Oral History Interview with Charles Dollar, August 11, 2010

Oral History Interviews of the SAA Oral History Project

INTERVIEWEE: Charles Dollar (CD) DATE: August 11, 2010 INTERVIEWER: Joel Minor (JM) PLACE: Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington, District of Columbia

JM: So, my name is Joel Minor and I’m here with Dr. Charles Dollar. And it’s Wednesday August 11, 2010, and we’re in the Marriott Wardman Hotel in Washington D.C. And we are recording this interview for the SAA Oral History Project, part of the 75th anniversary project, and we will be signing release forms after the interview, so if you’re ready to start, we’ll…

CD: Ready

JM: Good, ok. First off, what is your current professional title?

CD: I guess I’m a consultant.

JM: Consultant, ok

CD: I have no institutional affiliation now. I’ve had them over the years, but not now, self-employed as a consultant.

JM: And as an electronic records consultant?

CD: Electronic records management and digital preservation.

JM: Ok. What drew you to the archival profession?

CD: I’m sorry, what?

JM: What drew you to the archival profession?

CD: Well, I have to give you a little bit of background

JM: Sure

CD: Is that ok?

JM: Please do, yes

CD: Ok. I earned a PhD in American History at the University of Kentucky…a number of years ago. And I was one of the first historians in that era to use computer based analysis to write both my MA thesis and my PhD dissertation. And, as a consequence, this put me in touch with this group of historians called quantitative historians, the Interuniversity Consortium of Political Research. 00:02:00In any case, I had the opportunity to meet a number of leading historians, like Lee Benson, Dewey Grantham, Tom Alexander, who were just getting into this field. So I completed that dissertation and I stayed in touch with some of these contacts, and Richard Jensen and I organized or created something called the Historical Methods newsletter, which was a vehicle for communication among this relatively small group of practitioners located at the University of Pittsburgh at the time. That subsequently led to an invitation that Lee Benson declined, Jerry Club declined, and so I was sort of the bottom rung of the ladder and I got a letter, a telephone call from Jerry saying, “Will you make a presentation for the National Archives at their Regional Archives branch meeting 00:03:00in Atlanta, Georgia?” And I said, “Well, ok.” So, I did a presentation there and the first speaker was Meyer Fishbein. And I was the second speaker. And Meyer was talking about the initial efforts with machine readable records and this was an extraordinary opportunity, although I didn’t realize it at the time because I covered every topic in my thirty-five or forty minute presentation that every other speaker addressed.

JM: Oh wow.

CD: So I looked quite impressive, I guess. In any case, the deputy archivist of the United States Burt Rhoads was there, and he made a presentation, so I got to know Burt. I published a book with Richard Jensen in 1972 called “Historians Guide to Statistics” and I had stayed in touch with Burt over the years, and in May of 1974 --by the way, I was at Oklahoma State University, Associate Professor of History.

JM: Ok

CD: And Burt invited me to come to the National Archives to talk about a position, which was to become the director of what was called the machine readable archives division and later became the electronic records and special media program, many years after I was no longer associated with it. I have to go back just a moment. In 1968, or 1969, Burt asked me to come to DC and make a presentation for the General Records Administration doing something with machine readable records. And I--the title of my presentation was “Documentation of machine readable records from a historian’s perspective.” And subsequently 00:05:00was published in the Prologue magazine. But the point I want to make here is that in that presentation and the article, I was the first historian of the modern era, and the first archivist, although I wasn’t an archivist at the time, to make the leap between the concept of the Rosetta Stone and a machine readable or electronic records. I explored that, and talked about a number of issues associated with that. And I was wearing the hat of a historian. I didn’t know it at the time that six years later I would be wearing the hat of the archivist. I’m eventually going to answer your question because in 1974, Burt invited me to accept this, take this position, which I did and moved my family here. In 1974, the SAA, I think, and the Association of Canadian Archivists had a joint conference, maybe in Montreal or Toronto, I’m not quite 00:06:00sure which one. I did not go, because I’d only been on the job three months, but in 1975, I had joined--signed up--joined the Society of American Archivists. I was drawn to it because I was now quote, an archivist. And I’d had professional connections with the American, the Southern Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the American Historical Association. So it seemed logical to me to pick up this and over a period of time, my interest in these organizations diminished, and now SAA, ARMA, and AIIM --those are the professional associations with which I’m associated. So I was drawn to the Society of American Archivists because of the job.

JM: Yeah, yeah

CD: And never intended to be an archivist, it just happened.

JM: Yeah [chuckle]

CD: And I had no professional training.

JM: Yeah

CD: As an archivist.

JM: And when you joined in, you said 1975?

CD: 1974. August of 1974.

JM: 74? Were you--were you pretty much the first working with machine readable records?

CD: Well, actually…they had--a branch had been created that had been in existence for a couple of years and there were four-five people on that staff and… It was a branch and it was elevated to a higher level when I came in, as a division. And, some of the people that I recruited, you’re familiar with. Ken Thibodeau was one of the people I recruited. Another was Sharon Gibbs at the time, Ken’s wife. Sue Falb, who’s married to Fred Stielow, she does archival work. And I’m overlooking somebody--oh, Paul Conway--although that was about 00:08:00ten years later. Peter Hirtle--I was involved in bringing him into the National Archives. So, in any case, what I’m trying to say is that I think that Burt had in mind bringing in someone who had some credibility with the historical profession or discipline and who had some idea about machine readable records.

JM: Yeah

CD: So…

JM: And was that the case, with SAA back then, as far as a lot of people with history backgrounds?

CD: Oh yes. Jerry Ham, a very good friend who actually got his PhD from the University of Kentucky, a number of years before I did. Jerry was a historian, 00:09:00but he had a keen interest in machine readable records [later they were called electronic records]. Now, the terminology, in my view, is digital. Jerry Ham had a keen interest in all of these issues and topics and concern. And that the people that I recruited--including Bruce Ambacher, I cannot forget Bruce. Bruce was a strong figure within the SAA--all had backgrounds as historians. And they acquired the skills and expertise of archives on the job.

JM: On the job… Let’s see. [pause] So you--yeah one of our questions I think you kind of answered about some of the people with whom you’ve worked in SAA. And maybe you could go into a little more bit about what you learned from them.

CD: Ok.

JM: And how you worked together and some of the accomplishments you did.

CD: Well, yeah. I was fortunate at the time, that when I joined the National Archives, there was the National Archives and Records Administration Advisory Board--of historians, political scientists, public interest folks, who had an interest in the National Archives and they were interested in the machine readable records program, so that group met maybe twice a year. So I was always on that program. And making some sort of presentation or answering questions about the status of the program. And, one of the people I met was Bob Bahmer, 00:11:00who had retired in 1968 as archivist of the United States, and Burt was his successor. And this is one of those instances where you really got to know and like someone and you enjoy their company, and you talk a little bit about what’s going on. He had a keen interest in machine readable records. But like other people from that era, I did not anticipate exactly where my career might go. And I failed to ask some very very important questions.

JM: Oh

CD: That I now wish could, could’ve, asked.

JM: Yeah

CD: And I’ll come back to that a little bit later, if I have the opportunity to talk about research I’ve done on the National Archives.

JM: Ok.

CD: Anyway, that’s, that’s one of the people. Ann Campbell who was the first executive secretary of the Society of American Archivists. And everybody was on 00:12:00a learning curve then. One of the people that I worked with was David Bearman who was quite active in the archives profession. And I met David because Carolyn Geda, who’s a SAA Fellow, I believe. Carolyn Geda who’s at the Interuniversity Consortium for Political Research. She and I were asked to do an edited special edition of the American Archivist that dealt with machine readable records. And I had heard about this guy David Bearman at the University of Pittsburgh. His wife was the Dean of the School of Library and Information Studies. And so I asked him to write some article--paper. And I didn’t like what he did, so I severely edited it, which was a bit of an affront to David. 00:13:00But nonetheless, a better product came out of it. So I met David and David was, so far as digital records are concerned, a real pioneer. A real pioneer. Had a great vision in the 1980’s. He’s moved into museums and moving into the museums domain in the early 1990’s… but I think he and Dick Lytle, and Harold Naugler, Tom Brown, Bruce Ambacher, were among those people who initially--and Bruce, I didn’t mention John McDonald of the National Archives of Canada. They were--we were part of this surge of a professional interest and concern and promotion of electronic records. And I was asked--David Bearman and I were asked by the Council, I think about 1976 or 1977 to chair a task force on 00:14:00machine readable records. And we laid out a five year strategy that the council adopted. But I was, at the time, I was realistic enough to know that what one council adopts does not commit the next council.

JM: Sure

CD: So we had a five year plan, and my goal was at the end of five years, that’s it, we will have the program in place. Well, it actually took another ten years before that, that particular support…let me see, it was called CART, the Committee on Automated Records and Techniques. It took a while for that to work its course, as it were. But I had great contacts with these folks. And learned a lot from them, and one of the things that I did, about 1977 or 1978, 00:15:00was I did--I actually gave a paper at the Society of American Archivists at Salt Lake City and on Appraisal of Machine Readable Records. And it subsequently was published in the American Archivist about ‘78 or ‘79. And it established pretty much the initial intellectual framework for selecting digital machine readable records of enduring value. And, a large part of what that article expressed drew upon the experience that--my experience as the director of machine readable records, machine readable archives division, and the collective experience of our group. Tom Brown, and Bruce Ambacher were key people in that particular effort. And so that was--there were some insights, but, there were some insights that I brought to that, more or less from the historian’s point 00:16:00of view, and my emerging insights as an archivist, along with the experience of the staff. We had a lot of the hands on experience addressing these issues. So I want to give credit to these folks within the machine readable archives division who established, in many ways, the intellectual foundation for, at least for the practice of the National Archives of the criteria for evaluating, machine readable records of permanent value.

JM: How was--how was your work accepted… or taken by other members of SAA? What was…

CD: You mean within the National Archives?

JM: Yeah, like in the 70’s, you know before…

CD: [laughter] Ok, you want to open a can of worms? Alright, you got it. Ok

JM: Well, yes [chuckle]

CD: There’s a great deal of envy, I say a great deal--there was some, I should not exaggerate this. There was some envy that the established archival programs dealt with paper records. They felt they were understaffed, and there were projects that needed to be addressed and they could not understand why a new unit was being created. And being allowed to recruit, I had a staff of fifteen people, to recruit all of these people to deal with machine readable records when the National Archives could not address the paper records. That was the first thing. The second thing was that our office base was not in the National Archives building at 9th and Pennsylvania Avenue. We had the top floor, shared 00:18:00it with the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, at 711 14th Street. I had an office on the southwest corner of that building that had windows, over the top floor, that had windows on two sides. I could see planes landing and taking off at Washington Airport, National Airport. I could see the White House.

JM: Yeah, wow.

CD: And people had spacious offices, private offices. And there was a bit of envy about, how do you guys--you guys don’t deserve this. You need to live like the rest of us. [chuckle]

JM: Yeah

CD: So there was a little bit of that. And we took certain liberties, I did at least. We had wine and cheese the last Friday of every month.

JM: Wow

CD: It would be tough to get away with that in the Archives building, but we had wine and cheese. An interesting side, an anecdote of no particular relevance was, I had to tell you this.

JM: Sure

CD: There were street people around this area. And the last thing that we did when we finished up our wine and cheese, we would batch up wine, or something like that. And either Sharon Gibbs Thibodeau or Ben DeWitt --Ben is now retired, I believe. The last thing that was done was to make sure that the wine got to where the street people were.

JM: Oh wow, that was nice.

CD: [laughter] Our good will effort. But it was great, when you know, Burt would come up or Jim O’Neill or other folks would come up from headquarters, up here, visit with us for a while. Added real gesture

JM: Sort of a mixer, happy hour

CD: One-on-one with the staff, it was good. It was good. That lasted until 1980, 00:20:00I believe. Let’s see. Bob Warner became archivist of the United States in 1981, and there was reorganization and so I headed another unit. And eventually, the machine readable records archives division was moved into extremely cramped quarters on the 13th--not the 13th floor, but the 13th level--really terrible, terrible working conditions. And I guess some folks within the National Archives said, “Well, now you know what it’s like.” [laughter] But interestingly enough, in the evolution of all of this, the electronic records archives program has come out of those roots, and had great leadership with Ken Thibodeau and others, but it is now, the focal point of the program of the National Archives. I mean, it does a lot of thing with paper records…

JM: Sure

CD: But hundreds of millions of dollars are going into that program.

JM: Yeah, I’m sure nobody questions it now, nowadays [chuckle]

CD: Oh yeah. It began, in some respects-- well, it began, actually began in 1964 when Meyer Fishbien started it, raising issues about statistical databases.

JM: How about within SAA--was it a similar attitude?

CD: No.

JM: As far as…?

CD: I don’t think so. I think that within the profession, there was a recognition or acknowledgement that this is a form of record keeping that’s not going away. And of course this was before anything like PC’s was contemplated, Internet capabilities. And, nonetheless, I think that there was a growing recog-, acknowledgement, maybe even to some extent a grudging acknowledgement, that the record keeping environment was changing. No one 00:22:00realized how extraordinary that transformation would be over the next decade or so. But I think there was a recognition, and I think clearly the council recognized that with the adoption of the five year program, and continuing to highlight issues associated with digital records.

JM: Let’s see. And so, you spent, most of your career at the National Archives.

CD: That’s correct.

JM: When did you…

CD: Well, before I finish, before I finish that career…

JM: Sure.

CD: I want to talk, discuss a little bit about two programs. One of which has a 00:23:00lot to do with the electronic records, the other doesn’t have that much to do with it. But, in 1981, the records appraisal division of the National Archives, which is part of the Federal Records Center program, had approved a records retention schedule submitted by the FBI that called for massive destruction of what’s called field office records. And that was based upon five case files that had been selected by the FBI and had been reviewed by a records appraiser 00:24:00for the National Archives. And the rationale was that the content in these field office files was already incorporated into the case file at headquarters. The staff did not see-- the records appraisers, I recall, did not have access to the complete case file. The upshot of all that was that a public interest group sued both the FBI and the National Archives under the Administrative Procedures Act for failure to adhere to the rules and regulations that should have been followed in making this kind of decision. And Judge Harold Green eventually ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, the National Archives, and the FBI had lost. 00:25:00And so the National Archives was told to start examining these records. And nothing happened. And then Judge Green called for a status review. And, I’d been identified as somebody who might have some involvement with this. In any case, there was a hearing before Judge Green where he lambasted both the National Archives and the FBI for failure to comply with both the spirit and letter of his court order. And he told the National Archives and the FBI, you will complete this project by September 21st. I think it must have been 1982, might been 1983. But in any case, we started that project in April, May of that 00:26:00year, and I was allowed to recruit 15 archivists, most whom had PhDs in history, and develop a methodology for selecting records that we would examine, and that the FBI would have no control over what we would see. And so we developed this methodology, statistical sampling and all of this, and procedures whereby each morning we would give the FBI, starting out with the--I think the FBI--at Buzzard’s Point, the Washington, DC, field office. I think is where we started our project. No actually, we started at headquarters and then went to Buzzard Point. But--we had developed a methodology where the FBI had no control over what we could see, we developed a survey form that people checked and made comments, and we computerized that, and developed profiles we had been given. 00:27:00Let’s see, Trudy Peterson was on that task force, and Trudy and I had--as high security clearance--as code word Plus Plus, because we had both been doing some things with the National Security Administration. In any case, I have to tell you this because it’s one of the high points of my career.

JM: Oh, ok

CD: Still rather trivial but still I derived a great deal of satisfaction out of it. We were under court order from Judge Green and if-- we understood. The official director--I was a deputy director, but the official director was Jim O’Neill. And he’s the guy who had to sign a report every two weeks about what we were doing. And it was clear to everybody that if the FBI got in our way, all we had to do was to tell Judge Green we had this problem. We go to New York City, which is the first big field office, and we’ve already designed our 00:28:00sample and all of this. And one of case files we were allowed to look at was informants’ case files. That is ultra, ultra sensitive contents as far as the FBI is concerned. But we had to verify that because we knew that what had happened in some of the informant case files in headquarters here created certain problems. In any event, I asked Trudy Peterson to look at this. And the assistant director of the New York City--New York field office said, “No, you can’t see that.” Trudy came back and told me. And we had a liaison on site with us, from Washington, and I told Tom, “This is not going to work, we have 00:29:00to see that content.” He said, “Well this guy’s you know, he’s…” I picked up the telephone and called the FBI manager of the project and without consulting with Jim O’Neill from the National Archives of the United States, who’s really ultimately responsible. I said, “Bob, we have this problem with the assistant field office director here. He says that we cannot see records. Now Bob, if you don’t take care of this, by the end of the day, I’m pulling this team out of New York City, we’re going back to Washington, and we’ll be talking to Judge Green tomorrow morning.”

JM: Yeah. [chuckle]

CD: So Bob called this guy. And this is a beautiful moment for me. Called this guy and said, “Ok, if you don’t want these people to see these records, they’ve been authorized to see them, do so. But I want to assure you you’re going to be in court and the FBI will not support you with one cent of legal defense.” The guy caved in.

JM: Yeah, yeah, what could he do?

CD: That was a great opportunity. And I told Jim O’Neill later about, well 00:30:00everybody knew about it. I said--He said, “Why didn’t you call me?” I said, “Well, I didn’t see any need to. I didn’t need to bother you.”

JM: Yeah, took care of it yourself.

CD: That was a great moment. I have another great moment.

JM: Ok.

CD: This is just nonsense right here. But I did another project. I just remembered, I should have remembered it. And I--largely because of the work I had done with the FBI records, about 1991- 92, the Kennedy presidential records were being examined, and we had--the CIA had lots of records. And so I headed this project, George Chalu[?] helped me on this one, along with some other people we brought in, some people from outside the National Archives. And the CIA claimed to have already--they had already screened content and identified sensitive material. Well, quickly I discovered that they were not doing a very 00:31:00good job of that. They were supposed to have been identifying nationals--with this largely had to do, of course, with the embassy and the CIA field office in Mexico City. And all having to do with…

JM: Concerning Oswald?

CD: That, the assassination of President Kennedy. In any case--see I had to call attention to the CIA that they were not doing such a good job of screening identification of Mexican Nationals, because that clearly, I think, would have been --these people were working for the CIA and you don’t want that kind of information publicly available, because this would be publicly available unless it were redacted. So we captured, we corrected that. But then the CIA started telling us, sending us material that they wanted to redact a whole page and 00:32:00leave nothing but four or five words. Congressmen Charlie Rose of North Carolina was the person who was the point person on that. And I worked with his legislative assistant on a weekly basis, talking about issues and concerns. And, when I went up on the Hill to brief the Congressmen and I showed him, what the CIA, how they had redacted an innocuous document. It had to do, I believe, with a motion sensitive camera that was positioned to photograph people going into the Cuban embassy in Mexico City. Everybody on God’s green earth knew about that. It had been widely publicized, but the CIA, and by the way this was twenty--this was almost thirty years later. The CIA didn’t want to disclose all this. I said, “This is nonsense.” Congressman Rose agreed with me. And so I was part of a conversation, not with the Congressman, but with his 00:33:00legislative assistant, and with the deputy chief of operations. You don’t get much higher in the CIA, other than the director’s office. Special Operations, that’s what it is. In any case, I was part of this conversation, this was another one of those great moments, when the legislative assistant is told to, and the director was arguing, “We can’t release this, we can’t release this, it will compromise national security.” Utter nonsense. And the legislative assistant said, “Well Congressman Rose has authorized me to tell you this: that if you do not accept the recommendations of the National Archives about what can be redacted, the Congressman himself will publicly disclose this.” There was this long silence. And the guy said, “OK.” [chuckle] Caved in. Two beautiful moments of caving in with these bureaucracies that are insensitive in so many ways.

JM: Used to getting their own way.

CD: Sorry to ramble on that point.

JM: Oh, that’s ok. Sounds like you may have missed a calling working for the CIA, knowing what to redact, what not to redact, you know?

CD: [laughter] Well, I’ll tell you another thing I did with the CIA on this project, they set up as material that was not--they did not adhere to the guidelines of how you transfer content to the National Archives. Huge boxes, sealed boxes on our loading dock at the National Archives. I said, “Send it back. We’re not taking it. Send it back. You did not follow the regulations.” Another thing that made me unhappy--made them a little bit unhappy with me, but [shrug] heck, they weren’t doing what they were supposed to do. [Pause] I have to tell you about another program.

JM: Before you go on though, my next question is…

CD: Ok, ok.

JM: Who shot…

CD: Ok, you’re doing the interview.

JM: Who really shot JFK, since…[laughter].

CD: Oh. Lee Harvey Oswald. I guess, you know…I mean I’ve looked at a lot of that stuff, and there’s always the notion of a second shooter…Who knows, I mean…

JM: Yeah, yeah, I’m just kidding.

CD: There’s a lot of speculation about that. But I do though.

JM: Sounds like you were looking at kind-of top secret stuff. Go ahead.

CD: I do want to say something about another program at the National Archives that I had a big hand in. That is part of any digital preservation program today, including the National Archives, or if you look at the open archives information system standard 14721. One of the best practices, principles there is something that was started at the National Archives in 1984-1985. What happened is that after I’d finished the project with the FBI, I was sort of looking around for something to do, and I was put up to head of the audio visual archives division, which is--eh, it’s ok, but I don’t really want…

JM: This was in the early 80’s?

CD: This was in the National Archives.

JM: Ok. Like in the early 80’s?

CD: 1983

JM: Ok, all right.

CD: And so I came up with the idea. I came up with a couple of ideas. One of which, well both of which were approved but one of them didn’t work out that well. But the other did. Which was to create what we call an archival research--archival research information stand…..Oh my gosh, it’s only been a long time ago. Anyway, it was basically research staff for the archivist of the United States.

JM: Ok

CD: And that staff was to look into information technology practices and 00:37:00standards that were being developed within the government and within industry, and to identify those that would have an impact, or could have an impact on record keeping and ultimately on digital preservation. And so one of the projects we did was to look at standards. Ted Weir, who died earlier this spring, and I were working extensively in this area. And I remember that we were giving a briefing to Claudia Weir and some of her staff. She was at this point the Deputy Archivist of the United States, I believe. In any case, she told me later that when I was talking about information technology neutral standards, 00:38:00how if you have your records in those formats, they’re not machine dependent, they’re not hardware dependent, they’re not software dependent, and she said, “A light bulb went off for me.” I said, “Oh yeah, that’s right, because that’s what technology neutral standards do.” They enable interoperability without regard for the operating and software environment that created the records, or the current software operating environment in which they’re being interpreted used or a future one. So I think that one of the things that at least I associate with my career at the National Archives, part of that project, archival information research staff, and the promotion of technology neutral standards. Clearly part of the digital preservation domain, best practice, and I think it goes back to 1983-1985.

JM: And you think those have held up, over the years?

CD: Well I mean, well the principle has, yes.

JM: Or has it changed?

CD: The principle, what we were looking at in 1983-1985 was--well there was one standard that attempted to address this issue but it did not have software vendor support and it eventually died. But there was another standard that had emerged within the publishing community and later was adopted by the Department of Defense and their logistics program, called SGML, Standard Generalized Markup Language. And what it was to assign a tag, a meaningful tag to specific kinds of digital content. Which meant that you could reuse that information, you could display it in a variety of ways independently of the way it was created or initially used. I urged that we not do anything with SGML because I didn’t, I didn’t feel it was--it was just getting started, and I think, I said, “We need to wait” and shortly thereafter, maybe a couple years thereafter, XML, 00:40:00Extensible Markup Language, which is a much more robust and more narrowly defined set of components, came into existence, and XML is around today. It’s one of those technology neutral formats. So, but we’ve had others, we have, we have photographs, we have JPEG, JPEG2000. Still looking for that technology neutral format. But digital video...

JM: Oh yeah. Someday soon.

CD: Well, there is, there is one JPEG-MOV, but it’s--if the content is created, it’s born-digital, it’s ok. But moving content that’s in another format into JPEG-MOV is a very labor, can be a very labor intensive migration effort. It’s not as easy as saying, “Ok, I’ve got--I’ve got this 00:41:00particular content and it’s in a format that can be interpreted and used.” For example, JPEG can take TIFF, that sort of thing, or PDF. PDF can take those formats.

JM: Yeah, video is kind of a…

CD: Yeah, that and audio, those two things are combined.

JM: Well let’s get a little bit into your work in SAA.

CD: Ok, you wanted to know what happened after I finished my career. I think that’s where I had the National Archives.

JM: That’s right. I’m sorry. Let’s, let’s finish that, finish that.

CD: Ok, all right. Ok. I had, when I joined the National Archives in 1974, I took a leave of absence from Oklahoma State University, fully intending to return there and continue my work as a historian. That didn’t happen. But I continued to do a lot of writing in history, and actually published material, 00:42:00and history, books, and things like that, through 1987, I believe. In any case, in 1991, 1992 to 93, I was invited--well actually applied but I was invited to join the faculty at the University of British Columbia, in their school of Library, Archives, and Information Studies as Associate Professor. And so in July of 1994, I moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, and was on the faculty there for five years, and continued work and actually was in that timeframe--it was in that timeframe that I completed research on a book that I think was published in ‘98, called Authentic Electronic Record: Strategies for Long-Term Access. That’s had a decent reading and decent reception, but it a, sadly 00:43:00it’s very much out of date, I don’t--it’s not something I recommend to anybody reading today. Although, technology used for file formats are there, the beginnings of the Open Archive Information System are referenced there, and some other particular initiatives. It was good for its time but it’s outlived, it’s not being published anymore, it’s out of print, which is good, I don’t want to have to worry about anything, rewriting, revising it, that would be a--that’d be a big job.

JM: Yeah. CD: So anyway, I was there at the University of British Columbia, and I should also point out that in the beginning of about 1985 to about the year 2000, I was heavily involved in the International Council of Archives.

JM: Ok.

CD: And I was the chair of the automated records committee. Actually we called 00:44:00it the special records committee, but it’s largely electronic records. And promoted that program and then in the late 90’s, I was asked to join the AIIM Standards Board, which ties in with my emphasis and interest in standards, international standards, which will open, in many respects, technology neutral, and I eventually became chair of the AIIM Standards board, about 2004 or 5, I think.

JM: And AIIM is the…?

CD: Association, excuse me, Association of Image and Information Management.

JM: Oh ok.

CD: Excuse Me, Association of Information and Image Management. I get…[gesture]…yeah

JM: AII…

CD: AIIM, yeah.

JM: Ok

CD: And so, year 2000, I --the University of British Columbia had a mandatory retirement age, and I so I left the University of British Columbia. And moved to 00:45:00Gig Harbor, Washington. And I had began consulting in the--no actually had been doing consulting all along, but, largely, under my own name recognition, had a couple of good projects with the Food and Agricultural Organization, and the Inter European Bank for Recovery and Development [?]. and I also did work for Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Oh boy, I forgot about that. Anyway, I was doing that particular work and in that timeframe, and then went into consulting with Cohasset Associates, which is a consulting firm located in Chicago, Illinois.

JM: Ok

CD: And I still have connections, I still do work with Cohasset, but I do other things also. I’d be happy to talk about those.

JM: Yeah, let’s see how much time. We’ve got about fifteen minutes on this tape. We can always go on to a second tape. We got about an hour until…

CD: Well let me, since you’ve got a little bit of time.

JM: Sure

CD: Let me pick up on something I said earlier about failing to recognize the opportunity. I had to understand something about the history of the National Archives…

JM: Yeah, that’s right.

CD: Bob Bahmer was one, there were several other people that…

JM: Means you would’ve asked him?

CD: …that I knew, knew well enough to ask them lots of questions, it’s just that I didn’t have the questions. After I left the National Archives, I became quite interested in the career of Emmett Leahy, who was considered by many 00:47:00people to be the father of modern records management in North America. He was a staff member of the National Archives in 1934 until 1941 and promoted the concept of records retention, use of microfilm, and creation of records centers. He left the National Archives in 1941, went to the Department of the Navy, and after World War II was over, he worked for a short period of time for a microfilm company. Eventually he established his own company in the 1950’s with Leahy Business Archives. And I became quite interested in his career, and I said, I need to know more about this, and so I started trying to find information about him. Some publications provided a little bit of information, but there--he died in 1963. And there are no business records for Leahy Archives.

JM: Oh!

CD: But I found his--I obtained a copy of his official personnel folder (OPF) file from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). And at that time in the 1930’s and 40’s, they put a lot of content into an OPF, which is no longer allowed. You’re supposed to have thin personnel file folders, very thin. So I found an enormous amount of useful information about a trip he made around the world, with the authorization of the Archivist of the United States, collecting information on archives practices around the world. And I’m the only one who now has that content because the OPM told me that we’ll send this to you, everything we have, we will retain what’s called the official file, you can have all this other content.

JM: Wow.

CD: But there are things I don’t know, and I could’ve asked Bob Bahmer. You know I’ve listened to all the oral history interviews, read the transcripts. I could’ve asked Bob Bahmer, I could’ve asked Phil Brooks, who’s still living. Schellenberg had already died --I’ve already looked at collection at the Kansas State Historical Society. But there are just some gaps, and there’s just questions I have to ask, I’d love to ask. And probably the most troubling aspect of all of this is, from a historian’s point of view,--I tracked down Leahy’s wife, who remarried, I tracked her down and I located her. She was living in South Carolina, and I had three or four telephone conversations with 00:50:00her, got a lot of useful information, and I was planning to go to South Carolina to do a face to face interview and see if she had any memorabilia. And I got caught up doing something else, and I delayed that. And I finally, maybe six months later, placed a call, and a male voice—her name was Betty White at this time. So I said, “May I speak to Betty?” And he said, “Oh, I’m sorry, she died.” And she’d had some kind of surgery, three months before that, and died during the surgery, or shortly thereafter. So another resource…and there’s not very much documentation. But there is great documentation on the second Archivist of the United States, Solon Justice Buck. And I’ve been working with that. I’ve written a good bit about Emmett Leahy, but I’m--once I stop real work as a consultant, I’m going to go back and pick up on my research with Solon Justice Buck.

JM: Oh good. Well…

CD: I’m sorry, I’m probably taking you away from your topics.

JM: No that’s ok. I don’t mind going off script. I’m interested, maybe in the last ten minutes on this tape of getting you, you’ve kind of gone through your career, really briefly. And I’m interested in hearing what you think as an electronic records management expert in, you know, from when you started in the early 70’s to nowadays, you know, what is--these developments of where we are now. How do you--what surprised you most, what do you think, you know, where do you, what’s frustrated you most that we aren’t further along than we should be?

CD: Yeah, Ok, there are two things. Not just two things, a couple things. About 00:52:001972 or 73, I still have the text of the paper, but, no not 1972, it would have been about 1979. When the Chi--I think it was in Chicago, ‘79, at the SAA back there. And Jim O’Neill was supposed to give a paper on information resource management and archives--information resource management, records management and archives? In any case, he tapped me to write his paper.

JM: Well.

CD: So I mean, I did. But he--turned out he could not attend, he had something else happening here in Washington, so I delivered my own paper. [chuckle] But one of the things that I pointed out, and I’m not alone in recognizing this, 00:53:00and one of the impacts of information technology is that it breaks down barriers, traditional barriers, discipline barriers, so that you begin to look at where we’ve characterized records management, history, communication, technology, and a variety of other things. Disciplines have built up these barriers.

JM: Yeah.

CD: This is my turf, that’s your turf, you leave my turf alone, I won’t bother your turf. But when you’re really looking at the life cycle of records, that life cycle when it’s infused by the kinds of technologies we have to date, doesn’t recognize those barriers. And so one of the things that is done, and I’ve noted this in that paper, was that it transforms the notion of the life cycle of records. It makes it a dynamic process, it’s not this static thing where at the end, archives just, the agency that creates records hands it off. If you’re not doing stuff up front, and by the way this came out of our 00:54:00experience in part, with the looking at the machine readable records that had been created in the 1960s and early 70s. The issues that could have been addressed there that would have made the acquisition and accessioning this content much less costly to the National Archives. So that’s one thing. It’s an important thing, and it’s--if you’re looking at the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) program of the National Archives, in my view, and this is, Ken Thibodeau and I agree on this, that ultimately, that program can only, it can address in part the backlog, the legacy stuff. But in the long run, for ERA to 00:55:00be cost effective, all of the--it has to be a great deal of upfront creation of what I call preservation ready records in the agencies. Or whatever entity it is creating this, and making sure they’re in technology neutral file formats, they have the appropriate amount of metadata, so that when that content comes in to the archives, through the ingest protocol, it’s not going to be massively labor intensive. The National Archives, in my view--and I don’t think many archives will have the staff resources to have archivists sitting down and reviewing every accession of electronic records. It has to be automated.

JM: Yeah

CD: So that’s in line with something that had emerged, or did emerge in the 1970s. And the other thing is, was not known, that the impact of personal 00:56:00computers. Uh, we had personal computers at the workstations at the National Archives but it was, there was very little sharing across boundaries. And there was a little bit of email but it was very cumbersome and awkward to use. And it was not until the personal workstations and the Internet capability came together that transformed the work environment. There may have been some people that predicted that, but not anyone I know.

JM: Yeah

CD: And I certainly did not appreciate that. In retrospect I can say sure, that’s when it happened, or that’s when it began to happen. But I didn’t see it at the time.

JM: Yeah, yeah.

CD: So I think those are the two things--that the dynamic nature of the life cycle of records which I and other people recognized it as it was happening at 00:57:00the time. And the other being the impact of personal workstations and Internet capability. And something that’s flowed out of all that is that, I’d say virtually everyone in the digital preservation community recognizes the importance of International Standards. Open technology neutral standards. Without them, we’re not going very far.

JM: Do you think we’re keeping up with our efforts to organize and save electronic records, as far, because you know what they say, we’re creating more and more every year, you know?

CD: Sure--it, yeah. I’ve--I’m working on, just completed a big project for 00:58:00the city of Toronto in helping develop an electronic, long-term digital preservation strategy, and I’m working with the Kansas State Archives, which is part of a National Digital Preservation Infrastructure Program that’s looking at building a compliant--a digital trusted repository that meets the requirements of the Open Archives Information System. We’re just about to sign a contract with the Archives of Ontario to help them identify the functional requirements for a trusted digital repository. And one of the things that, for example, the city of Toronto--it became clear is that purely for business reasons, or operational reasons, a number business units, are already using digital preservation ready standards. PDF is widely used, they’re using JPEG, 00:59:00they’re using TIFF. And they’re using scalable vector graphics, which is for engineering drawings, amongst other things. Those open technology neutral standards. So I think that’s happening. When you move to a state archives level or you move to a municipal level, I think that there is much--it’s going to be much more challenging because the archives and records management programs traditionally have not had much influence on the creation records. They do great for helping authorize the disposal or disposition of paper records and transferring the permanent stuff, but they’ve not been empowered to deal with the actual creation of records in new environments. There’s a recognition of this, of course, that’s going to change. But there’s, I think a fairly large 01:00:00legacy of records that will be very difficult to make available over the long run. You can take records that are in a proprietary file format or legacy file format and with certain software, what’s called viewer technology, you can display the content on the screen regardless of its format, you can print it, but you can’t do anything else with it. You can’t, once that viewer technology goes away, your window of vision closes. So you have to make some fundamental changes in that the bitstream--you have to move it into another format. And that I think is going to be quite costly.

JM: Yeah, as you were saying, you have to be more involved in the moment of creation, and…

CD: Well yeah, but that’s day forward. I think we can do a somewhat reasonably good job day forward. It’s the legacy stuff that’s going to be very 01:01:00expensive, and we’re going to have to assign real priorities, because in my view not all records are equal. Some are more equal than others.

JM: Yeah. That’s the thing, determining which, which are most worth saving.

CD: Yeah, that’s right.

JM: I’m going to stop it now, we’re at zero minutes, so, then we’ll continue after a short break.

CD: Ok

JM: Looks like we’re recording again. So Tape 2 with Charles Dollar. And we’re going to talk a little bit about your experience with SAA and other organizations. You mentioned that you first joined in 197-

CD: 1975

JM: 75? Ok. Let’s just go over some of the highlights of your involvement with SAA.

CD: Ok. I was named a fellow in 1980, based largely on my work with machine readable records in conjunction with the Society of American Archivists. I guess I’ve been a fellow now, thirty years. That was certainly a high point. I’ve mentioned that I worked with Jerry Ham, Dick Lytle, now I’m not remembering names. [sigh]

JM: David Bearman?

CD: Pardon?

JM: David Bearman?

CD: Oh yeah, David, not David, I remember David, but--it’s terrible, I 01:03:00hadn’t thought about this one, the guy from the University of Illinois Archives. Not Bill, but the predecessor. In any case, these were people that I worked with. And at some point, at some point, I was--I think it was in early, about 1985, that I – ’84,’85, I was asked to run as the position of Treasurer of the SAA. And I did not succeed in that venture. And--oh no no, I’m sorry, I was later asked. I was a candidate for President…

JM: Ok

CD: …in 1993. Maygene Daniels, who was also a fellow, was the other candidate, and she won. And I was chair of the program committee with Deborah Skaggs, 1994, I believe, yeah. In any case, that was one of those good things that I didn’t--I wasn’t elected president because it would have taken an enormous amount of time just when I had moved to the University of British Columbia, I could barely keep ahead of the students, the first, at least the first semester.

JM: Right.

CD: So I had that involvement. But I’ve not had much involvement other than with the education committee, which lasted to about 2000, I guess. I’ve not had very much official involvement with the SAA for a decade or so.

JM: How about the electronic records round table?

CD: No, I--there are a couple of things. They’re a lot of sharp people who are-- have access to technologies and issues like people at the National Archives, that I don’t have access to. I just think about some of these issues a bit, and have to deal with actual, in some instances implementation, which can give you a slightly different interpretation or assessment about how some tools might work. And I don’t mean this to denigrate anything that anybody else is doing. That’s all relevant. But it, some of that sometimes has to be adjusted to, at least realities that I perceive in certain work environments. So, 01:06:00I’ve--I go to some of the round table sessions, but I’ve been around the SAA for a long time. And there are other people whose voices need to be heard. And are being heard, and so occasionally I’ll make a comment but I find that I don’t, in my view I don’t have that much to offer, so.

JM: But you a, you feel like it’s important to remain a member and keep attending the conference and…

CD: Oh yeah. Of course, yeah.

JM: And all that? Yeah, great

CD: I think I’ve only, since 1975, I think I’ve only missed one SAA conference.

JM: Oh wow.

CD: And that was maybe 1983 or something like that, or ‘85, when it was at Austin, Texas.

JM: Wow. So last year’s meeting wasn’t the first time it was in Austin.

CD: That’s correct.

JM: I didn’t know that.

CD: That was the first time I’d attended an SAA conference in Austin, though.

JM: Oh ok. Yeah, yeah. Do you feel that the--you’re understanding of the mission of SAA at the beginning, obviously it’s changed over, almost 40 years?

CD: I think it’s become more, it certainly has adapted, to the changing environment.

JM: Do you think it’s keeping up?

CD: Yes. Yes, I do.

JM: Good.

CD: And one of the interesting things that, at least I find interesting is that in the early 1980’s, there was a great deal of interest in what was called 01:08:00documentation strategy. And this largely had to do with making sure that records of groups, marginal groups that might not have high visibility, somehow that effort, that their records were being identified and captured. And I think that’s a significant undertaking because largely the focus of the record keeping, at least at the Federal Level, maybe at the state level, in many instances, focuses on the big person theory of history. You have records there that can document what a president did, what an archivist did. But not much documentation of people down below who were actually in the trenches conducting the work. And there was this effort of documented-- promote documentation 01:09:00strategies. Larry Hackman was one of those people. Helen--Helen Samuels was another. Haven’t seen Helen at a meeting in a number of years. Haven’t seen Larry for several years either, come to think of it. In any case, that was an effort, I think, that made some--had some success. [sigh] But I’m not sure how viable a strategy it is now. Maybe it’s just been built into the system and it doesn’t need the kind of high level exposure that it had when it was initiated in the early 1980’s. So that’s certainly an important consideration. The publication program of SAA has matured in a marvelous way. The communication 01:10:00from the Society to members through Outlook, no [Archival] Outlook, yeah, and the electronic version now. Something in Archives Weekly? Anyway, there’s another electronic publication. I think this is a significant area of endeavor and electronic records continue to be--have received attention, but there are a lot of other issues that in the minds of many are as compelling and have to be addressed. There’s been a--I think a little bit more aggressive, aggressive may not be the best word. But at one point, there’s a very close connection between the National Archives and the Society of American Archivists. If you look at the leadership in the early years of the SAA, people from the National 01:11:00Archives…. And over time, that has changed. The membership is much more diverse. Much younger. And as a matter of fact I was thinking about this, this morning. I believe if you look, I’ve not done an analysis of this, but I believe if you look at the last ten presidents of the SAA, maybe at least the last ten, that there’s--with the exception of Bruce Ambacher, who’s on the council now, and I think Sharon Gibbs Thibodeau, who’s on the council, and there may be, Fynette Eaton who was on the council, Fynette was president, I believe of SAA. Certainly she was Treasurer for a while…That by and large, the National Archives no longer has this impact on the Society of American Archivists. And matter of fact at one point, just as an aside, there was 01:12:00probably a mindset, there was a mindset within senior management, at least some parts of senior management of the National Archives, that the SAA was meddling in affairs that it had no business, asking questions, and wanting to query, wanting to be engaged in the process of selecting the new Archivist [of the United States]. That’s changed, there’s a much more dynamic element there, and so the SAA is not--no longer serves the interest, exclusive interest, with the exception of a few universities, of the National Archives. It has a much broader, much more diverse-- and the point I was going to make is that Peter Gottlieb--Peter at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Last year the 01:13:00archivist for the Episcopal church was president. Can’t remember these names. But I think that the college and university archives group--if you look at the people who’ve held positions of leadership within the National, within the SAA in the last 10 years, they are the group that numerically and election-wise, have much more influence than the National Archives has had or ever will have.

JM: The college and university archives?

CD: Yeah. I doubt that, with few exceptions, that there would be a president who could be elected that doesn’t have the support of that group. And I don’t mean organized support, but it’s identification, in part.

JM: And do you think, do you think that’s probably, probably a result of the rise of formal training and degrees?

CD: Well, that, but I think it’s just, it just a--reflects the reality that the core membership of the SAA is much more diverse, much broader than it was thirty years ago, or even twenty years ago. So I think that’s an inevitable result of success. The National Archives, excuse me, the Society of American Archivists, probably I think has approximately five thousand members today. So it’s a major professional organization.

JM: Yeah. And when did SAA start--have we always done joint meetings with COSA and NAGARA?

CD: Oh, I think that---Well, there’ve been joint meetings. For example, I 01:15:00think the Society of American Archivists had a joint meeting with the Association of Canadian Archivists, I think, in 1975, 74, I believe. A joint meeting with the International Council of Archives in 1976. There was a joint meeting of the Society of American Archivists and the Association of Canadian Archivists in 1992. CoSA was co-sponsored, no excuse me, NAGARA, and the SAA had the same meeting organized; they were the sponsors, I guess, of the meeting in Austin. And of course this year it’s COSA, NAGARA, and SAA. I think that’s a fairly recent development, and I think, that is--I thought just a little bit 01:16:00about this, not seriously but I’ve had a couple thoughts about this. That this is, in some respects, a very healthy thing. Because, especially at the state level, you have two groups representing in essence the same constituencies. And the National Archives has some resources that it can use and has used to some extent in the past that would certainly enhance or promote some of the programs at the state level. So it’s good to have that kind of cross pollination, as it were, in a formal organization environment with a professional meeting to occur. But I think if you look at the program, for this year and compare it, let’s say, with the program two years, two or three years ago, it’s, I think it’s strikingly different.

JM: Yeah, it’s…

CD: It’s a--this is a much broader program. And it should be. But, I’m not sure I would agree with the notion this needs to be repeated every year. I have no idea if anybody’s thinking about that. I don’t mean to suggest it. But I think that every three or four years it’s probably a good idea to try to organize something like that.

JM: Yeah, yeah.

[tape seems to be paused and then restarted]

CD: I did an oral history interview for the National Archives last year in Austin.

JM: Oh good.

CD: Got a chance to meet. I actually spent a lot of time thinking about that beforehand.

JM: Yeah, I’ve had that experience.

CD: And so I drew upon some of that in preparation for this.

JM: Good, good. And you mentioned the joint SAA meetings with ACA and the International Archivists. Do you think that’s something that’s kind of--do you think SAA is involved enough with other countries and international 01:18:00societies of archivists, you know, because I don’t think we do those joint meetings anymore, but do you think that’s something that’s…

CD: Well, you know I think that, I’d like to see a joint meeting with ARMA and SAA. I would. I think that would be--first of all those two meeting, the timing or the time of the year… ARMA is always in October or November. Beginning about 1980, or something like that, the Society of American Archivists went to August. It used to be over Labor Day weekend, because you get better hotel rates. Anyway, so, but I think that that would be a useful thing to do. I think it might, yeah it would be. It would be useful.

JM: It would be appropriate, because as you were saying earlier, archivists and records managers, their jobs are becoming closer, intertwined, you know, needs to be more cooperation between the two… overlap.

CD: There’s some dynamic things happening in ARMA. ARMA has--works with standards, but with—there are certain standards groups and ARMA works with one of those. The National Archives, excuse me, the Society of American Archivists may not have a formal, does not have a formal relationship as I recall. But it does work with the two. One is NISO, which is the National Information Standards Organization, as part of the U.S. activity and NISO is within the Library of Congress. And then there’s the Association of Information and Image Management, which is the secretariat for what’s called ISO 172, that’s one of those standards groups that I’ve worked extensively on that--the US delegation to that Standards group. So I think that that would be constructive, very constructive to try to…

JM: Have you heard any talk within SAA about that?

CD: No, and I don’t have--my visibility in ARMA is even lower than it is in the Society of American Archivists [laughter]. I mean there might be a little name recognition, but I’ve only given one paper at ARMA.

JM: Do you consider yourself more of an archivist or a records manager? In looking over your whole career?

CD: Good question. I would consider myself the best of both, because at least historically there was this bifurcation of records in the life cycle of records from creation, what happens and eventual disposal and transfer to the National Archives. And this was certainly true--became very evident in the 1960s and 70s, if you read some of the records management literature, that there was very little connection between archives and records management –archives: history, and our job is to eliminate records. Or file them in such a way they’re accessible --so readily accessible. So, those two worlds, at one point they were one world, but they’ve separated, and I think the electronic aspects are 01:21:00bringing them back together. But there’s a lot of baggage on both sides that will make this process take a little bit longer.

JM: Yeah, interesting. So tying into that, in what areas, or which areas, do you feel like you’ve made the biggest impact in the profession and in the field?

CD: Well, I think that establishing the foundations of the machine readable records, machine readable archives division, and helping create the committee on automated records techniques provided a substantial foundation for the 01:22:00development of electronic recordkeeping and electronic preservation. At one point, the National Archives clearly was the world leader in this arena, but that changed somewhat in the late 1980s because of some decisions made by archival leadership about cutting back the program and related matters. I think that the association I had with the National Archives in the promotion of open standards, technology neutral standards, is a significant contribution to the profession at an international level. I’ve not been part of the National 01:23:00Archives since 1994, sixteen years, but I have continued to promote the principles of archives, principles and theories of archives, and linking those to electronic recordkeeping, and the work I’m currently doing now in digital preservation is a flowering, as it were, of decades of previous work, building on that, fine tuning, expanding and working with the private sector, or public sector entities. Again, with the emphasis on technology neutral standards and upstream digital preservation capabilities, being built into the system. We’re doing them, I mean one of our clients, which I can say publicly, is the Church Pension Group, which is the insurance, health care arm of the Episcopal Church. 01:24:00And they’re moving forward aggressively in putting together a digital preservation program, good electronic recordkeeping program, and a good paper recordkeeping program. All having an upstream component identifying content, making sure that’s born digital.

JM: Right.

CD: You can -- it’s not difficult to deal with the scanning of paper records, and getting that into a preservation format. You can scan, take it into PDF/A, and you’re home free so to speak at that point.

JM: Right.

CD: But it’s the born-digital content, making sure that the business units understand that their best operational interests are served by creating digital content and open standard technology neutral file formats because it has 01:25:00business value for them. It has an extended business value for long term retention for the organization, and ultimately for the archives itself where researchers will have access to this content.

JM: How do you feel about the difference between working in the government sector and the private sector? Is that a whole another can of worms you don’t want to open?

CD: [laughter] Oh, let me tell you. You see, it’s interesting. When I was on the faculty at Oklahoma State University, I despaired committee work. I despaired of it, and faculty meetings. Oh, what a pain, what a pain. And I thought when I was coming to the National Archives, Oh, no longer those committees! Well, I didn’t have those committees, but there was a bureaucracy. And you had to figure out the buttons to push. And, I can tell you a button I learned how to push.

JM: Sure.

CD: Frank Burke. This is not publicly known. Well, Frank will acknowledge it, but Frank Burke was acting archivist of the United States. And I would go down to Frank and say, “Frank, here’s what I’m thinking about.” And he’d say, “Oh, that sounds interesting. Why don’t you draft a memo for me,” -- and this is my scenario-- “why don’t you draft a memo for me, and I’ll send it to you.” That’s the simplest form, and so I would get projects started by going down and talking with him. And framing it in a way that I knew he would respond, to which he would respond positively. And I’d go back and draft a memo, take it down to him, and then he would do something with it and send it to me, “do you want to take such and such task?”

JM: Sounds like a good idea

CD: Did that several times, several times. But, what’s interesting is, that no 01:27:00matter where you are-- for example working with one particular entity now, part of two hour conference calls, where the same thing is repeated, and repeated. Oh by the way, didn’t we cover that last week? Maybe I guess it’s just a part of human nature. But it’s debilitating, I don’t function well in this environment. I want to move on and my colleagues share the same view, but recognize in many respects that’s just the nature of the beast we have to deal with. So don’t have great expectations for it. Turning the world around on a dime, or a quarter, or even a million dollars.

JM: Need lot a time and effort. So let’s see. Let’s talk about the future. Where do you see the archival profession heading? And, you know, particularly, you know next year’s our 75th anniversary, where do you see us at our 100th anniversary?

CD: Good, good question. I’d have to go back and look at my paper from 1972. Because I was making some prognostications. But I guess the 75th anniversary is largely going to be retrospective, but I should think that a program committee also would want to have some attention given to where the profession will be 25 years from now, if only to benchmark the inadequacies of our knowledge and understanding viewed 25 years later.

JM: Right.

CD: The 50th anniversary was 1985 in Chicago.

JM: Or was it 86?

CD: Bob Bahmer, I have to tell you this story. Oh God. Bob Bahmer was-- Bob Bahmer at that point was 83, 84 years old. A heavy smoker, Oh gosh. Great--told great jokes. Oh gosh, I loved to listen to him tell jokes. But when he had a good bit to drink he’d be a little mean. And at the 1986 conference, I sat at the table--his table, try to keep control of him. [laughter] And trying to remember, there was a lady who, forgotten who it was, was talking, and he started complaining about something about, “When an archives…”, whatever 01:29:00it was, he was asked to make a few remarks. By this time he was drunk. And it was, it was embarrassing, embarrassing. So I don’t remember much about 1986. But I’m sure there must have been someone who, well I hope there was someone who had some eye to the future. But the--I’m sure that there are futurists who can...

JM: Crystal Ball

CD: Lay out the future for us, what society’s going to be like. But to try to establish some credible sense of how the profession will change is going to be a difficult task. It could--one way of approaching it might be to look at where we were in 1986. We don’t want to go back to 1960.

JM: ‘61 maybe.

CD: Which would have been the 25th anniversary, I guess. Must have been 1986.

JM: Because next year is 75.

CD: Right, right, right. But I think it might be instructive to maybe try to understand where the Society of American Archivists was in 1986, and for example we didn’t have the Academy of Certified Archivists in 1986. What else did we not have? And what, what responsibilities and expanded mission have occurred over the last 25 years? Maybe someone could extrapolate from that to make some generalizations that might be relevant for the next 25 years. Might be, might be…

JM: Yeah, seems like a good way to do it. And…let’s see…Do you-- how much time do we have? It’s a quarter after. Let’s just go into, just some, any final thoughts that you have on your association with SAA and the archival profession…

CD: Oh, I, thanks for that, because I think it’s been a great ride. I’m still riding.

JM: Yeah, sure, you’re still riding, of course.

CD: Still riding. And it’s been a great ride. And--what’s the difference between the Society of American Archivists and the journal, I mean the Southern Historical Association or the Organization of American Historians? I think that it has been professional engagement with the Southern Historical Association or 01:31:00the Organization of American Historians. It’s all about book reviews, it’s all about giving papers. And the Journal. Those three things are also part of the Society of American Archivists, but we have the Academy of Certified Archivists. We have a variety of outreach programs, we have an educational program. I just think it’s in some respects, it’s much more professional. It’s much more professional I think than ARMA is, or any one of the historical associations with which I have been associated with. So it’s been a great ride professionally, and personally. Although I have to acknowledge that I’ve seen a couple of people this morning, and I said, “I remember that person. I remember that person from twenty years ago but by gosh I can’t remember the name.” [laughter]

JM: Yeah, yeah sure.

CD: Of course I haven’t seen that individual for a long time. But on the other hand, when Laura called me, I was talking to Bruce Ambacher, Trudy Peterson, Jim—James--forgot Jim’s last name, and one other person, and Leon Stout had just been there talking with us, so we were, we’re the old people who belong in the tube. But it’s great to be able to chat with them and talk with them and you hook up with them, just as though… Well I haven’t talked to you in three years, you hook up. And I think that both professional and personal relationship, that’s been quite useful, quite meaningful. I’ve enjoyed the ride.

JM: Good, good. Well thank you for your time.

CD: Thank you!

JM: And thank you for doing this.