Final: Paperclips & Other Paper Fasteners: Holding The Archive

Since I will not be attending to our final class (sorry guys!) I’m posting information about my project on this post. As mentioned in the previous post I was accepted to present this project (and soon will fully develop into a paper) at the (Re)Activating Objects: Social Theory & Material Culture conference in a couple of month. Feedback/comments/criticism will be greatly appreciate. My project’s website (angelicavergel.com) is still a work in progress for the upcoming months. I will move this site to its own link, probably angelicavergel.com/paperclip as soon as I figure out how to do that on wordpress. Thanks again in advance, and I apologize on missing your presentations this afternoon!

ABOUT PAPERCLIPS & OTHER PAPER FASTENERS: HOLDING THE ARCHIVES

Paperclips & Other Paper Fasteners: Holding the Archives is a project that collects disposed paper fasteners from archival organizations. This project aims to reconsider items that are disposed from archival re-housing: such as paperclips, staples, rubber bands, and etc. Each fastener serves a different purpose for holding documents together. Stapling documents are a semi-permanent indication by puncturing paper, while with paperclipping, documents will always be in flux. When documents get archive, usually these fasteners are discarded from the very thing they  held together.  Through a digital collection, this website documents the stuff that are banned or become undone from paper and digital archives. Paperclips & Other Paper Fasteners: Holding the Archives aims to rethink the paperclip and what it means when things become unattached, as well as thinking of the relationship between paper and digital paperclips, from email attachments to embedding metadata.

When professional archivists receive a new accession to archive, the items undergo processing: “the process of organizing materials with respect to their provenance and original order, to protect their context and to achieve physical and intellectual control over the materials.”¹ Among several formal preservation, organization, and storage processes, the archivists usually remove paperclips, staples, and other paper fasteners. These things are usually discarded, even though these are the small, yet important in-between media that once held the archives together through time — the ones whose creator of the archive used to organize their documents or collection. For the archivist, these things are forgettable because they do not hold archival value and could also damage the archive. Old paper documents that were once attached by a paperclip, and stored in unstable conditions, might have placed damages on the documents such as rusting or stressing the paper. These in-between fasteners actually hold many archival possibilities and context, and small connective context could be lost when reordering or reinterpreting how the archive should live.

In digital archives, these fasteners continue to co-exist with computer based documentation. For instance, a paperclip represented in small icons or GUI – Graphical User Interface, usually indicate email attachments, or its representation brings to mind the interactive character “Clippy” seen in 1997-2003 versions of Microsoft Office Assistant. The GUI of an email attachment reminds the user of a paperclip, however the context is in reserve. In Lisa’s Gitelman’s article “Rethinking Attachment”, Gitelman stated that when an email attachment is opened, the representation of the paperclip attachment becomes temporal through being “unattached, unmade, and undone”, which seems like a dream for any archivists processing paper attachments. Unlike a GUI paperclip attachment, an actual paperclip can be stored with the documents it is containing. However, GUI of a paperclip usually get a bad rap such as Mircosoft’s Clippy, which became discontinued after receiving negative responses, even though it the GUI was designed to help and guide users.

Another notion of the computerized attachments are embedded metadata (data about data). For example the embedded metadata of an image file contains sidecar files. Sidecar files store data in a separate file that is not supported by its source file format. Gitelman argued that soon enough a file can refer to fasteners; paperclips contained the archive together just as much as an email attachment or embedded metadata. Although in Abigail L. Dansiger’s article “Embedded Metadata: Friend or Foe to Our Digital Collection” she outline support and concerns of embedded metadata: “Supporters of embedding metadata into digital files believe it will ensure continuous access to the digital object over time since everything will be in one package that travels securely and permanently together. However, opponents of embedded metadata feel it could actually cause data corruption and lead to migration issues.”¹ Another argument against embedded metadata is the issue of information overload, which is a concern for digital and analog archivists. Much like paper fasteners, sidecar files contains the files together, however they can also damage the files through migration to other softwares. The issue for metadata is that the software companies are profit driven, and file formats can easily be replaced with newer formats. Although archival organizations use their own standards regarding how they process/re-house the archive, it is clear their intention is the keep the archives together. However, these fasteners whether paperclip, staple or embedded metadata carry residue of the original archives.

This website contains information about each organization, as well a bit information of archiving standards they have regarding paper fasteners. Under each organization there is a page for a collection, and the disposed items collected during re-housing. Each item is tagged in order to connect the collections together. I reached out to several New York City archival organizations asking if I could collect their disposed paper fasteners or other items. A couple were willing to collaborate: Kellen Design Archives at Parsons the New School of Design, and Fales Library and Collections at New York University, Bobst Library. Kellen donated from their Joseph Greenbaum Collection, Records of Dean David C. Levy, and New School Audio-Visual Collection; Fales donated from their Exit Art Archive and Erich Maria Remarque Collection. This website also contains a collection images of GUI of paperclips which also become undone when a document is received and opened. A conservator from the Municipal Archives of the NYC Department of Records has informed me that she will be resuming a project from the 1894-95 and might have some fasteners for me by next month. My goal is to continue asking various archival organizations to help me collect the paper fasteners that they usually dispose.

Many  thanks to Jenny Swadosh, Associate Archivist at the Kellen Design Archives, and Lisa Darms, Senior Archivist at the Fales Library & Special Collections.

¹ Slomba, Elizabeth. SPEC Kit 314: Processing Decisions for Manuscripts & Archives. (Washington DC: Association of Research Libraries, 2009), 9.

² Dansiger, Abigail L. “Embedded Metadata: Friend or Foe to Our Digital Collection.”Library Student Journal (2011): n. pag. Web. 16 Dec. 2012.