Doc. #28
Report of the Historical Committee
to the July 2001 meeting of the ARRL Board
The Historical Committee met in teleconference calls on February 6th and July 3rd. Additionally, several committee members and some volunteers met in Newington on April 14th and June 8th to work on a physical inventory of the 3rd floor area of the main building.
Historic interest
During the past six months there have been several articles about preserving and displaying history in the Hartford Courant and other media. The local climate for and interest about the history of the area is quite strong and increasing.
Talking about Amateur Radio history at club meetings elicits quite a positive response. Hams have been quite vocal about their support of any effort to preserve and display Amateur Radio history. Those who live in the local area are also willing to help us as volunteers.
ARRL HQ receives visits from about 1000 non-local hams per year, mostly during the summer and fall. A survey question on the ARRL web site the week of January 12 asked:
Have you ever visited ARRL Headquarters and/or W1AW? (2078 responses)
|
Yes |
401 |
19.3% |
|
No, but I'd like to |
1559 |
75.0 |
|
No, and I'm not really interested |
118 |
5.7 |
That's a significant percentage that have visited and a very promising number who want to, even without a museum... So it appears the potential for generating additional traffic from the Amateur Radio community is substantial. An effective display should also be appealing to the general public and could be an extremely useful resource for us to use in educating the public about Amateur Radio, in showing off the contributions hams have made to radio and communications development
Inventory
One of the major things we wanted to focus on during the first half of 2001 was the start of a physical inventory of historical artifacts in Newington. The goal was to get a more accurate assessment of the location, amount, condition and quality of artifacts stored in various places in the main building, at W1AW, and the off-site warehouse. Steve Mansfield and Joe Carcia completed a "walk around" inventory early in the year that helped to pinpoint the location of many items. We also purchased an inexpensive database product (PastPerfect, by Altamira Press) to use for establishing and maintaining an inventory (same product used by the Antique Wireless Association). In April we (K1KI N1MZA W1FXQ W1GYR) spent most of a day pulling items out of the 3rd floor, adding records to the database, and packing them more securely (see appendix for a more detailed description). We returned in June to finish packaging up items left from April - and overall we barely made a dent in the total number of items in the attic. A great deal of work remains to be completed.
After the initial inventory there was a short story about the effort on the ARRL web site at:
http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2001/04/19/2/?nc=1
There is no one place where we store historical artifacts. We've had some discussions with management about the use of shelving in the warehouse building to expand the useful working space, and researched what it might cost to rent secure, climate-controlled storage in the local area.
We have identified a small place in the 2nd floor shipping area that can be used as a needed work area and temporary storage location for items being inventoried. Some existing storage has to be moved before this is fully functional.
Overall, we believe there are roughly 5,000 historical artifacts to be inventoried, plus a large number of papers and photographs. This could easily add up to a year's worth of work for one person, even without additional donations.
Contact with other organizations
We've had some interesting contacts with other organizations during the past six months. Ed Gable/K2MP of the Antique Wireless Association (NY) was quite helpful in talking about some of the practical issues and methods for doing an inventory. Dave Hochfelder/N2HTA of the IEEE History Center at Rutgers University (NJ) has experience with the IEEE effort to compile and record their history, and spent time working at the Smithsonian before that. Charles Griffin/W1GYR is a volunteer with the Vintage Radio and Communications Museum (CT) and has helped us with our inventory effort as well as ideas about how we might want to proceed. Jim Maxwell/W6CF has been in touch with the Perham Foundation (CA) as they assess their plans for a technology museum. Al Cohen/W1FXQ has talked with the Newington Historical Society and QCWA in Connecticut about our preliminary work. Jim Maxwell also had some contact with Dick Ross/K2MGA of CQ Magazine about his historical interests, especially in recording oral histories while key pioneers are still alive.
There are a lot of resources and people both willing and interested in helping us to be successful in the inventory and display of our historical artifacts, and we need to utilize them.
W1AW/ARRL as a registered historical landmark
As the follow up to a suggestion received at a club meeting, we've started to research what is involved in getting W1AW designated as a historic landmark. We have received preliminary information from Connecticut Historical Commission and the National Registry for Historic Places. The process doesn't appear too difficult, and it does appear that we should be able to qualify. It would give a big boost to our community and national visibility, and perhaps make it easier to attract donations and grants.
On the surface, getting a historic designation does not appear to have any serious negative consequences (like having an additional process for any changes that we want to make), but we would want to be sure before proceeding. Pending a legal review, we think it would be worthwhile for us to pursue both the state and Federal designations.
Donations
Without any solicitation, we're getting a couple of inquiries about donating or selling historical material to ARRL each month. Because our inventory is incomplete, our vision for what we want to do has not been defined, and our resources for storing and handling donation is minimal, it is difficult to handle donations.
There is a great deal of exceptionally relevant historical material in the hands of people who would like to, or could be convinced to, donate it to the ARRL. We need to complete the inventory so we know what we have and would like to add to our collection, and someone in Newington should be designated as the contact person for managing a potential donation.
Available resources
Today there is no one on the ARRL staff who has a job description that involves handling historical artifacts, though one or two have volunteered their time to help deal with donations. The Historical Committee can not do the actual inventory, nor can it be the contact point for donations.
The Board designated a Fund for the Preservation of Historical Artifacts about 10 years ago, so there are some financial resources available to seed the development of a regular program. There are a number of local volunteers, often with considerable expertise and knowledge about ARRL and Amateur Radio history, that are anxious to help us out. Outside advice and resources are also available from other organizations, like the IEEE History Center.
We recently had some discussions with Trinity College in Hartford, just a few miles from HQ, where they have an American Studies MA program with specialization in museums and archives. After some comparison of interests/opportunities, we agreed that ARRL would make a nice addition to their internship program. A graduate student intern would offer us some expertise in getting started correctly, and we could offer someone the opportunity to get involved in a historical effort from the beginning.
What should we do?
This quote is from Charles Griffin, W1GYR, one of the volunteers that has been helping us, and sums it up quite nicely:
"Knowing what's in storage and on display in the lobby and at W1AW, the items identified in the "Walk Around Inventory" and viewing some of the contents of the attic convinces me the ARRL Historical Committee should seek a place in which to properly display and care of these historical amateur radio items. The space should also be large enough to accommodate future donations. I doubt there is a place in the world with a finer collection than what is owned by the ARRL. I feel ifs very important to preserve this unique and impressive collection. If the ARRL and its membership don't do it, who will?"
Although resources are always difficult to find, the preservation and display of our history is something we must support. There is an incredible richness in the contributions of hams to modern telecommunications, and the story should be told to our own members, to other hams and to the general public. We need to fund an ongoing effort. The initial resources might come from the general budget, from our historical preservation fund, but longer term should be raised through donations and grants.
Recommendations
1) Designate someone at HQ as leader/manager of the effort
This person would spend a significant portion of his/her job working towards the completion of a full inventory, utilizing and managing volunteers as much as possible. The job would also entail developing policies for dealing with donations, and would work with others in Newington to coordination in the storage of artifacts in a safe and secure location. He/she would also work directly with the Development Officer to locate and secure donations and grants for future funding.
2) Complete the inventory
Obviously, it will be difficult to ask for donations or grants until we have an accurate inventory of the items in our collection and they are properly stored.
3) Adopt a vision statement
The historical preservation and display effort should be designated as a key ARRL initiative. Make this project one of those to be adopted by the Development Officer as one project for fund raising and grant writing efforts. The Board should adopt a vision statement about the importance of our history
4) Publish an article in QST about our historical plans
We should have an article in QST about the current effort and future plans to inventory and preserve our history, and to stimulate donations and assistance from volunteers and others (Mansfield, Maxwell, Frenaye have volunteered to write or edit it)
5) Establish a relationship with Trinity College
We should follow though on the invitation to become involved in Trinity College's internship program as part of their Museums and Archives specialty American Studies MA program. Trinity is also a key player in rebuilding Hartford's neighborhoods, and hosted the recent Connecticut State Science Fair (where ARRL supported a ham radio information booth).
6) Historic landmark designation
The ARRL should pursue getting a state and Federal designation for W1AWas a historic landmark, pending review of any restrictions that might place us - such as our ability to make changes to the W1AW building.
7) Extend the Historical Committee
If the previous recommendations are adopted by the Board, the Historical Committee should be extended to provide policy guidance and oversight. It should also be tasked with working to get the donation and grant process underway with the new Development Officer, to examine longer term issues like the creation of a museum or display for our artifacts, and to propose a financial and governance plan for a future museum.
It has been a pleasure working with the other members of the Historical Committee during the past six months. The level of interest and contribution has been quite high, and I'm pleased with the progress we've made.
Historical Committee
Tom Frenaye, K1KI, chairman
Al Cohen, W1FXQ
Steve Mansfield, N1MZA, staff liaison
Jim Maxwell, W6CF
Jim McCobb, W1LLU
17 July 2001
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 00:03:18 -0400
To: "hist-com" <hist-com@reflector.arrl.org>
From: Tom Frenaye <frenaye@pcnet.com>
Subject: [hist-com:77] Saturday inventory
A quick report from the inventory effort on Saturday. We started a bit after 9am - we being Tom/K1KI, Steve/N1MZA, Al/W1FXQ and Charles/W1GYR - and ran out of gas a bit after 2pm.
We decided to start with everything on the table in the middle of the locked "cage" in the attic/penthouse, plus a few items from the shelves around the cage. This seemed to be about 1/15 or 1/20th of everything that was in the cage. Turns out to be 75-100 items, mostly hardware, so the cage holds somewhere in the 1500-2000 item range.
Steve and Charles made several trips up and down the stairs carrying items to the 2nd floor shipping/storage area. The attic was warm but not hot, but everything was quite dusty. Dust masks were used to keep the stuff in the air out of the nose...
A quick tour of things outside the cage showed on set of shelves with another 25-50 pieces of hardware, about 50 cabinet drawers (8.5x11 by 2' deep) full of records, and stacks of other things on the floor. There could be another 2500 items outside the cage, more if you count individual photos. Looks like pre-1975 QST and other publication photos are in several of them but we didn't try to figure out what was in each cabinet. One item casually left on top of one cabinet was a transcript (full transcript, not minutes) of a 1922 Board meeting in NYC chaired by H.P. Maxim. Another was a notebook from 40+ years ago with a handwritten list of 187 items that were in the ARRL collection. Some day that will be useful.
We got a very good idea of the effort needed to do the inventory. We were not well prepared to mark each item and used some temporary labels and item numbers - something we'll have to do over at some point. Every item needs some care - cleaning or packing. We did not take the time to adequately describe all of the items, and many of them could only be generally identified. We found a number of old exhibit cards describing items that were seldom matched up with hardware. Al managed to match a number of them with the hardware.
Charles spent a lot of time looking at some of the paperwork - awards, interesting letters, old equipment manuals - and it appears we'll have a big job trying to inventory and catalog it all. He's also involved with the East Hartford museum and has a good eye for rare items - his "rare" alarm went off many times...
All in all, we added about 50 items to the database, and left another 75 on tables to inventory in a follow-up visit. Digital pictures were taken of about 30 of them. We found that we should have been better prepared to clean items - maybe not a final polish but at least to get the thick dust and dirty off many of them. Other items needed next time included a 25' extension cord, portable lamp or flashlight for the attic, sponge, Q-tips, towels, water, Windex, folders to store documents, boxes and packing material for storage, etc.
As the inventory proceeded it became clear that a one-day effort would only put a small dent in the amount of work to be done. A careful inventory will require someone to clean items, to take the time to mark them with the right materials, assign full accession numbers, enter more detail about the item into the database, pack each item properly, and mark each box so we know which items are inside. It may only be possible for two or three people to do 10 items an hour at best this way... At 50 items a day, we're talking about something in the neighborhood of 100 days worth of work for two people - just to do the inventory. For some items, additional research will be required to understand what the item is and how to catalog it.
The only way we're going to do the right job of cleaning, storing and cataloging things is to get some help. We may be able to do that with some local volunteers but without someone at HQ having some direct responsibility it seems like a job that won't get done. We're going to have to think hard about how we might make that happen. Even if we're able to hook into some grant money or other resources, having a point person seems very important.
We'll schedule a second date to inventory the items we couldn't finish up - maybe April 28 or May 12.
Steve or Al - any additional comments?
-- Tom