Looking for Feedback and Participate for Project Archivist

[Bill Kepner]

]Some you may have read the short article in the last Dispatch regarding the new Project Archivist Role. At the Projects Committee meeting last week we reviewed the proposals and received the marching orders to proceed. Project 0203 will be added to the Project List and we will be interested in any feedback and ideas.

Basically, we often spend a lot of time re-inventing the wheel. The goal of this role is to share experiences and foster best practices and standards for our restoration projects.

The original article is below, does anyone have any interest in either actively helping or identifying areas that you wish you knew about before starting the work?

Bill Kepner

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[Jason Rose]

This is a fantastic idea, Bill and long overdue.

Could the Team Leaders be charged with this responsibility in the absence of a dedicated volunteer? Not to add more to their plate, but this information is critical for the long-term success of the Friends.

[Bill Kepner]

No, the Team Leaders have enough to keep them busy during a work session. They could, however, supply the Project Archivist with information before and after the sessions and provide input to drafts of the MOP and Chronicler Reports. We found that a dedicated person on the project can anticipate times when work needs to be documented, and sometimes put the camera down and help with the dirty work.

Bill Kepner

[Paul Davenport]

I agree that a dedicated archivist position is the way to go, as opposed to adding archivist chores to the TL's plate. I am the TL of a small ROW crew and I'm necessarily doing hands-on work along with everybody else, along with juggling planning, supply, safety and coordination rsponsibilites. That leaves me regularly kicking myself after the fact for failing to shoot enough photos of my crew while they're working, let-alone preparing strategized documentation. Not the same as a car project but I imagine that similar time and focus consideration apply there. Maybe some archivists could be experienced volunteers who want to periodically step away from regular crew positions and use their know-how to provide documentation in coordination with the TL.

[Bill Kepner]

It can vary depending on the project. For the DBG project in Antonito in session D, there was enough going on (a crew of 8 or 9) that we had a full-time volunteer with a video camera trying to cover it all. But on another project with only 3 on the team, the Archivist spent a lot of his time helping with the work. In the future we might leave it up to the Team Leader, if he wants a dedicated Archivist, we would try to staff one exclusively for that project.

[Paul Davenport]

That sounds like a good approach.