36 Pages or Less: The California Ephemera Project blog

Over and out

Wendy Welker — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 23:10:40 +0000

It’s 2011 and our work here is done (sort of). We successfully completed all the finding aids and MARC records for all the designated ephemera collections for all four institutions. But the California Ephemera Project (CEP) lives on in that the project is designed to accommodate additional entries to existing finding aids and new finding aids from other repositories with California ephemera collections. We will be posting information about CEP and how institutions can add their finding aids to the CEP pool in the next Society of California Archivists (SCA) newsletter. A few of us from the project will also be presenting a panel discussion on the CEP at the SCA Annual Meeting in April.

Last week the California Historical Society (CHS) hosted An Evening with the Ephemera Collection, a public event which drew a large crowd to view a small exhibit of Valentine’s Day-related items and a sampling of ephemera from all four participating CEP institutions. Attendees were so enthusiastic that CHS is planning an Irish-themed program in March featuring its ephemera collection. There was also mention of the project in the Matier & Ross column in the San Francisco Chronicle and a feature on KGO Ch. 7 news (http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7938302). Most importantly, we’re hearing from reference staff that patrons are already finding their way to ephemera materials through the OAC finding aids. A job well done everyone. Congratulations!

We’ll be leaving this blog up to use as part of our SCA session discussion, so please leave us your comments over the next few months.

Visit the CEP website at: www.californiaephemeraproject.org

Wendy

We’re almost there

Wendy Welker — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 00:29:47 +0000

We’re almost done! Tanya and I are putting the final touches on the SFPL San Francisco (Subjects) Ephemera Collection finding aid, and then all four institutions will have all the designated finding aids on the OAC. This last finding aid is a bit of an an anomaly on the project since reprocessing is postponed until sometime after the project when SFPL can put staff resources into the large undertaking of sorting through the validity and consistency of their subject headings. What this means for the present is that there are folders with the same subject heading in multiple places within the collection, there are inconsistencies within the filing of addresses (including the very bizarre scheme of filing addresses alphabetically, so 837 Montgomery Street gets filed in the “E’s” as E-i-g-h-t-h-u-n-d-r-e-d….), and there are “dummy” folders with subject headings that direct to See references that don’t exist. As I tried to edit this finding aid I could feel David and Teddy’s pain. I know how hard it must have been to make themselves forge ahead without being able to impose a logical and consistent order. We have to keep reminding ourselves that there is keyword capability and users will be directed to thousands and thousands of active headings, even if they’re not well-organized, and those are thousands and thousands of subjects that were formerly inaccessible. This was an immensely worthwhile project (reference staff has already told us how effective it’s been) and we are proud to make visible the mountains of ephemera that sat there hidden in box after box, drawer after drawer, row after row. Thanks again to all the CEP assistants! -Wendy

Spell “Supercilious” — 1st grade spelling test from 1870

Wendy Welker — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:59:05 +0000

As promised, here is the San Francisco public school’s first grade spelling test from 1870. You didn’t read that wrong, it is FIRST GRADE. And not just spelling, but definition of each word, prefix, root, and suffix. This means that little Mabel or Johnny knew what dejection was, not to mention homicide. -Wendy

1870 First grade spelling test

Second grade exam from 1870

Wendy Welker — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:47:16 +0000

Interesting to see what doesn’t change and what changes a lot. This public school exam for second graders from the collection at the Society of California Pioneers gives a fascinating look into what was deemed important in 1870. Borax, the ruler of Prussia, gold-bearing quartz — just what your average second grader needs to know. I especially like the metaphysical-sounding questions nested among the direct “Describe the process of digestion,” questions, such as “What is true politeness?” and “Tell how you can be guilty of falsehood without speaking.” Next post: a first grade spelling test. -Wendy

California Ephemera Project website goes live

Wendy Welker — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:53:07 +0000

The CEP website is up and running and looks fantastic.

californiaephemeraproject.org

Only a portion of the finding aids are currently available on the OAC, but we add them as they are completed and all of them will be accessible by the end of December. Thanks to Glenn Randle of Randle Designs, Adrian Turner at the California Digital Library, and the project assistants who helped select images. Tanya and I had a vision of what the website would be like and it absolutely came to be.

In other news, we happily welcomed Marie Silva to the project where she has taken up where Devan left off at the Society of California Pioneers. Teddy, master of her domain, has completed work on all the ephemera collections at GLBTHS and is now aiding David with the mammoth San Francisco subjects finding aid at SFPL. The GLBTHS Groups and Subjects finding aids will be posted soon. Bill is wading through unprocessed ephemera at CHS and is incorporating business related items into the existing collection. Tanya and I need to barrel through the remaining portions of the SCP California General Subjects Collection before Marie and Bill catch up to us. We can feel them nipping at our heels.

-Wendy

Finishing up and seeing some use at the GLBT HS

stephaniewalls — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:06:26 +0000

I’m just about finishing up at the GLBT Historical Society and I’m already getting to see some positive first uses of the newly reprocessed and renovated ephemera collection.

John Raines has been digitizing some great historical and just plain fun audio tape and video collections from the archives, some of which is already available online via his Gayback Machine. Now and then he hears or views something that has no date, place or people’s full names associated to it, so he consults event programs, invitations and fliers from the ephemera collection to figure it out. Pretty neat! It has been great to see how quickly John can find the materials and then use them to more accurately describe the audio and visual content he deals with.

Ephemera here gets a lot of this kind of “filling in the gaps” use. David Reichard at California State University Monterey Bay has spoken with the managing archivist Rebekah Kim and I about the materials he has found specifically in ephemera files, including those of many student LGBT organizations and other small, short-lived but impactful LGBT groups. He finds them useful for linking oral histories with printed documentation. He is writing an article on the subject that I’m really looking forward to reading.

For my final object from the collection, I’ll share these unblown-up balloons from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance at Stanford’s Gay and Lesbian Awareness Week celebration, “Out On The Farm,” May 7-15. You can’t get much more ephemeral than a helium balloon at an event and I’m glad these little guys didn’t go that route and can still be with us today. The awareness week was in 1982, when a proposed “re-discrimination” ordinance, Measure B, was proposed and defeated in Palo Alto. The balloons were tucked away in a blank business letter envelope and can now be found in mylar sleeves, next to fliers and programs for the week in the Stanford University ephemera files. I hope that mylar is the preferred method of preservation, anyone who has dealt with the archiving of balloons, let me know– SJSU did not prepare me for this!

– Teddy

Status Update #7

Wendy Welker — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 20:55:35 +0000

All the hard work is now taking real shape. We can see it in the growing rows of boxes and cabinets that house folders with discernible and accurate subject headings, and in the completed finding aids that are showing up in the OAC. The CHS business collection is also online:

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt7f59s1tv

The CHS biography collection will be available next week and GLBTHS’ biography collection within a few weeks. GLBTHS’ business and groups collections will follow shortly thereafter. Teddy has been heroically finishing up multiple collections at once. She will be moving on to SFPL sometime later in the summer to join forces with David.

David is making huge dents in the gargantuan SFPL San Francisco collection and enjoying his window.

Along with Devan, Bill is now working one day a week on SCP’s biography collection. At CHS he is sorting mixed unprocessed material. Tanya and I can see the light at the end of the SCP general collection reprocessing tunnel.

All of our edits to the CEP website were submitted to Glenn and his designer is now working on the finishing touches.

Now for my favorite piece of ephemera of the moment:

Santa's Village brochure from the California Ephemera Collection, California Historical Society

A brochure from Santa’s Village, the theme park, my childhood mecca. The hub of my kiddie bliss was the Santa’s Village in Santa Cruz (the Santa’s Village Road highway sign on HWY 17 is still in use), though the brochure is from the park in Sky Forest in San Bernardino County. Who knew there was more than one Santa’s Village?! (Santa can’t possibly be in more than one place at one time!!!) In fact, there are three. One in Dundee, Illinois. The park layout is the same, with Pixie Pantry and Easter Bunny House (Mmm, never wondered why the EB was in the mix) being right where they should be. I had to see if there were any Internet sites devoted to Santa’s Village and, of course, there is a commemorative one which informed me that Santa’s Village, which opened in 1959, was the first franchised theme park in the world. The California Ephemera Project: Where you can hold a 1920 National Democratic Convention ticket in your hand one minute and, in the next, be transported to a half snowball orbiting the Christmas Tree Ride.

-Wendy

SFPL Biography Collection Finding Aid

davidkrah — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:13:32 +0000

…is now live.

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt2489r71w

It is not, however, particularly tiny.

-David

Another candidate for smallest ephemera

Wendy Welker — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:48:21 +0000

This is a tiny letterpress book sticker from Wold Book Shop in Oakland. It’s part of the California Business Ephemera Collection at the California Historical Society.

-Wendy

Our first finding aid goes live

Tanya — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 19:05:25 +0000

Our first project finding aid, for the California Historical Society’s San Francisco Ephemera Collection, is available online through the Online Archive of California:

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt3r29r798/

Let us know what you think! Next up: the CHS California Business Ephemera Collection finding aid.

-Tanya