{"id":24,"date":"2011-01-30T22:41:35","date_gmt":"2011-01-30T22:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-304pinsker\/?p=24"},"modified":"2011-01-31T01:48:46","modified_gmt":"2011-01-31T01:48:46","slug":"how-not-to-research-in-archives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-304pinsker\/2011\/01\/30\/how-not-to-research-in-archives\/","title":{"rendered":"How (Not) To Research in Archives"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Courtesy of National Archives<\/p><\/div>\n

Last week a story broke about a researcher who had altered a Lincoln document in the National Archives and somehow managed to avoid detection for more than a decade (See video<\/a>, New York Times report<\/a>, and some angry blog posts by Holzer<\/a>, Simpson<\/a> and Wittenberg<\/a>).\u00a0 I’ve met this man (Thomas Lowry) and know his work.\u00a0 In fact, I have used his stuff in my own books and have praised him in at least one review essay.\u00a0 It’s a sad spectacle to be sure,\u00a0 but one that especially unsettles me now as I am about to send out a group of history majors into local archives for a research project involving Civil War-era Carlisle.\u00a0 Do I need to remind them not to steal things or deface documents?\u00a0 Should I warn the librarians?\u00a0 It’s one thing to lecture students about plagiarism, but quite another to try to convey to them the sacred nature of archival collections within the historical profession.\u00a0 Sometimes it feels like we pray not with bibles but with manuscripts.\u00a0 The reading room is our temple.\u00a0 And now there is a story about a new apostate.\u00a0 Of course, there have been many others before Lowry.\u00a0 Just a couple of weeks ago, a former student assistant at the Drew University United Methodist Archives (William Scott) pleaded guilty<\/a> in US District Court to stealing and selling historic documents while he was an 18-year-old working in the collection.\u00a0\u00a0 The fact that Tom Lowry could sneak a pen into the National Archives and change the date on a Lincoln pardon from April 14, 1864 to April 14, 1865 (the last day of the president’s life) and that some freshman at Drew could basically have unsupervised reign over thousands of invaluable documents (including Lincoln letters) only underscores the dark, little secret of these historical temples.\u00a0 They may be sacred, but they’re not very secure.\u00a0 Archivists juggle many problems, not the least of which is a perpetual lack of funds.\u00a0 Most of their enforcement mechanism is built upon trust.\u00a0 And while most historians tend not to care so much about money, they also rarely follow rules and they can be careless.\u00a0 I’ve carried pens into reading rooms –by accident.\u00a0 Sometimes I’ve forgotten the required white gloves or jumbled the folders in the manuscript boxes as I rushed off to my next research conquest.\u00a0 So, in the spirit of humility and feeling chastened for my profession, here are my latest tips to my students:<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0 When you go to archives, find out the rules for handling materials.<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0 Follow those rules.<\/p>\n

3)\u00a0 And when you leave, try to remember that you are exiting a place of worship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week a story broke about a researcher who had altered a Lincoln document in the National Archives and somehow managed to avoid detection for more than a decade (See video, New York Times report, and some angry blog posts … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":373,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-304pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-304pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-304pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-304pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/373"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-304pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-304pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-304pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-304pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-304pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}