What Is the Impact of Reduced Hours
at the State Archives?
Reduced hours at the Polly Rosenbaum History and Archives Building, which is now open only twenty-four hours each week, are more than just a bureaucratic inconvenience. When historians and students find it difficult to gain access to the State Archives, their research projects can be delayed and sometimes even curtailed.
These two letters, the first by Heidi Osselaer, an adjunct professor at Arizona State University, and the second by Katrina Jagodinsky, a doctoral student at the University of Arizona, describe the very real problems created by the partial closure of the State Archives.
"In today's environment, a project
of this nature could not be conducted."
I am a historian and adjunct faculty member of the history department at Arizona State University, where I received my Ph.D. in 2001. Research for my dissertation on Arizona women in politics (which was recently released in book form by the University of Arizona Press) was conducted at the various archives and historical societies in Arizona, but primarily at the Arizona State Library, Archives & Public Records.
For six months, I spent a minimum of 30 hours a week going through the state's newspapers, legislative files, obituaries, census rolls, and the official proceedings of the state legislature. After the initial period of research, I spent hundreds of additional hours combing through records to finish this project over the course of several years. This was the only way to obtain the material I needed to present the first complete history of Arizona's early female politicians, and the first state study of women politicians in the nation.
In today's environment, a project of this nature could not be conducted. I do not have full time access to the archives, nor can I work with the state's outstanding archival experts on photography, maps, and collections because they are now limited to grant work and cannot help the public. Indeed, as I start my initial research on my next projects, (a state historical atlas and research on aviators and health seekers in Arizona), I simply do not know if I will be able to proceed.
By cutting access to the State Archives and its archival specialists, we lose the ability to research and write Arizona history. Historians have barely made a dent in the long and rich history of our state, and there are gaps in our knowledge. Furthermore, historians who travel to state archives to collect information for national studies are likely to skip our state because the collections are not open long enough at any one time to gather the material needed. If you plan to spend 25 hours collecting material in a state archives, but are limited to only eight hours a week, you can't get it done in one trip. That will mean that Arizona's contributions will be omitted from many national studies.
The staff members at state archives are truly a treasure. My book was dedicated to them because, "historians just write history, archivists keep it." I am looking forward to the day when I can once again work with these amazing people and this important collection at the Polly Rosenbaum State Archives and History Building.
Heidi J. Osselaer, Ph.D.
Faculty Associate,
Arizona State University, Tempe
Author of Winning Their Place: Arizona Women in Politics, 1883-1950
"I may be forced to delay completion
of my Ph.D. for an unknown period of time."
I am an Arizona resident and seeking my Ph.D. in history at the University of Arizona. I have taught classes at Pima Community College for the past three years and for two years at Tohono O'odham Community College prior to that. Currently I am researching a dissertation on Indian women's interactions with territorial Arizona citizens. Roughly 90 percent of the data needed to support my Arizona history dissertation is based in the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records.
I have recently advanced to ABD status, meaning that I am expected to research full time in order to complete my degree within the 2009-2010 academic year; I will enter my fourth year in the PhD program in fall 2009. If I am only able to conduct research at the Arizona State Archives by appointment for four to eight hours a week, I will not be able to finish my dissertation by May 2010. The University of Arizona History Department because of similar budget cuts cannot guarantee me another year of funding after the 2009-2010 academic year. Unless the State Archives hours are expanded, I may be forced to delay completion of my Ph.D. for an unknown period of time, which will dramatically affect my potential income earning potential, which in turn affects my contribution to the Arizona tax base.
My personal dilemma is not the only reason to expand hours at the Arizona State Archives. When you walk through the doors of the Polly Rosenbaum building, the State Library, Archives and Public Records motto greets you: "Preserving Arizona, Providing Access." As the motto suggests, public access to State Archives is a crucial service to taxpayers. State records hold answers to genealogical questions, legislative debates, economic development and transactions, social networks and trends, cultural legacies, and more.
Every time I visit the Archives, I observe the staff assisting long-time Arizona residents looking for references to relatives in newspapers, helping military veterans seek documentation of their service records in order to prove benefit eligibility, working with lawyers researching property claims through old plat books and microfilm. If you do not value my own interest in the historical value of the Archives, certainly you can appreciate the economic and legal importance of their records.
I recommend that state legislators take pride in the Arizona State Archives staff and facilities. Having worked with federal, state, and non-profit archivists throughout Arizona, California, Washington, and British Columbia, I can tell you that the staff at the Arizona State Archives know more about their collection than any other group of archivists I've met. The staff, when fully funded, also worked with me to process documents, allowing me to make extremely efficient use of my trips from Tucson to Phoenix. Now that they are so overstretched, I work on my own, which is far less efficient, and have to share one archivist's expertise with three or four other patrons over the course of four-hour shifts.
The facility should also be a great source of pride. The building features green design, and incorporates natural light into its reading room. Such amenities can make it far more tolerable to read microfilm for eight hours straight, which is exactly what I hope to do when the hours are expanded. Thank you for your time and consideration of my points. It does not occur to me that anyone is opposed to the State Archives' viability, only that among so many budget demands, it may have been easy to overlook the State Archives' value. It is my hope that the funding issue will be redressed, that the staff will be fully restored, and hours fully expanded to a 40-hour week.
Katrina Jagodinsky, M.A.
Ph.D. Candidate in History, University of Arizona, Tucson