Perspectives

AHC history project remarks

By Erik Moore March 5, 2007
Events, Perspectives, Project admin

Below are the remarks I delivered as part of the introductions at the AHC guest lecture by Gretchen Krueger. The event doubled as an opportunity to formally launch the AHC History Project.

Academic Health Center History Project Launch

February 28, 2007

Welcome. I appreciate your interest in tonight’s event and would like to take a few moments to elaborate on the project that I am working on.

The Academic Health Center History Project is a unique collaborative effort between the Academic Health Center and the University of Minnesota Libraries to ensure that the rich history of the Academic Health Center is preserved within the University Archives.

The goals of the project are to identify, collect, and provide access to the institutional and historical documentation of the Academic Health Center, its six schools and colleges, and its interdisciplinary centers at the University of Minnesota. The outcome is to ensure that this valuable documentation is preserved over the long term and made permanently accessible for scholarly and administrative uses in the University Archives.

However, where I’d really like to begin is by quoting Dr. Cerra from his State of the AHC address delivered in this auditorium last month. Speaking about ways to support current research, Dr. Cerra reminded the audience that “There is a repository of wisdom in our faculty… We need the wisdom of those faculty and we don’t really have a good system for tapping it and using it.” I understand this wisdom to be broader than the traditional model of publication. It is a wisdom that comes from experience and personal interrelations.

I would argue that tonight’s topic is a case in point. It is hard to find a biographical note on Dr. Kennedy that does not refer to him as “the father of medical oncology.” He was a “repository of wisdom.”

In 1999, Dr. Kennedy’s essay in The Lancet, “Origin and Evolution of Medical Oncology” detailed the history of the medical oncologist’s role in patient care. Dr. Kennedy lamented the lack of interest that oncologists-in-training had in its historical origins, commenting, “I’ve spent 47 years in an academic environment, and I know that many young oncologists are not interested in the history of oncology. They either don’t have the time or don’t have the interest to trace the origins, and some of them are reinventing the wheel.”

Dr. Kennedy was well aware of the repository of wisdom faculty could be and he made great progress in being a source of information for others.

But I hasten to add that this project is not about faculty alone. The administrative units of the AHC, its schools and colleges, and centers are all repositories of wisdom that need tapped as well. A better institutional understanding comes from a well-documented institutional history. Without which, there is little or no context for the work being done. It is not only researchers who are prone to reinvent the wheel. We re-visit familiar ideas in our strategic planning, curriculum design, and clinical operations year after year.

Dr. Kennedy once said, “My favorite expression is that medical oncology is the practice of internal medicine, but all the patients happen to have cancer.” Dr. Kennedy believed in a comprehensive care approach. Why combat the cancer if the onset of additional health issues were left unchecked?

It is like sticking your thumb in a hole of a cracked dike and ignoring the mounting pressure of water on the other side.

To date, the attempts to stop the loss of history at the AHC have been something closer to the thumb-in-the-hole method while the mounting pressure of lost history grew.

With the AHC History Project we are gathering partners together to stop the loss. As you have heard there is an institutional commitment from the AHC and the University Libraries to preserve this history and make sure there is access to it.

But on the other side of the table are you: the faculty, administrators, department heads, administrative staff, students, and family. You are part of this project as well. You are the people who understand the history by living through it. We will need your help at locating it and bringing it out into the light so that it can be preserved and others can have access to it. You are part of our insurance against the dike breaking.

Thank you for coming tonight. Your interest in the AHC’s history demonstrates that we have a great foundation for us to develop this project and see the repository of wisdom of the Academic Health Center built.

Thank you.

State of the AHC

By Erik Moore February 6, 2007
Events, Perspectives

Last Wednesday, January 31, 2007, Dr. Frank Cerra, Senior Vice President for Health Sciences, delivered his annual State of the AHC address (streaming video available). Several pieces of his presentation struck a chord with me and demonstrate relationships with the overall goals of this project. I’d like to discuss one of those pieces below.

During his explanation of his vision for research, he listed the following bullet point under the topic of concerns & issues.

We need to value and use wisdom of existing faculty/staff

What he said was:

The final concern I heard in this area was find a better way to value and utilize faculty wisdom. There is a repository of wisdom in our faculty… We need the wisdom of those faculty and we don’t really have a good system for tapping it and using it. It’s part of a dialogue that’s on going and I think we need to really learn how to do this. (35:21, streaming video)

I think this is a key approach to better help faculty and their departments understand the importance of their work and its relevance beyond publication. Lecture notes, correspondence, presentations, committee work, all these facets of a faculty member’s life represent the whole of their repository of wisdom. Believing that a life-time career can be easily measured in the publications left behind paints a false portrait of a faculty member’s work. It is linear and flat. It gives the impression that their work began with Point A and finished at Point B.

We all know a professional career is not that simple. It is full of false starts and the abandonment of some research questions to pursue others. It is dynamic and multileveled. It is not a portrait done by a connect-the-dots strategy, but one done in pointillism. What may seem random dots of color up close, in fact, come into focus as you step away from the canvas.

Archives can act as part of the solution for the concerns & issues raised in this vision for research. They can act not only as a source for information, but also as a model for how to organize the repository of wisdom being created at that moment.

Time versus space

By Erik Moore January 31, 2007
Perspectives

I am coming closer to terms with the speed at which health science materials travel. The urgency for new information and the rapid turnover of theories, studies, and reports in the professional literature creates an environment with little regard for historical perspectives. Who has time to look at all this “old stuff” when the review of incoming material is beyond the limitations of any individual. Aggregators and literature review services are the only means available for health science professionals to be aware of the enormous amount of information passing through their periphery.

The speed of information coupled with the space limitations of departments and divisions operating in facilities designed in an era that could not anticipate their current needs creates a hazardous environment for institutional documentation and the personal papers of faculty. The time/space pressure results in a clean sweep after the retirement or death of faculty and administrators.

The loss is happening in real time. On any given day I can walk through the various buildings and see material piled next to trash containers or left for janitors outside of office doors. Or, as in a recent case, it comes to me through an email notifying me that it is all gone. Usually, it is tendered with a “wish I had known…” or “I didn’t realize someone would want this old stuff.”

Obviously, I cannot change the established environment, but, hopefully through a few upcoming events, word of the project and the value of the material can begin to seep into the consciousness of those I am working to document.

Exploring environmental connections

By Erik Moore January 4, 2007
MPLP, Nursing, Perspectives

I recently stumbled across the proceedings for the 1993 Conference on Expressions of Caring in Nursing: Exploring Our Environmental Connections (ed. Eleanor Schuster & Carolyn Brown, NY: National League for Nursing Press, 1994). I thumbed through several of the articles for two primary purposes. First, I am enjoying becoming more connected to health sciences literature. It helps me better understand the materials I work with as well as connect to the people I meet. Second, I was curious to see the connections depicted that draw the field of nursing closer to environmental studies. As you may recall, I previously mentioned my own interest in examining archives as a single field among many interested in the long-term use and access to rare and unique resources as is the case in environmental protection.

The preface to the first chapter states

The phrase domain of nursing knowledge calls forth old images of ownership, territoriality, and control. We use the word domain in the sense of laying claim to an area of knowledge development for nursing. (p. 1)

The semantics of ownership and control are present in environmental literature. The shift in language from land management to land stewardship parallels the shift in nursing knowledge from a domain of knowledge ownership to a domain of knowledge growth.

As for archives, a recent article by Joel Wurl (Archival Issues 29, 2005) echoes this shift in language and, thus, perception. Wurl writes

In the custodial approach to archives, property is relinquished… material is now owned by the repository. A stewardship ethos… is characterized by partnership and continuity of association… jointly held and invested in by the archive and the community of origin. (p. 72)

In each of the three fields, nursing, environmental protection, and archives, a clear break with past paradigms of ownership and control are made and replaced with growth and partnerships.

When discussing incorporating an environmental awareness into nursing, Dorothy Kleffel recommended

(a) making the community and the broader environment our nursing client, (b) redirecting our nursing activities to the macro-level environment, and (c) moving the profession from oppression to empowerment. (p. 11)

I find all three suggestions applicable to archives as well. If we document human activities and the broader environment then archivists follow the suggestion of Candace Loewen (Archivaria 33, 1991-92) to be “survival-oriented,” meaning we document “records of value to humans and to the planet as a whole.” Second, archivists are becoming more aware of provenance and appraisal issues at the macro level and are engaging records at their creation, not just at their deposit. A macro level approach is also becoming a part of our processing and description activities. Finally, the third point is again evident in Wurl’s discussion of stewardship of a community’s resources rather than control.

So what is the ultimate connection between nursing, environmental protection, and archives? All are primarily interested in the long-term survival and improvement of the communities they serve. And by doing so, cross over to the other fields with a measure of support as well.

Losing memory

By Erik Moore November 27, 2006
Donors, Perspectives

I’ve often commented that archival work is a morbid profession. I think this every time I see work study students combing the obituaries for a notice to close out a clippings file or contact information for the next of kin as a collection lead.

Yet, there is another type of loss we deal with from time to time and it is a less than funny matter. Even though a person may not be nearing the end of their life, they may be nearing the end of their memory. Memory loss in a donor can be a confusing and difficult area for the archivist to navigate. Repeating conversations during each contact while knowing the donor is becoming less aware of the ultimate purpose of the discussion is an area we are not equipped through our training to handle. It also becomes an ethical issue. The archivist needs to be able to determine when a donor is no longer able to consent to the depositing of their materials and whether or not we should proceed with the acquisition until ownership and transfer issues are resolved.

I’d suggest we need to look to the literature on aging in the medical and social work fields to understand how we can best react to the changing needs of those we are trying to document.

Archivists talk funny

By Erik Moore November 13, 2006
Lexicon, Perspectives

I’ve always been somewhat fascinated with the terminology used in archives and the inherent problems and contradictions it can cause when those same terms are crossed with another field or discipline. Of personal interest are such terms as “preservation�? and “conservation�? and how these terms have very practical applications in archival work and also have implications in archival theory. Comparing and contrasting these definitions with their use in environmental protection sets up archives as a single field among many interested in the long-term use and access to rare and unique resources. That, however, can be the topic of a different post.

The Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology addresses these issues of archival lexicon in an introductory essay. Yet, the reality can sometimes become all too apparent when the words used and the confusion over their definitions means a loss to the archival record.

Today, I’d like to address the term “papers.�?

The Glossary provides these definitions for words that are at times used interchangeably.

Papers: 1. A collection. – 2. A collection of personal or family documents; personal papers. – 3. Government • Records indicating an individual’s identity or status.

Personal papers: 1. Documents created, acquired, or received by an individual in the course of his or her affairs and preserved in their original order (if such order exists). – 2. Nonofficial documents kept by an individual at a place of work.

Manuscript: 1. A handwritten document. – 2. An unpublished document. – 3. An author’s draft of a book, article, or other work submitted for publication.

When trying to collect the papers of those in higher education, I believe archivists are competing with terminology already ingrained in the population by the publishing world. Paper equals article. Manuscript equals a pre-publication work.

Why the interest in papers? Today I learned that nearly 12 boxes of correspondence and related work materials for a prominent individual in the veterinary sciences were recently destroyed (this is unrelated to another recent loss in the vet sciences). In this specific case, it was believed that papers referred to the published work of the individual. A reasonable interpretation given the publishing environment academics work in. Is “personal papers�? that much more clear? Not likely. Manuscripts? Again, the connection to publication is forefront with most.

So, the education continues. Both for the community I am collecting from on what archives are as well as for myself on how that community perceives the work we do.

Field archivist

By Erik Moore October 13, 2006
Perspectives

When I am asked to explain the project or describe what I do, I often respond by describing myself as a field archivist. My job is to connect the records of the Academic Health Center to University Archives. The senior vice president’s office, the six schools and colleges (medical, nursing, pharmacy, public health, dentistry and veterinary), and the independent centers are the primary units that make up the AHC and the territory I cover. The focus of my search for materials centers on the formation of the AHC in 1970 when the Board of Regents appointed Dr. Lyle French as the vice president for health sciences and the events leading to this decision. It also focuses on what has happened since, up to present day.

I have work space at University Archives, but also a “field office�? within the AHC. Being “in the field�? has facilitated making connections fast. Word of the project is quickly spreading throughout the AHC and I’ve been contacted by numerous faculty and staff with tips on the location of a cache of materials they think are particularly interesting or with questions regarding what is considered archival or how best to manage their in house resource files.

Working as a field archivist also helps to educate and create an environment within the AHC that sees the University Archives as a partner and understand the archives as a place where its sole mission is to manage the historical documentation and information of all units of the university.

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