recovering. Unfortunately, the timing couldn't be worse - I'm suposed to be doing three weeks of intensive reading and photographing of historical documents while away from home. So I'm looking at getting a new camera.

The main purpose for the camera would be to photograph historical documents for me to read later, so obviously I need a camera with a high resolution. Sometimes my documents are as large as two to three feet across, though much larger than that and I tend to break up the image. I do like to do amateur photography as well, but that's secondary in importance.

To sketch out some of the characteristics I'm looking for -

* At least 8 megapixels (the bigger the image, the more I can read), and would love larger (if it's affordable).

* Manual (obviously)

* Silent/extremely quiet shutter, which would seem to rule out an SLR. The amateur photographer in me has lusted after SLRs (so that I could have interchangeable lenses, even a lovely zoom for portraiture), but the archives I work in are very quiet, and I sometimes take hundreds of photos an hour - any kind of clicking would drive everyone else insane. (Are there any non-SLRs that have interchangable lenses?)

* Good lens (I don't know what brands are best, but I've noticed how much difference this can make).

* Good sensitivity to low light - I shoot entirely without flash (flash is bad for documents/paintings/just about anything with pigment), and while my last camera was okay, I think it wasn't really sensitive enough (just too small a lens).

* A swivel screen would be cool, since it would make using the camera stands that the archive has much easier (the camera is often 6 or 7 feet off the ground - I was standing on a chair to check the backscreen before).

I don't think I need a camera with a specific document setting. My previous camera was chosen for its preprogrammed document setting. But that was best for white, flat paper, and ended up doing funny things to crinkly yellow parchment. In the end, I've done better using the manual settings, and the exposure report.

I'm currently in the UK and we might not have the same brands as North America, but I can check that. I'm looking in the £100-300 range - my last camera was £300, but now sells for £150. It was great, so if I can't find another I might just replace it, but cameras have come some way since I got it, and I was wondering if I might be able to find something even more suited to my needs (especially on the light sensitivity side, and maybe with a swivel screen).

And as a last, tacked on bit -- does anyone know how to get rid of/avoid CCD errors in long exposures?