Field Book Project

Field Report 5/23/13

• Check out a whale of a tale! Smithsonian Institution Library’s exhibit, Whales: Bone to Book, May 25, 2013 - May 2014, at the National Museum of Natural History [via Smithsonian Institution]
• Want to hear more? Check out the Exhibit Symposium. [via Smithsonian Institution Libraries] Someone MIGHT be talking about Remington Kellogg (whose field books records can be found here) [via Smithsonian Collections Search Center]
• Want to read more? Check out these related texts on Biodiversity Heritage Library! [via Biodiversity Heritage Library]
• Whales not your thing? Check out some of the striking examples of field books featured by our friends at Biodiversity Heritage Library! [via Biodiversity Heritage Library blog]
• Never thought of marine invertebrates as beautiful? See what Smithsonian Magazine has to show for field photography of sea butterflies! [via Smithsonian Magazine Collage of Arts and Sciences]
• Plants more to your liking? See the latest from JSTOR Global Plants (formerly JSTOR Plant Science).

Letters from the Home Office

By Lesley Parilla, Field Book Project

Allen Anderson and Allen Young hold up a Black-footed Albatross. Smithsonian Institution Archives. RU 000245, Box 230, Folder, 15. SIA2011-1439.

This is a story about a very large collection: Record Unit 000245 National Museum of Natural History, Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program (POBSP), records, circa 1961-1973, with data from 1923. Ask anyone who has cataloged for the Field Book Project and they will tell you, this is a collection that seems to have no end. We have been cataloging portions of it since 2011. It currently includes over 800 item records. That is an amazing percentage of the total 7000 field book records--and we’re still cataloging part of the collection. Keep in mind, the POBSP project ran for 12 years.

The collection is broken down by format. Diaries and notebooks with day to day collecting information were cataloged first. We are now cataloging the field correspondence.

Over the last two and a half years I’ve cataloged my share of field correspondence. This can be fairly dry material. It is also often filled with descriptions of tribulations and challenges: struggles with expenses, permits, travel, shipments, and personnel. One develops a real appreciation for the challenges that come with field work logistics.

The field correspondence for RU000245 is rather unique. POBSP was a project that required coordination of large numbers of staff spread over the Hawaiian Islands and parts of Alaska. There was also the challenge of coordinating activities and travel with the US Military. Letters seem to indicate these challenges brought along a lot of frustrations when trying to complete field work. Lucky for the men in the field (as far as I can tell it was all men collecting), there was someone in the home office that seemed to be well-organized, willing to read their complaints, and offer some needed levity.

When I started cataloging the Project correspondence, I was soon laughing out-loud at the contents. For all the logistical challenges and frustrations, the correspondents seemed to keep their sense of humor, and then I realized all these letters were being sent to the research secretary. It seems to me that a secretary of a department with so many in the field plays a unique role. References in letters describe her dealing with forwarding personal utility bills, negotiating staffing issues, among other challenges. Her letters indicate she did this well and with a good sense of humor that inspired the same in her correspondents.

Several letters I came across indicate that she was sometimes a field collector’s only correspondent and even made sure to send birthday cards. Collectors’ letters sometimes described painful conditions on islands that were isolated, hot, and dusty. They would band birds hours at a stretch in areas inundated with bird guano. Actually, bird guano is a consistent theme in the letters. These challenges appeared to inspire a great appreciation of her letters and cards by the recipients.

I can only imagine this lessened a little of the field collectors’ stress, knowing someone back home had an eye out for them. For me it makes the cataloging of field materials a lot more enjoyable.

Below are a few examples of the field correspondence.

“We are both hale and hearty and covered with Bonin Island Petrel and Fairy Tern you-know-what. The trunk with my clothes hasn’t arrived as yet so this tends to increase the perfume.” [Box 20, Folder 2]

“Will you please send me your fingerprints? If I can’t have a hand to hold please don’t deprive me of your fingerprints, too. Two sets, each on a standard gov’t form, from your nearest military security office.” [Box 20, Folder 2]

“You ask me ‘why no complaints’. Very simple. By the time I get everything straightened out I’m too tired to complain.” [Box 20, Folder 2]

"As on the first trip, only the term "nil" can describe the Navy's knowledge of our operation. Despite the fact that this was pointed out after the first trip, it needs to be pointed out again." [Box 20, Folder 1]

“Incidentally, why 6 sleeping bags when there are only 5 field team official sleepers? How many unofficial sleepers are there? And who is using all those blankets and sheets from the Surplus Store?” [Box 20, Folder 1]

Field work often seems fascinating. Many of our blogs describe field work in places like Macchu Picchu, newly formed Volcanoes (Paricutin), or the seeming ends of the earth like Antarctica. As captivating as field work appears, there are inherent stresses that come with working in far flung locations. I am glad to know people like this secretary were on the home front, making it a little easier.

Flash! Fish Collections

Portion of the fish collected by Waldo Schmitt off the coast of Matiti Island, Tikahau, 1957. Collected during the Smithsonian-Bredin Society Islands Expedition. SIA2012-0652.

Andrew Caudell and His Insects

By Lesley Parilla, Field Book Project

Andrew Nelson Caudell (1872-1936), taken 1927. Acc. 90-105 - Science Service, Records, 1920s-1970s, Smithsonian Institution Archives. SIA2008-0643.

 

There are many collectors documented in the registry who worked long in the field and had successful careers, but whose life details seem lost to history. We have several for whom we only have a name and a place of work because their name is on the field book documenting department collections.

Andrew Nelson Caudell is not quite this little known, but after cataloging his field notes, I feel the same level of curiosity and frustration at not being able to easily find more information on his life. Caudell was an orthopterist who worked for the USDA’s Division of Insects, 1898-1936. His interest in entomology began at an early age. The first field book in his collection Record Unit 7162 documents his collecting at age 17. He spent most of his childhood on his family’s farm in Oklahoma.

If you peruse digital sources for information on him, there is little beyond what I listed above, except that he may have been the first person to marry over the telegraph according to Wikipedia. So why my frustration?

Caudell’s collection contains only 10 items, yet his meticulous recording as well as terse but descriptive style left quite an impression on me. The first field book in his collection includes entomological observations and a portion of a personal diary from when he was 17. He is painstaking in his recording of details; it is obvious and fascinating to see how he strives to provide accurate descriptions of insects. His grammar and spelling may be lacking, but his entomological terminology is strong. In the second half of the notebook is a short personal diary where he gives short but descriptive narratives of his daily work on the farm and interactions with family, like the one below.

[November 8, 1889] “Mother and John give me a little rakeing [sic] this evening because I am not educated and John give me a going over for pestering with Entomology. Jess sticks up for me and says I am all right.”

This and many other entries somehow seem to clearly show a young man with a true passion. His delivery and attitudes may not always show it with alacrity, but his simple writing style make his sincere enjoyment of his lifelong career evident. Below are two other quotes from his notebooks. These are just a sampling.

[May 28, 1922] A wife that loves is worth all the bugs or anything else in the world but one can’t do any collecting to amount to much when with them, especially if one has to go up trees, on rocks or near water.

[February 14, 1920] On my desk in the museum I found crawling a small beetle, Sitodrepa panacea Linn [sic]. This little critter is called the Drug Store Beetle as it eats drugs, also eats biscuits and now and then museum specimens. I put him in my collection.

Other scientists may include more anecdotes, collect in more exotic destinations, have more prestigious careers. Yet I am struck again and again by his obvious honest enjoyment of collecting and studying insects. We encourage you to check out his collection on Smithsonian’s Collection Search Center.

Flash! Wedge-tailed Shearwater Chick

Wedge-tailed shearwater chick, Lisianski Island, October 1966.This photograph was taken by researcher Patrick J. Gould during his work with the Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program. SIA2011-1364.

Expedition Connection: Harriman Alaska Expedition (1899)

By Lesley Parilla, Field Book Project, and Bianca Crowley, BHL Collections Coordinator

 

This is the third in a 4 part joint blog series by the Field Book Project (FBP) and the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), showcasing examples of digital connections between museum specimens, field book catalog records, and the resulting publications.

Reid Inlet, Glacier Bay 1899. Photographed by Edward S. Curtis. In 1899 Edward Harriman, President of the Union Pacific Railroad, turned a family vacation into a two month foray into Alaska.

Originally proposed as a hunting expedition, it was transformed into a scientific exploring expedition on the advice of Clinton Hart Merriam, Chief of the Bureau of Biological Survey. Harriman and his family, accompanied by 126 researchers, traveled to Alaska aboard the S.S. George W. Elder. In the end, the work of the many researchers resulted in vast amounts of valuable scientific data, including the discovery of a new glacier and an array of floral and faunal specimens.

Harriman and the Washington Academy of Sciences collaborated to fund the entire expedition, and Harriman chose researchers with diverse scientific backgrounds in order to collaborate on all fields of plant, animal, and earth science. After the expedition had ended, the scientists published a multi-volume Harriman Alaska Series, sometimes simply known as Alaska, of which vols. 6-7 were never published.

The Harriman Expedition is a particular favorite, because among the field documentation at Smithsonian Institution Archives, are two photograph albums of images from during the trip. Many of these images are available to view on Smithsonian Collection Search Center.

For such a large expedition with participants from across the Institution, you would think the field notes would be numerous and comprise their own collection. There are only as few as 6 field books from the Harriman Expedition found across the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) and Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA).

The photograph albums mentioned above reside in SIA; field notes of A. K. Fisher are in NMNH, Division of Mammals; T. H. Kearney’s journal is in the Department of Botany’s field book collection housed in the Main NMNH Library. Additionally there is item “Walpole, paintings, 1899 – 1904” whose abstract explains it may contain illustrations from the Harriman Expedition. One would only know this by the abstract or reading the field book content. Additionally these various field notes were cataloged by the Field Book Project, November 2011 - July 2012.

Specimens are equally difficult to track down. Though US National Museum received a collection of mollusks, birds, and plants, many of these specimens do not state they came from the expedition. One must know the collector, location, and/or time period.

Publications resulting from the expedition are a bit easier to locate, given the close relationship between Harriman and the Washington Academy of Sciences. In addition to the Harriman Alaska Expedition series linked above, the Biodiversity Heritage Library provides the following publications:

• C. Hart Merriam papers : including correspondence, papers relating to career with the United States Biological Survey. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/60472
• Proceedings of the Washington Academy of Sciences, vol. 2 http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/35745
• Proceedings of the Washington Academy of Sciences, vol. 3 http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/35746
• Proceedings of the Washington Academy of Sciences, vol. 4 http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/35272

Whether an expedition is large or small, its resulting natural history documentation can lose its connections and become increasingly difficult to locate. Cataloging and digitization efforts by Smithsonian and consortiums like Biodiversity Heritage Library offer researchers increasingly better odds of rediscovering those connections. Stay tuned for the fourth and final blog post in the series.

Flash! Iceland Poppy

Iceland Poppy, East Greenland, 1939. Photograph was taken during Bob Bartlett's expedition to Greenland, 1939. SIA2012-0658.

Page scans for hundreds of Smithsonian field books now online!

By Carolyn Sheffield, Project Manager

The Field Book Project is pleased to announce that page scans for over 200 of the cataloged Smithsonian field books are now available online through the Smithsonian’s Collection Search Center: http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?tag.cstype=all&q=unit_code%3AFBR&fq=online_media_type:%22Electronic+resource%22.  Additionally, over 300 new records have been added since the field book records were launched in December. 

Although the project started out as a cataloging initiative in 2010, we recognized early on the need for not just remote access to the catalog records but also to the rich and varied content found in field books.  Starting with a grant from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee, and continuing with the ongoing efforts of the Smithsonian Institution Archives’ Digital Services, we are thrilled to begin seeing this goal realized.

Cover of the Albatross logbook, Hawaiian exploration #1, Mch 14-31, 1902, dr 3791 - dr 3819, hy 4035 - hy 4052. SIA RU 7184.	Page from the Albatross logbook, Hawaiian exploration #1, Mch 14-31, 1902, dr 3791 - dr 3819, hy 4035 - hy 4052. SIA RU 7184.

The page scans that are now online provide great representation of the variety of topics and formats that field books can take.  For starters, there are numerous ship logs from the Albatross documenting voyages in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.   Built in 1882, the Albatross was one of the first large vessels designed specifically for marine research. The Albatross logbooks contain a wealth of information, not just about species, but about weather and other environmental conditions at the time.  As demonstrated by projects like OldWeather, ship log data can be extremely useful for understanding historic climate patterns and helping scientists model projections.  If you dig old ships and marine biodiversity, check out our earlier post on the Albatross collection: http://nmnh.typepad.com/fieldbooks/2012/10/new-uses-for-old-books.html.

Some of the other field books now online provide a look into terrestrial research.  From herpetologist James A. Peters, you can get a sense of what it was like to conduct field work in Mexico in 1949 and read detailed descriptions of some of the specimens he saw.  Peters' Field Notes: Mexico, 1949  also includes a bit of an unexpected treat--a sketch of a horse and buggy can be found inserted between his pages of notes.

Sketch of a horse and cart, insert in James A. Peters' Field Notes: Mexico, 1949. SIA RU 7175.

Page from James A. Peters' Field Notes: Mexico, 1949. SIA RU 7175.

Harrison G. Dyar’s field books, or “blue books”, are some of my personal favorites and several of these are also now available.  These include detailed notes on his daily observations and frequently include sketches.  Dyar was a renowned entomologist whose personal life is perhaps as well remembered as his professional life.  He served as honorary curator of Lepidoptera at the Smithsonian and as a mosquito specialist for the USDA.  He is perhaps best known for his peculiar habit of digging elaborate tunnels under his two homes in Washington D.C. 

Page from Harrison G. Dyar's Bluebook 532-574. SIA Acc. 12-447.

To view all of these and more, visit http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?tag.cstype=all&q=unit_code%3AFBR&fq=online_media_type:%22Electronic+resource%22.   To repeat our search strategy, you can also start from http://collections.si.edu, type unit_code:FBR in the search box and then use the Online Media facet to limit your search to records with electronic resources.  Enjoy!

Field Report : 4/26/13

• Happy National Preservation Week! Check out how Smithsonian Institution Libraries is celebrating. [via Smithsonian Libraries Unbound].
• National Museum of American Indian (NMAI) just opened their exhibit, Ceramica de los Ancestros: Central America’s Past Revealed, last month. [via National Museum of the American Indian]. The designs are not unlike some documented in sketches in the field books of William Foshag.
• Feeling the fiesta spirit with the coming heat of summer? Check out Smithsonian Collections blog highlighting celebrations in Peru documented in the Elayne Zorn Collection in NMAI’s archives. [via Smithsonian Collections Blog]
• Old meets new. Check out the 3-D replication of whale fossils found in Chile. [via Smithsonian Science]
• Zooniverse's latest project is all about field notes!  Check out http://www.notesfromnature.org/ and help unlock historic biodiversity data!
• The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) launched its beta portal on April 18, making it possible to search across millions of items in collections across the country. [via Digital Public Library of America] 
• Talking of fossils, check out the novel way this museum selected a fossil to be removed from its plaster jacket. [via Canadian Museum of Nature blog]

Ode to EAC

By Lesley Parilla, Field Book Project

During the halcyon days of graduate school earning my LIS degree, I had a number of courses that dealt exclusively with archives. The vast majority of the courses I attended dealt with special collections or institutions that were a hybrid, e.g. library and archive, museum and archive, etc. I learned a lot about how idiosyncratic collections can be, how important context and original order is, but I now get the impression that the courses and institutions with which I worked during school were small enough that they did not have to learn the mantra so common these days: more product, less process¹.

Don’t worry, though, I’ve learned it well since graduating. Large institutions like the ones that populate the federal system and DC environs generally live by the slogan. There are probably still a few archivists that remember creating detailed finding aids with item level description, but most institutions just can’t manage unless they are willing to develop an unnervingly large backlog of collections to process. Keep in mind, if a collection isn’t processed, it can’t really be used by a researcher.

For those of you not ensconced in the archival profession, “more product, less process” simply means that in order to make collections available to researchers, archivists no longer process and describe to the item level. They will usually stop at the collection or series level. Archivists create a finding aid with Collection Summary, Biographical Note, Scope and Contents, Arrangement; and box list. The box list will probably be a list of whatever folder titles the creator gave when he or she used the collection. Unless a collection is unusual or frequently used, the archivist no longer has time to go through and list each correspondent by name, etc. Time just isn’t there anymore.

As nice as it is to offer this level of description, it is often not feasible to describe to the item level; so, in order to provide as much information and context as time will allow, an archivist focuses on the collection summary, biographical note, as well as scope and contents. Not only do they expend considerable time and effort, archivists are finding new ways to highlight and aggregate. Who knew?

I did, but I kind of forgot for a while…I am a cataloger by trade right now, focusing on the item level, a place few archivists get to go anymore. However the Field Book Project is now able to spend more time documenting and expanding our EAC records. What is EAC? I’m so glad you asked!

Finding aids, as I mentioned, include several sections: collection summary, etc. For many institutions, these finding aids have until relatively recently existed as word documents, until the advent of Encoded Archival Description (EAD) xml schema that allows archives to make finding aids searchable in a more useful and consistent way. The schema enables a search engine to know what part of the finding aid is being searched.

Encoded Archival Context (EAC) is similar. Only it is used to describe the creators of collections, rather than collections themselves. Think of it this way. You can search for who made the collection and find a strong concise biographical history for them! This is important for several reasons, but here are two of my favorites. One -- creators leave stuff all over the place. This means that many archivists may be creating biographical histories for one creator thus duplicating effort. We already know that more process, less product, grew out of the need to streamline efficiency and make more collections available in less time. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to use a biographical history that already exists? EAC schema makes this possible by enabling the search engine to know that any information in EAC is information about the creator instead of being about the collection (e.g. dates, locations, and names).

And, two: researchers looking for archival materials from a specific creator can greatly improve their search results by knowing a bit about the creator’s background. Think of it as trying to find a lost set of house keys. You usually retrace your steps to find the keys, but that requires knowing where you were beforehand. Same thing is true with archival materials. To find a creator’s materials, a researcher must know where a creator might have gone to school, worked, retired, etc., to locate where personal collections may have been deposited.

This is why having a concise list of major events in the life of the creator is helpful. It might be wonderful to have a 500 page biography, but if a researcher is just beginning, there may be a lot of information not yet of use. Or more important, there are a lot of people who have collections, for whom there are no biographies, other than what’s in the finding aid.

There are a lot of different kinds of collection creators described by EAC records in the Field Book Registry. There are people like the personnel of the US Fish commission, who spent years in the field, but may never have published, or citizen scientists who collected on a small scale. But wait there’s more! EAC isn’t just for individuals. It describes groups like expeditions or organizations. Expedition EAC records give important information like participants, locations visited, dates. Organization records give details about entities that may have changed names or merged with other departments like the United States Bureau of Biological Survey. It was originally part of the US Department of Agriculture but later joined with the… (Want to learn more? Check out the EAC record in Smithsonian Collection Search Center).

This may sound a little light hearted, but this is a serious business. Unlike books that have consistent catalog records, archives are as unique and variant as people. Schema like EAD and EAC enable the myriad of connections between entities (people, organizations) and objects (ahem, field books) to be realized through electronic description and hyperlinks. They are an important step to ensure that a search is pulling pertinent results.

One of our favorite examples for illustrating the importance of making these connections pursuable online is a search for materials from the US Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842. This particular expedition was a huge undertaking that laid the foundation for many of NMNH’s collections. Yet the resulting field books are found not only in NMNH but in more than 12 institutions along the east coast. Some of the institutions make sense, but others have no clear tie to the original expedition. EAC and EAD records have the possibility of making these links clear to a researcher, providing a fresh lead for them to look somewhere they would never know about otherwise.

 

¹Greene: Mark A.; Meissner, Dennis. (2005), “More Product, Less Process: Revamping Traditional Archival Processing.” The American Archivist. 6 (2) 208-263. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40294290