Month: January 2019

Archiving Your Life

So, I was researching this guy …

… and fell into another Rabbit Hole.

But I completed my task and pulled myself out in under 2 hours!

So, to start, let me say that I am a big fan of the Public Library system and very fortunate to have access to the Los Angeles Public Library and its wonderful website.  LAPL has an incredible collection of searchable materials available online free of charge – I suspect this is true of your public library system as well. I encourage you to investigate!

I visit the Research page at LAPL.org when looking for an answer to something historical. Well, last week I stumbled upon the City and Street Directories for Los Angeles and boom – I was in another rabbit hole!

City Directories – huh?

If you aren’t familiar with City Directories, simply put … they rock! These early “phone” books are one of the best resources for researching people by name, occupation or address – and of course by phone number in later years. In the earlier editions, every resident and household member and occupation was listed for each address.

City Directories can be searched by Last Name or by Street (this is known as a reverse directory) which can come in very handy. Let’s say, for instance, you are researching the ownership history of a particular house. You can search each years’ directory by the house address and learn the names and occupations of all house occupants via the reverse directories. Pretty neat, right?

Another cool example, perhaps you are researching 123 Flower Street but cannot find the address listed in City Directories prior to 1923 when J. Smith (shoemaker) lived there. You can search earlier directories for J. Smith (shoemaker) and find he resided at 10 Flower Street from 1909 to 1923. As it turns out, 10 Flower Street became 123 Flower in 1924. Lots of number and even street name changes occurred over the years in most cities – City Directories can help you sort that out.

So, Back to My Story

I was researching this guy … a distant relative who sponsored my father when he came to the U.S. in the late 1940’s. This fellow owned a lot of property in downtown Los Angeles, particularly in the Bunker Hill area. Many of these properties were former Victorian Era mansions that devolved into seedy apartment and flop houses. Very film noir stuff. Anyway, my dad worked on some of the properties but has forgotten the locations of most over time. He knows the Dorothy Chandler Music Center and Disney Hall now sit on land previously owned by his sponsor, as well as an open air parking lot, but that’s about it.

So, when I stumbled onto the City Directories portal, I knew I had to search this distant relative and learn what properties he owned and when. Frankly, this task has been on my to-do list for years but I thought it would involve days spent at the library and/or Hall of Records. Silly me! Within 2 hours I had printed 35 or so pages from City Directories spanning from 1908 to 1971. Not only did I find all of my subject’s properties but also learned where his father and family lived in the early 1900’s.

2 hours and The Result

Dad, now in his 90’s was thrilled to see this material. He had no idea his maternal Grandfather’s brother and his son (the man who sponsored my Dad) had been in Los Angeles that long. And seeing the names of other relatives and learning their professions was really fun for him. Of course, learning all of the property addresses and names (all of the Apt buildings had names in those days) sent Dad down memory lane and I promised him we will drive around to see if any of the apartments survived the last 70 years. That will be a fun rabbit hole indeed!

I hope my tale inspires you to learn more about free research tools available through your public library system. These resources grow each year as more and more original analog material becomes digitized and made accessible online. And as these resources become more available, there will be no excuse for not decluttering, sorting, editing and displaying all of those things we swear we’ll get to one of these days!

Right?

Please let me know what history you uncover and how you will use it! Would LOVE to hear how you accessed some information that delighted a senior and brought back fond memories. Please comment below ⇣

All for now friends ~

© 2019 Archiving Options

visit me on FB too! https://www.facebook.com/ArchivingOptions

Archiving Your Life

Threats to Your Stuff

You know …  those important things you have stashed in the basement, garage or attic.

THEY ARE AT RISK!

It is a big no-no 🤢 to keep your archives (aka important things) any place water, temperature or other threats can compromise them.

Why?

Take a look at this table I created to understand the various risks your important things face when they are improperly stored. Let’s take corrective measures now. 💪

Want to take corrective actions now before it gets too late?

I thought so. 😼

Check out my FREE How-To Guide Archiving 101 – STEP 1: Protect What Matters where you get the tips to BEGIN taking care of the things that matter. GET YOUR COPY NOW!

‘How-To Start Archiving 101’

Let me know what the biggest threats to your collection is ⇣. I want to hear from you!

Be sure to visit me on FB too! https://www.facebook.com/ArchivingOptions

© 2019 Archiving Options

Archiving Your Life

WHO Are You Saving This Stuff For?

Life Lesson Series

If you are like most people of a certain age, you have likely kept all of the “important” things that document your life’s big moments. Photos, letters, souvenirs, travel documentation, diplomas, uniforms, gowns, artifacts – a whole lot of stuff.

Do you know exactly what you have and where it is? Do you review it every so often?

No? Why do you keep anything, especially things that are important, stashed and hidden away in boxes that you don’t look at or even enjoy?

Now’s the time to make some changes!

I recommend you review your collection of goodies once every five years – you can enjoy an afternoon sauntering down your own personal memory lane AND perhaps thin out the collection a bit. I know you don’t want to be THAT person that keeps everythingand then forgets about it and the eventual task of sorting through the collection falls on someone else’s shoulder. DON’T. BE. THAT. PERSON.

Personally, I like the idea of enjoying one’s treasures and actually living with them or, better yet, creating STORYTELLING DISPLAYS with them. That’s my jam and what I try to promote.

Those “important” things aren’t doing anyone any good moldering away in box. Ugh!

And – I suspect you probably don’t just have your personal life’s-big-moments artifacts but also your family’s. Perhaps your parents or grandparents things too. Then this opens a whole ball of wax because this collection of goodies might expand to include china, furniture, art, linens, figurines and all sort of doo-dads.

I bring this up because you need to hear some HARD TRUTHS now. Whatever you are keeping, collecting and saving for ‘later’ … your kids won’t want any of it. It’s better for you to embrace this idea now so you can put the kabosh on further storing (saving for the kids) and change your mindset for good.

Don’t be distressed or personally insulted that your kids won’t want your (or Granny’s) things. It is a generational thing and today, simplicity and stream-lined living is in vogue.

Take the opportunity to ask your kids now what they might like and what sentimental items mean something to them – then LIBERATE those items. There are SO many opportunities to create really special displays out of these old things – to enjoy and live with them.

A Few Ideas …

The Special China – just use it. Everyday. What good is it sitting in an over stuffed cabinet?

Special Silverware – same thing – use it. Or create other things with it. I know a fellow who turns old fashioned elaborate sterling silver flatware into gorgeous rings – and he does it in a way that maintains the pattern. Or sell it (gasp!) I know another person who creates incredible baskets from old ties or scarves. What a practical and wonderful way to honor that special man in your life. Another friend made a wall-hanging quilt out of her husband’s business suits when he retired – and out went the suits to make room for clothing better suited (excuse the pun! 🤭) for leisure and sports.

There are still collectors for some of the old stuff so don’t just toss it. Have a yard sale or set up at the local flea market. There are plenty of online auction houses as well if you have something of real monetary value. But the truth my friends, is that your treasures probably don’t have any real monetary value. The value is in it’s sentimental connections, so find out who it matters to and divvy the stuff up.

Of course, there may be some important value in the things you hidden away but if no one knows it, there is a real risk those items could be tossed unknowingly. So share the intel about your stash!

If you do decide to distribute those things elsewhere (sell or donate), take photos first. You can always enjoy viewing what the room used to look like over a cup of tea poured in that fancy china pattern.

My Pledge

I am committed to changing the mindset of folks who have way too many things hidden away, stashed in garages, attics or basements (or worse, storage units – egads!) Things they swear are of great importance. I also want to get you thinking about bringing more stuff (or not) into your house. There will be chances to accept wonderful things from aging relatives … but should you? Learning how to make judicious decisions about what you accept and keep is a really important skill to develop now.

Who is with me on this? I will be launching a course in June to take you through step-by-step  the process to tackle all of these areas. The goal is to free up some space and create some storytelling displays that you and your family will actually want to keep. Yay!

Stay tuned my friends … the best is yet come!

PS:  👀

I also wanted to include a link to a wonderful article written by Jill Smolowe for Next Avenue where she describes how she made the choices she did when deciding what to keep from her Mother’s estate, and where to put those items to live with and enjoy. Check it out …

https://www.nextavenue.org/want-my-parents-stuff/

Be sure to visit me on FB too! https://www.facebook.com/ArchivingOptions

© 2019 Archiving Options

Archiving Your Life

Oops – I Fell Into A Rabbit Hole!

The Best Laid Plans …

My goal since building this website has been to post info and tips regularly because I have so much good stuff to share with you! Well, I failed on that a bit.

Life Happens

Things got pretty hectic around here during the Fall.  My excuse is that between learning more about archiving and digitizing, expanding my skill sets, researching and writing, and serving clients, I lost focus. Has that ever happened to you? If so, you know how crummy it feels to get off track. Well, that is about to change – I have so much information and tips coming your way so please stay tuned!

Rabbit Holes Are Wonderful/Terrible

Which one is it? I guess it depends on how far deep you go and if the rabbit hole leads you anywhere productive. This is actually an occupational hazard for anyone in the archiving world. One file, photo or article leads to another and another, or to a different direction all together. My mantra for 2019 is FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS.

One of my distractions involved researching and writing an article I had been thinking about for years. As former volunteer archivist of the Altadena Historical Society I had heard rumors from the old-timers about the Mt. Lowe Railroad and its more, shall we say, colorful side. So when Acid Free, a quarterly online publication of the Los Angeles Archivists Collective reached out to the archivist community seeking article submissions for their SEX issue, I knew I had an article to write.

Sex and Archives – Say What?

I’ll bet you are curious now! 

It’s true, the issue theme is SEX and there are some pretty interesting articles in addition to my own.  Actually, the entire issue is devoted to archives and sex. My article describes how afternoon trysts may have occurred at the former resorts known as Echo Mountain and Alpine Tavern. I spent a good chunk in the archives and what a beautiful rabbit hole that is.

It was a fun article to write and I hope it will be a fun read for you – enjoy!

CLICK HERE

I pledge to be more consistent with posts and products in 2019. All for now friends!

© 2019 Archiving Options

Archiving Your Life

Creating an Online Collection

Do you scratch your head at the word “archives”? Wonder how it can possibly apply to you as an individual or family historian? Libraries, museums, corporations, universities, etc. have archives that scholars and the public can access when doing research. But have you considered that your stuff, your collection, is an archives too?

There are interesting articles about what is known as Hidden Collections. This term includes the material and related stories people, families maintain but keep ‘hidden’ from others. Not hidden as in ‘secret – don’t tell anybody’, but in the sense that whatever is stashed away in your garage, attic or basement is hidden from others and potential researchers who may find social and cultural interest in them – if they could only see them!

So, I thought this might be a good opportunity to share something I worked on this past fall that allows people to share their collections and bring them out into the light. Let me tell you about a couple ways to organize and share a collection with others online.

Behind the Scenes

A couple months ago I was tasked with organizing, describing and posting a collection online. Allow me to describe how I created my own archives for online access. This is one of many solutions I will share with you so I thought you might be interested in a behind the scenes look.

Collecting vintage postcards has been a passion of mine for years and I keep them in a basket under my glass coffee table. These little gems are so easy to access and share whenever I want (great conversation starters too) and they take up very little space.

Vintage Postcard Collection

By the way, I am a big believer in having collectibles where you can live with and enjoy them, not as artifacts stashed in a box or drawer.

Anyway, I have been studying archiving and digitizing best practices at a local college and wanted to use a portion of this postcard collection to sample a software program used by libraries and museums, called ContentDM.

Using Archives to Create Archives

I used local archives in my area (museums, libraries and historical societies) to research my selected postcards. My goal was to confirm that the images I wanted to share are indeed fairly rare. Meaning they are not currently included in any digital online archival collection and do not appear in print. I did locate a couple  postcard images in online auction sites but none included metadata (image descriptions and corresponding data), so I included them in my final selection.

I also used the archives I accessed to get my hands on any metadata (details, dates, descriptions) I needed to fully describe the images. Then I transcribed the postmarks and messages, where applicable.

Next step, careful digitization of the images. Critical to use a high resolution scanner and understand size parameters (pixels, ppi, dpi, etc). I won’t go into those details here but a specific workflow is required. I then generated high and low resolution images and used the low resolution versions (jpg) for easy online access for viewers.

Finally, I created a database of my vintage postcard collection for online access with ContentDM. I accessed this proprietary software through the archiving and digitizing course I took last term. You can view my collection here…  It is pretty simple but a solid example of how a personal collection can be shared online.

Click on any thumbnail images to see a full image with all related metadata. Blue text designates ‘keywords’ SEO will use to help guide anyone looking for those items (if the SEO gods are working correctly). Let me know what you think!

Other Examples of Collections

I discovered another resource for archiving and sharing images in an open source platform called Omeka. I really like this platform and plan on creating a parallel collection soon –  will post when my next collection is available. The Omeka platform allows much more design freedom and works similarly to WordPress on the back end. Looking forward to digging in on this one very soon. But in the meantime, I did want to share an existing collection created in Omeka from UC Berkeley, Penn Design and others. Please click here. I’ll bet many of you can envision creating something like this for your own family documents, photos, etc. Pretty cool, right?

Another wonderful example of a collection turned into an accessible archives is here. The creator has a real passion for ‘old-school’ department stores and their history. What a wonderful collection. This is a great example of how passion and curiosity can turn a particular topic into a collection and then into an archive for others to access and enjoy.

So there you have it – a quick behind the scenes tale about using archives to create  archives. I hope this will get you thinking about how you might rethink your own Hidden Collection – but first you need to find them right?

Be sure to check out my other blogs on that topic.

All for now friends!

© 2019 Archiving Options