The Arizona State Archives holds centuries of all kinds of records, from a 1579 map of the world to a decades-old pizza box. But like just about everything else in the 21st century, recordkeeping has had to adapt to digitalization.
Arizona state archivist Tom Sommer said what gets preserved might surprise some, but archive staff are constantly receiving, preserving and storing items that reflect the history of their time.
“Most people don't even realize that email is considered record now, especially when you’re working on state agencies,” Sommer said, “things that are historically valuable with us, things that are considered permanent.”
“People, if you look around your house, you'd be so shocked at what could be considered of historical value,” he added. “And of course we deal with a lot of state agencies, most of that's the lion share of our work."
Sommer said the importance of physical records remains – especially as some technologies quickly become outdated, making them harder to access and preserve later on. At the State Archives, the plan is to combine approaches by digitizing records while keeping physical copies depending on the state of the document in question.
“We're going to make sure that we have kind of like a universal plug in,” Sommer said. “And ingest it into our cloud-based system, keep it secure there, and preserve it there.”
When a new document comes in, one of the first things that happens is a check for mold, insects or other pests that could spread from one item to another. If something is suspected or found, they’ll move on to a specialized triage area that features a blast freezer.
Archivist Jane Cadwalader remembered a 1930s dumbwaiter that was kept inside for three days at -35 degrees C just last month.
“We do have an extra work room, if we're working with things that are moldy or something before they go in,” Cadwalader said. “Sometimes it involves vacuuming the records to remove dust or brushing them and other treatments like that.”
Ben Hardison, who works in warehouse management, serves another line of defense from the holding room, filled with shelves of records he’s responsible for inspecting, then clearing or turning back for more treatment.
“You can come back here 30 years from now and still see that same box look the same way,” he explained, gesturing to one of dozens of cardboard archive boxes. “And the reason why? Anything that we need to preserve, we want all lights off to help preserve it. Even with the box, the box is sealed.”
Once a document is deemed pest- and mold-free, it might go to State Archives conservationist Jo Anne Martinez-Kilgore for some additional repair.
“Here are things that were rolled and have been flattened,” said Martinez-Kilgore as she lifted large sheets of paper to reveal blue-inked pages underneath. “So, these are like a bunch of old plans of early Phoenix.”
Using tools from simple metal scrapers to more complex equipment, she and her assistant restore documents with sometimes painstaking tasks they document each decision for, like delicately peeling stray tape off a map to read what’s underneath.
“One of the things we do a lot of is humidification and flattening,” Martinez-Kilgore said, walking over to a table near the middle of the room. “That's what happens in that dome.”
Using controlled humidity, they’ll gently unfold items like city plans with minimal damage over hours of patient monitoring and waiting.
Emma Stoltenberg is the lead reference librarian at the connected State Research Library.
“We're constantly digitizing our materials,” Stoltenberg said. “So a lot of what we have is online for people to use, and they can use it anywhere, any state.”
But, she said, physical records are more reliable to store than something like a floppy disk because even after centuries, paper hasn’t become obsolete.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to correct the temperature of the blast freezer used for some items.
