A recent study of archival representation in archives has returned a surprising and ironic result: the number of archivists named or known as “Terry” is disproportionately high for the relatively diminutive size of the field, making a farce of that highly prized but elusive concept “archival representation.”

SuperArchivist Dick Cox, aka, Scourge of New England Seas

“How can archives be archivally representational when so many archivists have the same name?” inquires SuperArchivist Dick Cox.  “There aren’t enough Harrys or Dicks.  We need to implement a documentation strategy whereby we artificially construct an archival history replete with a greater variety of names, the better to showcase the less obvious, underrepresented minority names.  You know, like Harry.  Or, say, Dick.”  When asked about the similar prevalence of the name “Richard,” SuperArchivist Cox declined to comment.  “There’s nothing similar about Terrys and Dicks,” he declared.

Desperate Archivist Teri Hatcher Launches "Grrl Teri Power" Campaign

Little known but increasingly desperate amateur archivist Teri Hatcher added fat to the fire when she stated, “Forget the Dicks.  All we ever hear about are the Dicks.  Don’t think we don’t know you’re in league with Dick Pearce-Moses, Cox!  What we need are more womyn archivists named Teri.  The patriarchy has dominated the information profession [and, incidentally, the small screen] for centuries and a perfect example of this misogynist oppression is Dick Cox’s fixation with y-chromosome under-representation [and the occasional primetime series portraying housewives as bitchy nymphomaniacs].  Yes, you poor Dicks.  What’s being a Dick ever got the two of you, huh?  Oh, a Chair of Archival Studies?  Well, I say, fuck ‘em!  Who’s with me!  Grrl Teri Power!  NOW!”

Anonymous Terry "Deep Throat" Extreme Biker

Two of the perpetrators, Terrys Cook & Eastman, were at the time of this writing unavailable for comment, although it is said among those in the know that Terry Eastman broke off relations with his mother when the shocking results of last week’s survey were brought to light.  “He was inconsolable and blamed his mother,” our source, who wished to remain an anonymous Terry, preferring to be called “Deep Throat,” told Archiwhat? off the record.  “It’s not that I’m ashamed of having such a common name.  At least I have my extreme biking to keep me unique.”  When asked if he also blamed his mother, Deep Throat laughed and said, “No, no.  Mom’s great.  She and I both just prefer to call me Deep Throat.”

National Archivist David Ferriero Lording It over All the Other Archivists in the Nation by Fondling Founding Documents in Broad Daylight

National Archivist David Ferriero has called for intensive surveys to be conducted to determine whether these alarming results are reflected in libraries, too.  “It’s not that I don’t think archives are important,” the National Archivist explained, “but everyone knows I’m the first librarian to serve as National Archivist, so it seems only fitting that I should bring everything back to the facet of the information profession that best represents my commitment to leading the National Archives in a library-focused direction.  That, and I’m hoping there are other librarians named David out there.  Are there?  Anyone?  Davids, Daves, Davys, or Daouds?  Raise your hands so I can see you!”

The plight of archival representation, meanwhile, remains tenuously and ironically hanging in the balance.  Will the profession recover from this blow, following so closely on the heels of being ousted from the National Archives by a librarian?  Or will it continue to slip into the ether of ironic missteps like so many before it?  Only time and more haphazard, irrelevant surveys will tell.

Mabel Smith

Redemption, Culpable County, Mass. A dying woman’s last words struck an uncomfortable chord in the remaining members of the administration of Redemption College last evening, when it became clear that through their negligence, an entire segment of the administration had been wiped out in a freak fungal epidemic. Evidently, the first victim was Mabel Smith, the archivist whose scribbled words echoed so eerily through the empty halls of Perdition Hall, the administration building that was temporarily housing the archives in its basement. Hired last year to “you know, set up some archives shit,” Smith was appalled, “but not surprised,” she had added sorrowfully, to find the College’s most important documents shoved into the darkest, dampest corner of the dreariest, dankest building’s deepest, dustiest basement. And this was where a student found her nearly mummified body last night. It is suspected she has been dead for weeks.

Marijuana

Reed Bookman, a freshman at Redemption College, was “like, looking for a toilet on this godforsaken campus, or whatever sounds like I’m not lying,” and lost his way in Perdition Hall. When he found himself in the bowels of the building, he panicked and tried to escape, and it was then that he tripped over Ms. Smith’s inert body, next to which the authorities found her scribbled message from beyond the grave. It is unclear whether she meant to save her colleagues or the college archives, as it is also unclear whether the remnants of countless marijuana joints were hers or Mr. Bookman’s, although he has since been put on academic leave, ostensibly for having experienced the trauma of finding the long-dead archivist. The smoking of marijuana in a college archives is generally discouraged, although Mr. Bookman has reportedly stated that “presidential papers are by far the highest quality paper,” and it is assumed he does not mean for bedtime reading material.

Deepest, Darkest Corner of Perdition

In a statement earlier this year, Smith had denounced the College’s administration for, as she said, “the negligent death of thousands of irreplaceable records, not to mention the destruction of both this institution’s original legislative charter, and its soul.” At the time, it was unclear whether anything could be saved, due to extensive water damage, mold, and neglect, an impossible and time-consuming job, which is perhaps why nobody seems to know when Smith was last seen alive. The sudden outbreak of the fatal fungal malady last week made the front page of the Culpable County Times, however, when FEMA was called in to try to contain the spread of the deadliest fungal infection since the summer of ’69. The death toll thus far from what locals have dubbed the Epidemic Archives Disorder is 8. Among the dead are various student workers, two vice presidents, the local feral cat (Madge), the aforementioned Smith, and the Dean of Academic College Shit. Had Smith been found earlier, it is possible this disaster could have been avoided.

EAD Death Spores

The President of Redemption College has mourned her decision to house the Archives at Redemption Hall. “If only we had known, we would have put those damnfool papers in the library, or perhaps the Anthropology Department, thereby making it unnecessary for us to fire the long-standing, tenured wackos in both those departments. It sucks that my right-hand man, the DACS, should have to make The Ultimate Sacrifice just because his office happened to be above that archives shit. Thank God I was away at useless academic conferences all month, or I’d be number 9!”

Medical Commissioner Ready for Work

Culpable County’s medical commissioner was equally disconsolate as he told the CCT, “Why, oh, why? Why couldn’t she just leave well enough alone and realize we don’t need this archives shit, that the only possible outcome is the swift and vengeful sword of population control? If she hadn’t opened that acidic Pandora’s box of rotting, stagnant files, none of this would have happened and Culpable County would still be the next-to-last most populated county in Mass. Now, with her and that freak fungal outbreak, we are officially the least populated County in Mass. The least she could have done was send someone a text message with her last words instead of scribbling them on the floor like some medieval heretic, and being directly responsible for this mess. Doggone it, archivists and EAD suck.”

Past EAD Prevention Fire

He and tens of other residents of the greater Redemption area have chartered an organization called Never Archives, Redemption Arise, which prides itself on spreading awareness of the evils of archives and mold and propagating stories that involve Death by Archival Fungus. This founding charter is being ceremonially burned at next week’s meeting, an attempt to “get the message across that important papers should be destroyed before they infest the population with EAD or shit like that.”

The Mayor of Redemption originally disagreed, stating that if only the College had realized decades ago how important records are, then EAD never would have developed. The unpopularity of this sentiment caused him to revise his statement in light of the upcoming election, however, and he is now a card-carrying member of NARA.

Jenks's BFF Schelly

Schelly's BFF Jenks

The president of the American Archivists Society of America has issued a statement mourning the lost records and Smith. “When I think of all those innocent records so callously destroyed in their prime, I want to call down the wrath of Jenks and Schelly on the heads of those culpable. And poor old Mabel. She was valiantly doing her job in the face of unknown freak medical threats to her person. Yet another one bites the proverbial archival dust!” he choked out. “It has almost been unanimously decided to name a roundtable discussion after her at the next AASA mid-winter meeting that occurs East of the Mississippi and North of the Mason-Dixon Line. She would have wanted it that way,” he added, before dissolving into tears.

“We keep a close watch on the New York Times bestseller list, in order to scope out our competition and just on the outside chance one of Frank Boles’ books should hit the jackpot market,” the Publications Officer confided. Due to recent mismanagement and death threats from the archival student population, she wishes to remain unnamed.

“We have noticed a strong inclination by the overwhelming majority of Americans to buy what has been referred to as ‘mass market paperback shit,’ and after an extensive User and Usability Study, involving the survey of 35 archival institutions (only 2 of which responded that they didn’t have time for ‘that survey crap’), we have decided that infusing the archival professional literature with nakedity and ripped bodices will encourage more archivists to give a damn about their own profession, or at least raise our publication revenue.”

The debut issue of Archival Smut is now available for $45 an issue through SAA and will hit the newsstands next week. With such articles as “A Series of Steamy Events,” “A Finding Aid for Love,” “The Black Box Rendezvous,” “The Warrior Archivist and the Maiden Genealogist: Star-Cross’d Lovers in the Stacks,” “A Provenance of Passion,” and “A Descriptive Desire,” the SAA hopes to lure the archival community into some semblance of a literate and committed profession.

[NOTE: The following article is a press release issued at TV Land’s annual awards show by the aforementioned network and organization. Any errors, typos, etc. are attributed to the original author. The release is reproduced solely for the dissemination of the enclosed information.]

In an attempt to reach a wider audience and impress upon them the importance of the archival profession to our contemporary culture, the Society of American Archivists, in conjunction with Nickelodeon’s TV Land, has announced a new publicity campaign. Asked why Nickelodeon decided to enter in such an unlikely union, an unnamed board member of the network noted, “Our shows here at Nickelodeon deserve to be passed on indefinitely…what better way to ensure that than working with archivists, who are primarily concerned with making sure that our lives and culture live on for our kids, their kids, and their kids’ kids?”

 

Coming to televisions this fall, Jenks and Schelly is a new half hour animated program that aims to “edutain” youngsters on the importance of maintaining, preserving, and making accessible records of enduring value. The two pillars of archival thought, Hilary Jenkinson and Theodore Schellenberg, serve as the inspiration behind the names of the stars of the show: Schelly, a befuddled and ethically confused turtle, and Jenks, his best friend and archival zenmanster. Join us Saturday mornings this fall for 22 minutes (plus 8 bonus minutes of commercials) of hijinx and Hilar-ity!

In the wake of a Wednesday night viewing of Party Girl (made interesting with a couple cocktails), the team here at archiwhat? got the brilliant idea of sending me, IamArchivist!, to the 13^th annual Association of College and Research Libraries National Conference in search of ParkerPoseyesque librarians. Now, before you laugh, you must remember that we archivists are a dirty, stinky assemblage, made up of mostly men. We are accustomed to spending a good deal of our time in the dank and dirty basements of houses, universities, organizations, and historical societies, unearthing godonlyknowswhat from mildewey boxes, the contents of which have remained locked away for countless years. This, of course, is a stereotype. But it is not one without sound grounding. Need some proof? Okay, here goes it:

I have a fellow colleague, a good friend of mine – I’ll call him Joe to protect his identity – who, at an annual meeting for the Society of American Archivists, after the day’s sessions had come to a close and we had wet our mouths with a few drinks, confessed a story to me. Joe recalled a day, yeeeeeeeeeeeeeears ago, when he had made the most startling discovery of his professional career. He’d never told anyone before.

“I was hard at work,” Joe started. “Sleeves rolled up and arms understandably dirty, rummaging through the mountains of unprocessed materials.”

Backlog is what archivists like to call their unprocessed collections…I, on the other hand, refer to such junk as Medusa, because once someone looks at the piles, he or she becomes frozen in stone, unable to return to any previous activity.

“Oh, it was one of those nasty days,” continued Joe.

I, enraptured by my friend’s story, sat on the edge of my seat, giddy with anticipation (archivists love the whole “guess what I found at work” motif). But instead of continuing, Joe stopped and looked about (dramatic pause, no doubt). As he turned his attention back to me, the dark and smoky pub in which we sat grew even darker…and smokier, as if some unseen all-powerful being were setting the stage for what was to come.

“You remember how bad my Medusa room was back then, don’t you?” asked Joe.

“Yes of course. Completely dark, save for one uncovered bulb that swayed this way and that with the slightest breeze. The pungent moldy smell was so strong you had to hold your nose shut until becoming accustomed to it. It’s nothing new, Joe. We all have our Medusa rooms.”

“Yes, yes. I suppose we do…but it was nasty that day.”

“Right, you’ve said that.”

“It was. It was dark. The light bulb swayed back and forth so violently, I had to time my peeks into the boxes I was inspecting. There was a window on the far side of the room, but it was pitch black outside, due to some violent late-summer thunderstorms. All of this made for quite the eerie experience.”

“I imagine. Why didn’t you move on to something else.”

“Fuckin’ Medusa, man. You know how it is. Besides, the head archivist was breathing down my neck to put a dent in the pile.” Joe sighed, as if he were still stuck in that basement. “So, I decided it was getting ridiculous…that I’d open one more box and call it quits. If I’d only known what was going to be in that box…”

“Yeah? Well, let’s have it…what was in the box.” I leaned forward. I now needed to know.

“Well, I peeled back the tape holding it shut.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Opened one side…and the stench hit me…like a fuckin’ two-by-four. The moldy basement was downright potpourri compared to this fuckin’ box.”

“That bad, eh?”

Joe shook his head. “Yeah, mate. I’m having a hard time finding the words to impress upon you just how bad it was. I almost lost my lunch all over Medusa.” He took a moment to compose himself. He looked as if just remembering the experience was about to make him unleash the beer he’d just swallowed all over me and the table. “I almost walked away, but I’d already committed. So, I opened the other side…”

“Yeah…”

“I peered into the box, but the bulb had swung towards the other side of the room. I reached in instead and wrapped my fingers around something slimy…”

“What was it?”

“Well, I almost dropped it, but I had to know. As the light swayed back my way, I pulled it out of the box…and then I did vomit. All over the place.”

“Come on, Joe…what was it?”

“A fuckin’ head, mate. A fuckin’ head. Partially decayed, but still all nasty. I was staring into empty eye sockets and holding the partially decomposed ear and bloody toupee of Arty, our former Archivist.”

“No. You’re full of it.”

“No I’m not. He’d disappeared a couple years earlier. The cops had never found the body…until I uncovered it.”

“Holy shit, Joe. Talk about being consumed by backlog.”

True story. I swear. So, as you can see…our line of business doesn’t attract too many hot women. And after months upon months of tackling our Medusa, we archivists here at archiwhat? definitely need a break from our normal duties. So, in order to brighten our daily toil, I traveled to Baltimore with the hope of bringing back numerous pictures of ParkerPoseyesque librarians. Would this make uncovering dead bodies more enjoyable? No. But it would most certainly be a welcome respite, and who knows, if I were lucky and, of course, smooth enough (smooth is my middle name…IamArchivist! Smooth Luva, to be precise), I might even find the chance to build bridges with our information science comradesses, bridges that could be crossed frequently in the future.

So I went to Baltimore. I stopped in and visited the USS Constellation. I ate crab cakes. Had a soft shell crab sandwich…or two. And I searched for those ParkerPoseyesque librarians. And I searched. And searched. AND SEARCHED. I attended sessions. Went to after parties. I looked everywhere…but nada. Sadly, neither Parker Posey, nor anyone resembling herhotness were to be found.

Frumpy, middle-aged women is what flooded the Inner Harbor this past weekend. It was a brutal sight, especially considering what I had been hoping for. Love in the romance languages section? Not happening with this lot…I’d rather check out Bob, our systems analyst here at archiwhat?. It was bad, I tell you. Imagine the shock when you’re expecting this and you get this.

Wha…Wha…What!?!

Rude awakening.

Wha…Wha…WHAT!, you exclaim? Archivists dumping their archives? Well, it’s true. Archiwhat? has learned that after a night-long bender, Bier convinced Adkins and Greene into taking ARMA’s much talked about online assessment to determine whether one’s records management program is an asset or potential liability. Adkins and Greene’s answers about the archives of the listserv apparently scared them enough to not only take the archives of the listserv offline, but to destroy them permanently, much to the malign of the professional archival community.