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Archival Material Post # 5

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The Robert Moses Papers are arranged into sixteen principal series. These series are based on the projects he was involved in and within each series it is ordered by different time periods. Some of the archival material that can be found are speeches, memoranda, press releases, reports, plans, photographs, and more relating to Robert Moses. The material types available are Blueprints, maps, and photoprints. I didnā€™t think that blue prints were available to the public, free to view. I always had the impression that these documents were reserved for architects or city planners. In order to access the material you should first visit the facility website and fill out a request access form for the Robert Moses papers, which require your name, email, and address.

Reflection #5: NYPL Archives: Robert Moses Papers

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The amount of Robert Moses Papers are vast and give deep, extensive insight to Moses’ career as a public official. His papers have been filed in different ways over the years. Some of the files are in chronological order and others are organized alphabetically due to subject. The Robert Moses Papers have been divided into sixteen principle series.

The Robert Moses Papers consist of his plans for projects involving parks, bridges, housing, and tunnels to name a few. The series consists of correspondences, magazines, clippings, speeches, official reports, and photographs. These sources may be accessed by contacting the New York Public Library’s Manuscripts and Archives Division in advance. By filling out and submitting a request form, the library may grant access to the Robert Moses Papers.

I think that it is a prudent idea that the library requires a person to fill out a request form in advance before granting access to the Robert Moses Papers. This is a way to protect and preserve such valuable sources.

Homework#5 Archives

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This article definitely has a lot of in depth and historic information regarding the creation of important roads, tunnels, highways, parks and bridges around New York City. Many of us, including myself, are sometimes guilty of not paying much attention to the bridges that connect boroughs and states, or roads and tunnels that gets us from place to place. Itā€™s easy to take these little things for granted as we go about our everyday lives. But thanks to the New York Public Library for collecting and archiving such important and historic information for us so we are able to have an understanding and appreciation for all these incredible paths around us.

Robert Moses work and information were changed after a period of time. His papers were filed alphabetically by subject and others were filed chronological. The materials used to archive his work and life achievements were personal correspondence, speeches, press releases, reports, magazine and newspaper clippings and blue prints. These resources are easy to access through the internet and the New York Public Library archive by filling out a request form to view documents with specific dates, time frame and segments.

Reflections #5: Archiving Robert Moses

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The NYPL Robert Moses archives contain a wide breadth of information. The archive encompasses his personality and his being, whereby it is cohesive and stark as a whole, but in pieces are sporadic and heavily concentrated. That being said, it includes a variety of documents: photographs, printed matter, speeches, correspondence papers that record his reign in numerous office, and his invention of several major public transportation and parks projects.

These papers are organized chronologically, although sometimes events and projects in his life overlapped, therefore some timelines bled over each other. Ā Each paper is linked to a page which further summarizes the contents of the document. Some papers are highly dense, thus they are further segmented (ex. the 1stĀ Series: Personal and Library Correspondence) or highly organized and indexed. All of these documents however, facilitate the needĀ to contact the NYPL ARCHIVES & MANUSCRIPTS division to plan for a visit to study these documents.

 

Archives: Robert Moses papers

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* How are the papers organized? The papers are organized by 16 series, some are categorized by chronological order and others by alphabetical order. I think that if the archival department were able to afford to pay someone to simply set hyperlinks from both chronological and alphabetical categories, searches would be much easier and simpler. Technology (scanners) today is already available and capable of reading, organizing, and categorizing documents. All someone would have to do is to load the feed tray with the documents. How difficult is this? After, someone can verify if the scanner had not made any mistake or faulty scans of the documents. Even if there were not enough funds available to pay for someone to check for mistakes, ordinary researchers who stumble on or discover mistakes could report their findings and have the necessary/appropriate corrections made.

* What kinds of materials are included? The kinds of materials that are included are “correspondence, related press releases, reports, speeches, magazine and clippings.” Someone/people had endured a lot of trouble or simply went out of his/her/their way to gather all of these documents. Is there anyone who could “step-in” to continue this work of contribution in the archival system/technology? What are the duties and responsibilities of the archival employees? Maybe someone who is working on a library project can contribute some time to this effort.

* How could you access these resources? Access to these resources could be accomplished by clicking on the link under the heading “ACCESS TO MATERIALS,” where a pop-up window will appear containing a form for the requester to fill-in. Advanced notice is advised for accessing this resource. It may be put away in archival storage and the time for the archivist to retrieve it may be overwhelmed by numbers of other requests, so prior notice may aid in simplifying his/her work load (and in relieving stress); or maybe the archivist may not be aware in time to coordinate his/her activities or efforts to coincide with your arrival to the library. So, acquiring access to the archives and its resources may not be as simple as checking a book out of the library. Good luck with your research involving the use of archival materials and resources. There may be an uphill battle ahead!