My sabbatical seems an archipelago of friends' couches, brand-name hotels, and sublet apartments. From island to island I travel. Objective: to reach the archives.
In Palo Alto last August, I stayed at the Hotel California. For real, there's plenty of room at the Hotel California. Can't say as I ever liked that Eagles' song, but its namesake is inexpensive and within walking distance of Stanford University, where I was working in the archives of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace.
In Berkeley, I lined up a funky prewar sublet on Telegraph Avenue right above Moe's Books. For 20 nights straight, after spending my days at the Bancroft Library, I was serenaded from the street by starving hysterical naked minds looking for an angry fix.
Jaunts to an archive by car sometimes suffice. In the past few years, I have driven to Detroit, St. Louis, and Madison, Wis. In July, I took my 6-year-old daughter, Rosa, with me for a day trip to Oberlin College, only an hour from our home. She colored and read while I worked. We made it back by dinnertime. Another morning, I got up early, drove three hours to the University of Pittsburgh's Archives Service Center, went through the small sheaf of papers left by black labor organizer Ernest Rice McKinney, and drove back the same night.
The archive is a revered place of pilgrimage. It is the Mecca of historians.
The journey requires temporal and financial sacrifice, but the traveler is sustained by the prospect of discovery and insight, the perpetual hope that the next box, the next folder, the next file, will contain the elusive find that will afford a new window into the past.
The experience can be transcendent, as it was for me this past summer when, sitting at a table in the special-collections department at the University of California at Davis's Peter J. Shields Library, I held a handwritten letter from Mario Savio, leader of the 1964 Free Speech Movement, to Hal Draper, gruff mentor to young Berkeley radicals. (Maybe you had to be there.)
The archive is grounds for meditation. The brain wanders while one sits waiting for the next box to be called up or while culling through reams of irrelevant correspondence, waiting for a pattern to emerge or seeking a certain gem.
But not all archives are the same. In recent months, my daydreaming in various facilities has yielded a recurrent question: What would constitute the Ideal Archive?
What follows, in no particular order, are the features of my own private Dream Archive. Consider this a memo to university administrators and library directors, seasoned by a few nods of gratitude to outstanding practices around the country.
Long hours. Hours of business may seem trivial, but they are among the most important aspects of an archive's life. Bean-counter notions of user intensity have unduly constricted access. How frustrating to travel across a continent only to find the archive open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays only. The most exciting collection in the world is of no use outside viewing hours, and six hours is a brief day, indeed. A mere three hours more each day would add 15 hours of access -- in effect, two additional days -- to the week. The most generous hours I experienced this year were at the Hoover Institution, open from 8:15 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. on weekdays, with Saturday hours to boot during the academic term.
Grants of any size. Money for humanities research is tight. It would be welcome if more archives would assist scholars with competitive grants by working in partnership with development offices to arrange named grants along the lines of those provided by the likes of Lilly Library at Indiana University at Bloomington; the Huntington Library in Southern California; or Yale University's Beinecke Library. Even small grants would be deeply appreciated.
Silence. That highly valuable attribute, though entirely free of cost, is in danger of disappearing from the contemporary archive. Serious scholars wish to concentrate fully on the materials. Imagine their dismay when distractions abound: clacking computers, banging doors, noisy gossiping -- and that from the staff! At one archive, I witnessed patrons enter, ask questions at the desk in an appropriately subdued whisper, only to receive full-volume replies from the archivist. At another archive, student assistants chatted noisily in a storage space adjacent to the reading room, while an archivist of Grateful Dead vintage walked about with bells jingling on her heels. An institutional culture should be forged that emphasizes the value of stillness and tranquillity in special-collections areas. Physical design should complement that aim. Keyboards should be tested for softness, and doors should swing shut slowly and gently.
Lighting. Fluorescent lighting is more energy-efficient and economical, but its artificial quality causes headaches and eye strain in many readers. Incandescence rules.
Security. The documents of the past must be safeguarded, so that prospective donors know their gifts will be respected and preserved, and so that future scholars may verify the evidence. I still remember the sinking feeling I had in doing research for my last book when I was guided to a table entirely out of sight of the archivist's desk, allowed to keep my satchel with me, and presented with a box of the original correspondence of John Dewey, the best-known American philosopher of the 20th century. What was to stop me from pilfering page after page? While it is welcome not to be treated with suspicion of criminality, caution is warranted. Keep patrons in plain view, provide spacious lockers, and require that bags and coats be checked.
Photocopying. Archival copy rates vary a great deal. The top end often seems usurious at 50 cents or more a page. Nevertheless, price cannot deter a scholar. Should I order $319 worth of copies? Answer: of course. It's cheaper than a plane ticket or gasoline, room, and board should I have to return for a second trip. But please allow me to use a credit card for such expenditures. I tip my hat to the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley for that excellent policy.
Get wired. At every table, plugs should be supplied to allow prolonged laptop use. Enabling Wi-Fi would permit Internet access, allowing scholars to crosscheck a source, order a library book, or investigate another archive's holdings without even leaving the table. Complete finding aids for all holdings should be made available online.
Comfortable seating. Would you want to sit in that chair all day? That should be the litmus test when picking out chairs for an archive -- not, say, whether they look nice.
Ambiance and form. At Davis's Shields Library, Special Collections has a new room with handsome wood tables, walls adorned with attractive prints and photographs, and windows that let in natural light. Also spectacular is Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library, which boasts glass walls and polished wood floors.
Creative programming. New York University's Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Archives often holds film screenings, talks, workshops, and seminars in its after-hours. That makes it not only a premier documentary repository for labor and radical social movements, but a center joining scholars and the public in conversation.
Any takers? Let me know. I'll be there.
