Meeting with Mimi Bowling and Martha Foley, Independent Archivists, April 8, 2015

Here at the LREI Archives we are moving forward this month by looking at the range of consultant(s) we could hire for this project, if any.  Consultants cost money, but would probably also save us money in the long run by advising us about best practices and big ideas.

It seems that the world of independent archivists is a small one.  On April 8, LJ, Ryann,trustee/parent Tim Merjos ’80, and Alumni Relations Associate Violeta Picayo ’09 met with Mimi Bowling and Martha Foley, two independent archivists, about the possibility of consulting on the LREI archives.  Mimi was my professor when I studied archives for my MS in Library and Information Science and Martha, her associate, turns out the be the person who consulted with LREI about 15 years ago and organized a good chunk of our archives, so she is very familiar with our collection.

Mimi and Martha toured our collection, visiting the lower school basement closet, the off-site storage space, and the archives room at the high school.  They will get back to us with a proposal and rates shortly.

We also received a proposal from History Associates, a historical research company based in Maryland. They are a large company with a huge staff of archivists, records managers, and historians that work with a long list of companies and nonprofits to build and shape their institutional histories.

The benefit of working with a large company such as History Associates is that they are able to consult in a wide range of areas, from archival services, digitization, records management to exhibition design and interpretive planning. The drawbacks are that they are expensive and that they are not based in New York City, so someone would have to travel from Maryland to work with us.

Mimi and Martha, on the other hand, are local and are familiar with LREI. Working with independent archivists also gives the flexibility to change course as we go along the archiving process, as much of the work will be billed on a day-rate rather than an overarching contract.  Mimi and Martha would also be able to recommend people to work with us in areas such as digitization and exhibition design that fall outside their sphere of expertise.

Finally, Ryann approached The Winthrop Group, another large archiving company based in New York City, whose clients include Trinity School, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, and Poly Prep Country Day School, as well as many universities.  She has not yet heard back from them with a proposal.

So there you have it. The world of archivists as we have seen it thus far.  It is now up to us to choose the person or company that is the best fit for LREI!