{"id":9626,"date":"2021-06-17T10:33:58","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T14:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=9626"},"modified":"2021-06-23T10:57:01","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T14:57:01","slug":"processing-from-the-outside-in-the-james-m-buchanan-papers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=9626","title":{"rendered":"Processing from the Outside In: The James M. Buchanan Papers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello all and welcome to Processing from the Outside In: a new blog series where I\u2019ll be sharing with you updates from our National Endowment for the Humanities grant to process the papers of James M. Buchanan. I\u2019m Rebecca Thayer, the project archivist for the grant.<\/p>\n

James M. Buchanan (1919-2013) was a Nobel Prize-winning economist and one of the founders of the field of public choice. His 60+ year career spanned institutions, notably the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech (then known as Virginia Polytechnic Institute or VPI) and finally George Mason University. Buchanan was an incredibly prolific academic; his collected works run to 20 volumes. Lots of work means he created lots of papers!<\/p>\n

How much, you ask? We usually measure our collections in linear feet (as opposed to cubic feet). The Buchanan papers contain 282 linear feet of materials. If we started at the one yard line of a football field and laid all the boxes in the collection end to end, it would reach to the 5 yard line on the other end!<\/p>\n

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Edited file source<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

So how do we make all those papers accessible for researchers? When preparing to process a collection, it\u2019s important to understand the archival principle of original order. Original order is \u201cthe organization and sequence of records established by the creator of the records.<\/span>\u201d <\/a>Original order is useful because it can help us understand how a creator did their work or how an office functioned. For example, if a creator organized all their letters by topic, we can learn that topics were more important to them than the people they were writing, and we can learn exactly what topics were important to them. If we took out all the papers and rearranged them by correspondent, we would lose that information.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s be honest; I know that the papers that I create in my personal and professional life are not always efficiently organized. Certainly you\u2019ve known someone who could find exactly the piece of paper they wanted out of a massive stack, but anyone else trying to use their files would be lost. In cases like that, archivists have to carefully decide whether keeping the original order will help or hinder a researcher\u2019s work. Another consideration is the time and effort that it would take to rearrange the materials into a more user-friendly order.<\/p>\n

Trying to figure out the original order of Buchanan\u2019s papers has been a challenge due to their complicated history. Currently, the collection is all boxed up and properly stored at the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) in Fenwick Library. But how did it end up there? How did the materials end up in their current order? Is the current order the original order?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Image

An unarranged box of Buchanan’s writings.<\/p><\/div>\n

Well, I know that the collection was boxed up in Buchanan House and partially arranged by then-economics PhD student Solomon Stein and current member of the SCRC staff Liz Beckman. (For more information, see Liz\u2019s recent blog post<\/a>) Liz and Solomon have been very helpful in explaining how the papers were originally stored at Buchanan House, which the former home of the Center for Study of Public Choice. Some of the papers were kept and filed on the main floor of the house by librarian JoAnn Burgess, some by Buchanan in his office, and some by administrator Betty Tillman in her office.<\/p>\n

Then we have papers that were created at institutions other than Mason that followed Buchanan in his academic travels. Luckily for us, Tillman assisted Buchanan in keeping his papers from 1961 until her retirement in 2007, so it seems like few papers were lost in these transitions. But as anyone who\u2019s moved house would know, space constraints and new projects create new filing needs, requiring new filing systems which might not match old filing systems.<\/p>\n

So while this original order can tell us something about the functioning of Buchanan\u2019s office, is it useful for researchers trying to access the collection? We also have to consider time required to do any rearrangement. We\u2019ve got two years (whoops, 21 months!) to finish and we don\u2019t want to get bogged down shifting around thousands of individual pieces of paper.<\/p>\n

Right now, I\u2019m surveying about 30% of the boxes in the collection. Not only will that give me a sense of the arrangement, but I can also see what types of materials are in the collection, if the folder titles are accurate to the contents of the folders, and what groupings (or series) might be best for the collection. I also have to check the collection for personally identifiable information (PII) like Social Security numbers of living people that might need to be redacted or restricted.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m taking detailed notes on the materials as I go through them to help guide me in making these decisions about arrangement. That will be the next step once the survey is finished. To come up with a plan for arrangement, I\u2019ll rely on those notes while taking into consideration time requirements, researcher needs, and archival standards.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"A

A box of materials organized by Solomon Stein and Liz Beckman<\/p><\/div>\n

The end goal of our project is to have a full finding aid with description to the folder level posted online, allowing researchers to easily locate the materials they want to see. And I can\u2019t wait to see the knowledge you\u2019ll create with it!<\/p>\n

Follow SCRC on Social Media and look out for future posts on our\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Instagram<\/a>, and\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0accounts. \u00a0To search the collections\u00a0held at Special Collections Research Center, go to our\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0and browse the finding aids by subject or title. You may also e-mail\u00a0us at\u00a0speccoll@gmu.edu<\/a>\u00a0or call 703-993-2220 if you would like to schedule an appointment, request materials, or if you have questions.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello all and welcome to Processing from the Outside In: a new blog series where I\u2019ll be sharing with you updates from our National Endowment for the Humanities grant to process the papers of James M. Buchanan. I\u2019m Rebecca Thayer, the project archivist for the grant. James M. Buchanan (1919-2013) was a Nobel Prize-winning economist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101023,"featured_media":9637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[272,882,3],"tags":[20,37,866,422],"class_list":["post-9626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gmu-fairfax-campus","category-neh-buchanan-papers-project","category-news","tag-economics","tag-james-buchanan","tag-neh-grant","tag-processing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/A11E4FC5-B06C-4A3B-9300-D692A27B1EF3_1_105_c.jpeg?fit=1203%2C653&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Ep5i-2vg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9494,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=9494","url_meta":{"origin":9626,"position":0},"title":"The James M. 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Buchanan\u201d project.\u00a0\u00a0 The purpose of this processing grant project is to preserve and make accessible\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "George Mason University History"","block_context":{"text":"George Mason University History","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?cat=529"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/BuchananGustaf-copy-1.png?fit=1200%2C833&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/BuchananGustaf-copy-1.png?fit=1200%2C833&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/BuchananGustaf-copy-1.png?fit=1200%2C833&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/BuchananGustaf-copy-1.png?fit=1200%2C833&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/BuchananGustaf-copy-1.png?fit=1200%2C833&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10165,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=10165","url_meta":{"origin":9626,"position":2},"title":"Processing from the Outside In: Care of Betty Tillman","author":"Rebecca Thayer","date":"July 14, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"This post is one in a series about the Buchanan Papers processing project. 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Buchanan Papers","author":"Amanda Menjivar","date":"May 24, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) at George Mason University (GMU) is pleased to announce that the James M. Buchanan papers are now open for access! This collection consists of the papers of the Nobel Prize-winning economist James McGill Buchanan, documenting his career and research from the mid-20th century through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "NEH Buchanan papers project"","block_context":{"text":"NEH Buchanan papers project","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?cat=882"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/JMB_001.jpg?fit=1200%2C833&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/JMB_001.jpg?fit=1200%2C833&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/JMB_001.jpg?fit=1200%2C833&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/JMB_001.jpg?fit=1200%2C833&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/JMB_001.jpg?fit=1200%2C833&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9617,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=9617","url_meta":{"origin":9626,"position":4},"title":"NEH Buchanan papers project update – introducing GRA Rachel Barton","author":"admin","date":"September 7, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"We are now approaching six months of renewed processing work on the James M. 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