CHAS houses manuscript archives (approximately 100 linear feet) and institutional archives (approximately 400 linear feet), both of which contain information pertaining to specimens in the collections. We determined it may be possible to fill in valuable collecting information that is missing from specimen labels in the malacology and entomology collections by researching collectors' field notes and other relevant archive materials.
CHAS archives are in varying states of organization, and few have been digitized to any degree. While the manuscript collection is mostly processed, the institutional archives are much less so. When researching materials that were as yet unprocessed, the technician took just enough time to sort and organize materials relevant to this grant project. These materials will be fully processed and described at a later date.
To stage potentially-relevant materials, project technician @samuelhowes24 pulled archives related to the agent names searched during the bibliography workflow, focusing especially on people, institutions, and expeditions associated with numerous FIC or other low-data specimen records.
As the archive materials are mostly undigitized, it was necessary to go through them by hand. The project technician did a quick visual scan of each item, looking specifically for references to taxa, collecting localities, catalog or accession numbers, and information related to figures or publications. Relevant items were flagged with a red Post-It note on the outside of the appropriate folder, and a record was made in the bibliography spreadsheet detailing the storage location and primary author of the correspondence.
Once the initial flagging was complete, archive materials were assessed on an individual basis as the inventory data was being cleaned. For example, archive material related to Jose F. Quadras was examined in conjunction with cleaning up specimen data from the Philippines, where the bulk of his specimens originated. Likewise, archive material from Frank C. Baker helped to clear up details relating to specimens collected as part of his 1908 Natural History Survey. Both @samuelhowes24 and @ekrimmel worked on integrating relevant content into the inventory dataset.
Not all archive materials were relevant to us at this time, however, the research completed as part of this process is summarized in this document for future discovery and access.