When I decided to create "Finding Aids Friday" posts on the BDC's Facebook page to force me to tackle the backlog of archival collections, I thought that I could do so with a mix of publishing Finding Aids written by former BDC assistants that should not require much work while tasking Olivia and myself with creating a new one (or two) each month to cover about 45-50 Fridays during 2023 that the Library would be open and I would be on the job.
So far that plan has not worked out all that well. As early as February, I hit a snag. Barely 8 weeks into my new "plan," and I had to skip the last Friday in February due to a more complicated situation than I had expected.
I had planned to edit Samantha Perkins' work from 2019 about an unpublished guide to Beaufort's Black historic sites for one of those February 2023 Fridays. As I worked with her Finding Aid, I discovered that the material was really a small part of what should be a larger archival collection of personal papers. So then I started thinking about what else might work for a Finding Aid themed for a Black History Month choice.... which led me to consider creating a Finding Aid to a folder labeled "Robert Smalls" that has been stored in Box 2 of the Miscellaneous small collections for some time. The folder label is my predecessor's hand, so it was onsite before 1999. I figured since Smalls had died on February 23rd, a Finding Aid post about the contents of the "Robert Smalls" folder would be an easy choice for February 24th's Finding Aid Friday Facebook post. Nope!
Upon examination, the same person who was a co-author to the unpublished guide to Beaufort's Black historic sites that Sam had worked on was also the person who gathered the research material about "Robert Smalls" in Box 2 of the Miscellaneous small collections and who wrote the correspondence found in the that folder. The common denominator was Hillary Smith Barnwell, former Assistant Director of the Beaufort County Library. And ... Hillary had personally given me her series of clippings about the Confederate Flag issue along about 2003 - 2004 that had been sitting unprocessed ever since. In other words, I had a quandry.
Unfortunately, not a particularly unique quandry for an archivist: How do we create intellectual control over the disparate folders given to the Library at different times by their creator with no formal paperwork? How should we arrange and describe the materials to alert the public that we have this material available for research? Should I merge the individual deposits of research materials gathered and authored by Hillary Smith Barnwell into one collection or just update Sam's Finding Aid and create new and separate Finding Aids for the "Robert Smalls" folder and Confederate Flag issue clippings?
Sometimes archival arrangement is more of an art than a science. There isn't always only one way to arrange and describe an archival collection.
Olivia and I discussed the issues and challenges off and on for a few days around Research Room customers and local history programs. In the end I decided that the interest of public access and the principles of provenance and original order would be best served by merging the disparate deposits into one archival collection, the Hillary Smith Barnwell Research Files.
My goal became to create and post a Hillary Smith Barnwell Research Files Finding Aid before Women's History Month ended on March 31, 2023. (By design, all the Finding Aids featured on the BDC's Facebook page during March were created by women.) And then as work progressed, Olivia and I discussed more ins-and-outs several more times.
Finally, with Olivia's considerable help, it is finished. She did the bulk of the work arranging the materials and most of the narrative. I wrote the biographical note, decided on the subject headings and did some more editing to finalize the document but at last the Hillary Smith Barnwell Research Files Finding Aid has been posted to the BDCBCL: Links, Lists and Finding Aids blog. Enjoy!
As always, you are welcomed to set up an appointment to view the BDC's materials: Email bdc@bcgov.net or call 843-255-6468 to make the necessary arrangements.
Heads up: The Library system will be closed on Friday, April 7th.
PS: Thank you Friends of the Beaufort Library for paying for Olivia's "Basics of Archives" classes earlier this year. She has hit the ground running. I've made it clear that I am going to work her like a dog until she leaves employment here. There's only like 150 more archival collections to create Finding Aids for here in the Research Room ...
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