Getting started

My name is Mary Lee Bartlett.  I am a certified archivist. “What’s that?” you say.  Well, it is someone trained and deemed qualified to preserve and disseminate information collected by others.  In other words it’s an individual responsible for preserving history or at least some of it and making it accessible to you or anyone else who might be interested. Archival collections record history as it was lived by an individual, group, or business. Sometimes it’s the history of an important world figure while at other times it is the history of an average person important only to their family and local community.  “Why is that important?” you ask.  First our past is interesting.  It really is.  For example, old photographs can provide information about fashion, culture, technology, and the environment. It may be trite, but our past has helped shape our present and will direct our future for good or not.  Hopefully by understanding our past we can better direct our future.  That’s the goal anyway and archivists work to facilitate the meeting of that goal.  At least we try.

That said this blog is about archiving and archives.  It is about what to save and what not to save.  Also it is about how to preserve and how to organize documents and data. On a personal level, it is about the trials and tribulations of one lone arranger in West Texas.  Most importantly it is about some amazing collections that record not only the history of settlement of the West in the 1880s, but also a local version of the issues, such as Civil Rights or censorship, that have and continue to face our country.

I hope that sounds interesting and you will want to follow my story as I try to uncover at least part of the past and make it accessible to you.