[UPBEAT ROCK MUSIC] SHERYL VOGT: of all, I would have to say my interest in working in archives came from assisting my husband, who was writing a book about Portuguese rule on the Gold Coast, which is not a bestseller, as you can imagine. We spent quite a bit of time in Western Europe visiting archives. So to actually have that experience of going into archives and using materials, being a person who had the background in history, it was very, very appealing to me. [TELEVISION, "FRICTION"] CHARLIE BENNETT: You are listening to WREK Atlanta. And this is Lost in the Stacks-- the Research Library Rock 'n' Roll Radio Show. I am Charlie, in the studio with a crew. I've got Ameet, Amanda, Wendy, Fred, Matthew, and Josh. Each week on Lost in the Stacks, we pick a theme and then use it to create a mix of music and library talk. Whichever you're here for, we hope you dig it. AMEET DOSHI: That's right, Charlie, today's show is called "On Record-- Tracing the Lifecycle of Political Archives." Back in episode 427, we talked about presidential libraries and the records housed within or moving forward without. FRED RASCOE: That's right, the ins and outs of executive records are complicated. CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, wait a minute. This is another archivist takeover show, isn't it? WENDY HAGENMAIER: Maybe. CHARLIE BENNETT: [GROANS] WENDY HAGENMAIER: Definitely. CHARLIE BENNETT: I thought so. WENDY HAGENMAIER: It was inevitable. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, it was. WENDY HAGENMAIER: So let's just go with it. CHARLIE BENNETT: Bring it on, archivists. AMANDA PELLERIN: On today's show, we'll talk about the other political records out there and where they end up. State, local, and national representatives create a lot of information that's important for understanding public policy and the decisions of elected officials. Wendy and I spoke to Sheryl Vogt, Director of the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies at the University of Georgia Libraries, about her career and the value of political collections. FRED RASCOE: If you want to join this conversation, the hashtag for the show is LITS445 for Lost in the Stacks, episode 445. Feel free to tweet your thoughts, questions or congressional papers conundrums with that hashtag. AMEET DOSHI: And our songs today are about trust, relationships, (SINGING) Georgia, and burning stuff. CHARLIE BENNETT: Whoa, that's a little dangerous for the studio, don't you think? AMEET DOSHI: You know, Charlie, that archivists are troublemakers. CHARLIE BENNETT: I taught you that. AMEET DOSHI: But the good kind of troublemakers. So let's start with Trouble Maker by Chrissy Zebby Tembo and Ngozi Family right here on Lost in the Stacks. [CHRISSY ZEBBY TEMBO & NGOZI FAMILY, "TROUBLE MAKER"] (SINGING) Trouble maker WENDY HAGENMAIER: That was Trouble Maker by Chrissy Zebby Tembo and Ngozi Family. Today's show is called "On Record-- Tracing the Lifecycle of Political Archives." My archivist colleague Amanda and I interviewed Sheryl Vogt, Director of the Russell Library for Political Research and Studies at the University of Georgia. We began by asking Sheryl how she got started working with political collections. SHERYL VOGT: So for me, living in Athens, this was in the early '70s-- or mid-70s, rather. Senator Russell's papers had recently been given to the University Libraries. And so they were opening up the Russell Library, which was a Department of the University Libraries. And so I was looking for a job there. And so that's how I got into political papers, was by getting a job in the Russell Library. AMANDA PELLERIN: Who are the main consumers of the political records at the Russell Library? SHERYL VOGT: Well, interestingly, because we've done so much in recent years reaching out to professors and classes on campus, 60% of our users are students here at UGA. And then aside from that, we have scholars from around the world and independent researchers. AMANDA PELLERIN: And the scholars that come from around the world, what are their topics that they're looking at? SHERYL VOGT: Well, interestingly, one of our favorite scholars-- we all have our favorites in archives, we have our favorite users-- is a person who teaches American Studies in Australia. And he has done a book on the declining textile industry in the Southeast. So that was an opportunity to come to our collections and use many of our congressional collections from the period of time that textiles were declining in the Southeast. So he used probably a dozen or more of our collections just for that one subject. So you can see these kinds of topics. Anything that has to do with public policy would bring someone to our repository. So it's not just politics, running for office, it's more once someone is in office, the kind of policy changes that they may be involved in and things that people in Georgia are interested in having changed in government. AMANDA PELLERIN: Can you speak about your involvement in the Association of Centers for the Study of Congress? How do you collaborate with other political archives to connect researchers to the information that they need? SHERYL VOGT: Well, the Association of Centers for the Study of Congress has only been around since 2003, but it came out of a need for people who are involved in working with political records, and especially congressional papers, to come together and share their information of what was going on to work for the betterment of the records that we keep. I would say the most challenging thing for all of us is to have people working in Congress who are elected to Congress to understand the value of their records. That's been quite an educational challenge for us to get them on board with, their papers are important. It's part of our history that we should be saving. So this organization has about 75 congressional repositories across the nation. We hope there will be one in each state, but sometimes there might be two or more repositories in a state that have congressional records. Some will join the association, but not all of them. It depends on how connected they are to the larger picture of congressional papers and political papers nationally, if they've been involved nationally with the people who operate those repositories so that they will be connected with what's happening in that area. I've been involved since 2003. And I was president for two terms. And so it's an organization I feel very strongly about, especially for people who have congressional papers and political papers. Because many people who go into Congress started out in their state working the state legislature or holding some other political office. And as a matter of fact, at each of our annual meetings, we try to have members of Congress come and talk. Maybe if they've given their records already, we ask them to come in and talk about what their experience was so we can learn from their experience how we can better serve them and how we can really work to encourage others to give their papers as well. And it's amazing how many said, "oh, if I'd only known this when I was first elected." And we were like, when you were first elected, you didn't want to hear about placing your papers. That's a constant challenge we have. You just got elected to office and you want to get on with whatever your platform is and make changes, and so someone comes in and starts talking about placing your papers, it sounds like the grim reaper has arrived at your door. So really that's a constant challenge we have. But it's so important to get in early into these offices so we can start working with whoever's handling the electronic records to be sure we're going to be able to transfer that information to the repository when the time comes. And just knowing how they do the record keeping in the office and make sure that they do good record keeping in the office. Because the better record keeping they do, then the better collection we're going to have at the end. WENDY HAGENMAIER: Can you tell us a little bit more about your roles on the Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress, as well as the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council? SHERYL VOGT: The Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress began around 1990, to really increase attention to the status and the use of the official records of the House and the Senate, as well as the personal papers of the members of Congress. Each six years, the committee puts out a report, and it's to inform Congress and the public what progress has been made with the challenges that we have in preserving those records. The last report was done in 2018, which was our sixth report. And we've come a long, long way, especially to providing better access to records and ensuring that the electronic records of the Center for Legislative Archives are cared for and preserved. Now they will be working on how can they best make those records available for research. They're already doing some of that. But they have certainly improved their description of congressional records, which is one thing we have really worked on. And just to even get them onto a content management system like Archivist toolkit was a major accomplishment. Because you're dealing with three entities there, the National Archives, the House, and the Senate. And to get them all to come together in agreement is quite an adventure in itself. So we have really made good progress, especially, probably in the last 10 years, I would say, we've made a tremendous step forward. As far as the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council is concerned. That is an entity that came into effect, I guess it was around 1993. National Historical Publications and Records Commission has an entity in each state through which they can grant funds for helping to preserve records. So these boards in each state can then give subgrants to entities, such as historical repositories, local government records centers, and even private historical societies. We can do subgrants, and that's to preserve the records of Georgia history. So that is something that people in Georgia really need to be aware of. We're constantly trying to get the word out that GHRAC exists, and that it can bring federal money into the state to help preserve our records and make them available. AMANDA PELLERIN: Is there a specific grant that GHRAC has given to any political papers that stands out in your mind? SHERYL VOGT: Yes. And I'll have to say, the Russell Library benefited a little bit from this because the Vienna Georgia Preservation Commission had papers of Walter George, former US Senator, Walter George, who was one of our leading senators. These were papers that we really thought had been lost. And we had also been told that he actually burned some of his papers. He didn't feel like everyone needed to know what people were asking him for. So this was just sort of his idea. This is one thing about politicians or probably any donor, and how they perceive they want their papers to be used or perhaps not used. We didn't think many of these papers existed still, although there was a small museum in Vienna. That commission came to us asking for a subgrant. They wanted to scan the papers and have them digitized. And so they did that. And then after that, they decided that they would like to place them in a repository, the originals in a repository. Because they have nowhere in Vienna to keep these records and preserve them. So we were able to get those records for the Russell Library. And I hope that eventually there will be a project between the Russell Library and the Vienna Preservation Commission to make those records available via digital library of Georgia to a much larger audience. AMANDA PELLERIN: It's interesting. It seems a lot of times that's a common story, of papers being destroyed through the creator burning them, political papers specifically. SHERYL VOGT: Right, right. And I think a lot of that is that it wasn't really until the early '70s that people really became aware of preserving these papers or trying to preserve these papers. It was sort of a movement to preserve these papers. I think that was as we were approaching the bicentennial of Congress, that became even more evident that this was something we needed to do. I think papers that ended up in repositories before then, it was just happenstance. Perhaps it was an archivist or a librarian who had a good sense of history and felt these papers really should be in a repository for research. But there has not really been any sort of attempt to educate those who created the papers of the value of the papers. And I can't say that we've done the job we should have done yet. But we have, at least, in 2008, there was a joint resolution in Congress to encourage members to preserve their papers. So to even get to that point that we could get that before Congress and that that resolution was passed to encourage that was a major, major accomplishment. AMANDA PELLERIN: This is Lost in the Stacks. And we'll be back with more about political records after a music set. JOSH: File this set under "Rbrl-ooz-rblsr". [RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, "BULLS ON PARADE"] [HATE FROM IGNORANCE, "THROUGH POSTERITY"] ABBY: You just heard Through Posterity by Hate from Ignorance. And before that was Bulls on Parade by Rage Against the Machine. And those were songs about political action and burning stuff. [TELEVISION, "FRICTION"] AMANDA PELLERIN: This is Lost in the Stacks. And our guest today is Sheryl Vogt, Director of the Russell Library for Political Research and Studies at the University of Georgia. We asked Sheryl for her thoughts on what qualifies something as a political record. SHERYL VOGT: So a political record, I would say that we do have some guidance for that. The Office of the Senate Historian back in the early '90s-- and this was following on the Bicentennial of Congress-- called together a committee with members who were involved with congressional papers across the nation to work on a documentation of Congress. In doing that documentation of Congress, we were looking at Congress in the broadest sense. And that meant also looking at political papers in the broadest sense of where they intersected throughout government and in everyday life. That would be a say, if someone was in Congress and we were documenting their career, we would be looking at their being elected, running for office. We would also be looking, once they were in office, we'd be looking at the kind of papers that would be generated just in legislative activity, which is driven by public interest, informs public policy. And also then there are those who observe the activities of Congress. So we're also interested in getting the papers of journalists who watch Congress and report on Congress or report on public policy, also looking at people who want to persuade public policy, who want to make changes in government. So it could be a grassroots organization. Or it could be a more official organization, such as the papers of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party of Georgia. Then also looking where public policy comes into play in judicial activities. So we're also interested in judicial papers, especially where there have been cases that in some way changed the law and in some way made a statement about our society. So those are papers that we would also be interested in. AMANDA PELLERIN: Is there a statutory framework for US and state representatives records that they create during their time in office? SHERYL VOGT: There was a law in the early '70s that state archives was able to get passed in the Georgia General Assembly. And that was that the official records of the governor and the five constitutional officers were to be placed in State Archives. So in Georgia, I think that's the only thing we've had as a framework for where papers should go. State Archives has traditionally not been interested in other papers than the official papers. So where we have come in and filled a gap is that many governors held office before they became governor. They most likely were in the General Assembly or in some other political office. And we are very interested in those papers because to totally ignore them, we're losing a lot of Georgia history. So there could be official records at state archives of a governor, but then we may have his papers from his campaign, maybe papers from his time in the Georgia General Assembly. Sometimes we might even have business records. Because often business people will go into politics to change some policy that affects their business. And so often that's what drives public policy quite often. So those are the kinds of papers we have. In the national realm, the official records of the House and Senate go to National Archives, and those are the committee records. So we would not collect committee records here at the Russell Library. But the members of Congress, their papers or their private papers, those are the papers, they generally take their papers home with them when they leave office. So those are the papers we would be collecting here. WENDY HAGENMAIER: So it seems like sometimes there's a general impression that all government papers/records belong to the public. But I know there's a lot more nuance there, right? Is there any legislation that would make it easier to be an archivist of political records? Is there anything that in the official workflows for these records, that would make archiving them easier? SHERYL VOGT: Well, I guess if there were, it would have to come from Congress itself, perhaps to say that the private papers of members must be put in a repository in their state for preservation and access by the public. Then that would make it, number one, easier to collect these papers, and then also to make them available in a sense. So I don't know how much more we could do than that to make it easier, in a sense. Because it seems that our greatest challenges are getting people to understand the value of these collections and to have them placed in a repository in their state that can work with the papers, is aware of issues regarding the papers, and can make them available for research. AMANDA PELLERIN: What role do/does and/or have political papers played in keeping the public informed about their elected officials and public policies? And how does that interact within a democratic society? SHERYL VOGT: I would say that in terms of a role in keeping the public informed, it really depends on how proactive we are as a repository in helping make that information available. I think those scholars who are already in this field, they are very aware of that. They come in and they know what they're looking for and what they're going to write. And that will inform the public in some way. I think the general person on the street, not so much. It's going to be more what we as a repository do to bring that information out into programming, exhibits, and other outreach measures that we take. One thing we've been really interested in doing more is working with Kettering Foundation to have deliberative dialogue in which people can really express their opinion and not be in fear that they're going to be diminished in some way so that we can sit down as equals and have a conversation, even if we disagree, to try to work out something for the common good. So we have done a lot in the Association of Centers for the Study of Congress. We had a project with Kettering to put forth our own issue guide about how can we get work done even when we disagree. And we've even provided training for representatives of our members. And so they have been able to take that back to their repository and put it into their programming to have these kinds of deliberative discussions. So it's not only just what the one issue guide we did, but we can also tap into the national issues forums and bring really challenging issues to our campuses, our communities, where people can sit in an environment that they don't feel threatened and actually have decent conversations with each other. So that is part of our programming. I think that sort of keeps the public informed about, we really have a representative democracy. It's a really good form of government when it works right. And it's up to us to ensure that that continues to happen for future generations. So I would say that literacy, civic literacy has become quite a topic in our community of congressional repositories and political repositories. And so more and more repositories are looking at ways they can bring that into their outreach with the community. So that is what we've been trying to do to fulfill that. I think that most people working in this field have a sense that this is part of what they should be doing as repositories that hold these papers. CHARLIE BENNETT: We'll be back with more from Sheryl about public policy collections on the left side of the hour. [THE RED STICK RAMBLERS, "TES PARENTS NE VEULENT PLUS ME VOIR"] EIRA TANSEY: This is Eira Tansey, trouble-making archivist. You're listening to Lost in the Stacks on WREK Atlanta. I think I'm good. WENDY HAGENMAIER: Classic. CHARLIE BENNETT: Today's Lost in the Stacks is called "On Record." And we are tracing the lifecycle of political archives. FDR signed into law the act creating the National Archives and Records Administration, which was tasked with collecting, preserving, and providing access to the official records of the US government. He also set the foundations for the presidential library system. FDR valued the preservation of public records to provide insights on contemporaneous events to future generations. From his 1941 speech at the dedication of the Roosevelt Presidential Library at Hyde Park, he opened the ceremony with these thoughts. I will not be doing an impression, everyone. "To bring together the records of the past and to house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men living in the future, a nation must believe in three things. It must believe in the past. It must believe in the future. It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgment for the creation of the future." So while you chew on that, we will file this set under E748.R944 W66. [SHIMMERTRAPS, "ALL WE ARE IS SO CLOSE"] [ETTA JAMES, "TRUST IN ME"] (SINGING) Trust in me. Yeah, yeah JOSH: You just heard. Trust In Me by Etta James. Before that was All We Are is So Close by the Shimmertraps. Those were songs about trust and building relationships. [TELEVISION, "FRICTION"] AMANDA PELLERIN: Our show today is called "On Record." And we're talking with Sheryl Vogt from the Russell Library for Political Research and Studies at the University of Georgia. We asked Sheryl if she noticed an uptick in interest in the Russell Library's collections recently, with all of the discussions about fake news and the prominent role of politics in our cultural conversations. SHERYL VOGT: I think that what has really made for more interest in our collections is we didn't just stop with Senator Russell's papers. That was our core collection. That's the reason this library existed was that the university got his collection. This is how a lot of these congressional repositories across the nation started. But I think that when we made the decision that we were not going to be a memorial to one person, we were really going to honor his legacy of public service, that now we have nearly 500 collections and over 1,000 oral histories where we are really documenting Georgia political history and public policy. That draws in more and more people every year because of the breadth, the broadest spectrum that we have in documenting in this area. We have a special collections faculty fellows program. We give a stipend to faculty to come in and work with our archivists and special collections and find materials that they will then incorporate into their curriculum in the following fall. And they bring their students in to use the records here. So that certainly has helped increase our number of student use to actually be like 60% of our use. So being proactive in that way, I think has really helped increase use in these papers. And as part of our just making people aware of the value of these papers, I think most people think, oh, political papers, what could that be? And don't really see that there's really a greater depth to these collections with the public policy aspects of them, what really touches us in our daily lives. WENDY HAGENMAIER: How have electronic communication methods changed the collection practices for political records, political papers? What's foremost on your mind about the challenges surrounding transitions to electronic communication, electronic records? SHERYL VOGT: Electronic records have been on our minds since the early '90s, and then especially when we started getting in collections with electronic records at that time, just even in our own profession, finding people who wanted to work with electronic records. And I think, initially it seemed the person I would hire to work with electronic records was really more interested in digital collections and putting digital collections online for use, something not quite so dry as someone's correspondence and things of that nature that you would just be preserving and making it available for access, for research access, not really necessarily telling a story like a digital collection might. But I think that has been part of the profession having to make progress in this area as well, getting people who are more expert in working with electronic records and providing access. Aside from that, just in the born digital records themselves, the software in the House and Senate is proprietary. And so we can get a download on that. But when it comes to us, then we still have to work with it to make it available for research. We're not always able to access everything that we need to access in it and then make it where it can be used electronically. So we have been working with the Senate and House, and with others in the Senate and House to try to make contact with these companies to see if they can do something philanthropic, like provide for the repositories to have access. So we are getting more data output now than we have in the past. It's still not perfect. We've even tried to do something. A couple of our repositories have been working on a separate project that's through a grant project they did to try to provide some kind of program that we could all take and then use to really access these materials. So this has been a constant problem or challenge for us. It wasn't until about three years ago or four years ago that we made access to our first electronic records for someone coming in to do research, that we were able to actually provide access in the reading room. So that has been one of our major challenges. And it still is not resolved yet. Because now we have issues with email. And quite frankly, Congress members and staff are very conscious about their email. So you say email, and it's almost like an automatic, well, I don't know that we're going to give you email. And so then we have to start making cases for giving us email and why it's important. Now we don't get the record notes or memos or things like that that we would have in older collections. So a lot of history is going to be lost if we can't have access to emails. So it's another part of the educating process of why the email is important, how it shows how the office works. And just some of the information that goes back and forth in an office, it's most likely it's an email now, as opposed to how it would have been in the past. So those are some of the things that we're really having to grapple with. And I would say that that's probably true of almost any repository working with political papers. It's all a matter of trust. If you can make that trust, then they're going to pretty much go with what you recommend. But if they don't know you well, then it's going to take quite a bit of time for that trust to come forward. So it's really important that we try to work with these offices early on, that the staff becomes used to seeing us. Eventually we might have entree to the member so we can start trying to build trust there. I just recently signed with one of our members of our delegation. And he was going to sign it, but then he said, well, is there anything in here I need to worry about, you know? And I thought, no, your staff has looked this over pretty closely. You're going to be fine. So it's getting to that point where he was just like, well, I'm going to sign this because you're here with me. And I trust you, and this is going to be fine. And it's great when you have those kinds of situations. But then there are other times you don't. You have to really work for someone to understand what they are signing over and what it's going to mean to them and what it's going to mean to history. We're really working now on something we've always wanted to do, and that was to have the underrepresented in our collections, not just in those people who are writing in as constituents, perhaps-- and of course, the underrepresented don't usually write in as constituents. But we now just have a project with GALEO to get the papers of Latin American people involved in community and public service and so on, who are really making a contribution to Georgia history and have been for some time. So this diversity and inclusion in our collections, and political papers that really should be a major concern for all of us holding political papers. It should be also what is affecting our government and who is also having a say in our government as citizens. AMANDA PELLERIN: Thank you so much for talking to us today. SHERYL VOGT: Thank you, I enjoyed it. I was honored to be asked. AMEET DOSHI: This is Lost in the Stacks. Our guest today is Sheryl Vogt, Director of the Russell Library for Political Research and Studies at the University of Georgia. [TELEVISION, "FRICTION"] CHARLIE BENNETT: File this set under CD 3181.P5. [BILLY JOE SHAVER, "I BEEN TO GEORGIA ON A FAST TRAIN"] [THE SPIRIT OF ATLANTA, "BUTTERMILK BOTTOM"] (SINGING) I tell you, they all try to get over At the Buttermilk Bottom, yeah ABBY: You just heard Buttermilk Bottom by The Spirit of Atlanta. Before that was, I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train by Billy Joe Shaver. Those were songs that preserve memories of lives and places of Georgia. [TELEVISION, "FRICTION"] AMEET DOSHI: Today's show is called "On Record-- Tracing the Lifecycle of Political Archives." AMANDA PELLERIN: We talked about how political collections offer opportunities for researching all kinds of questions related to public policy, economic development, and social impact. FRED RASCOE: And we explored the way archivists are working together to advocate for the preservation of and access to political collections, even where there are no laws requiring that the collections be kept for history. WENDY HAGENMAIER: As Sheryl said, it's all a matter of trust. Trust your archivists, folks. CHARLIE BENNETT: And with that, roll those credits. [MUSIC PLAYING] JOSH: Lost in the Stacks is a collaboration between WREK Atlanta and the Georgia Tech Library, produced by Charlie Bennett, Ameet Doshi, Wendy Hagenmaier, and Fred Rascoe. Today's show was also produced by Amanda Pellerin. Archivist gang, rise up! FRED RASCOE: Right on! WENDY HAGENMAIER: Woo! FRED RASCOE: "RBR SBR" was our engineer today. I'm just kidding. It was Josh. Josh was our engineer today. And the show was brought to you in part by the Library Collective and their social and professional network, League of Awesome Librarians. Find out more about them at thelibrarycollective.org. WENDY HAGENMAIER: Legal counsel and well-preserved congressional email accounts were provided by the Burrus Intellectual Property Law Group in Atlanta, Georgia. Special thanks to Sheryl for being on the show and for advocating for the historical value of political papers. And thanks, as always, to each and every one of you for listening. Find us online at lostinthestacks.org. And you can subscribe to our podcast pretty much anywhere you get your audio fixed. CHARLIE BENNETT: Next week on Lost in the Stacks, we're going to do some investing in open. AMEET DOSHI: Nice. It's time for our last song today. As we've learned, preservation of government records brings up issues of trust, like who do we trust to own government records? CHARLIE BENNETT: Nobody. AMEET DOSHI: Who gets to decide what happens to the documents that went into creating our public policy? CHARLIE BENNETT: Troublemakers, mostly. AMEET DOSHI: Archivists are working to make sure these documents are preserved and accessible by the public, and not just owned and controlled by the powerful people who created them. Our guest, Sheryl Vogt, is one of those trusted archivists. And she requested this next song. So this goes out to Sheryl. It's You Don't Own Me by Lesley Gore. Classic, here on Lost in the Stacks. Have a great weekend, everybody. [LESLEY GORE, "YOU DON'T OWN ME"]