Society of California Archivists 2018 Meeting in Yosemite

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We will be out of the office for most of this week, April 11-13, for the Annual General Meeting of the Society of California Archivists (SCA). We are all very excited to be meeting in Yosemite this year, at the Tenaya Lodge in Fish Camp, right outside the south entrance of the park.

In addition to the very educational workshops and sessions that are a part of all SCA annual meetings, many of which highlight the location of the conference, SCA is hosting an Archives Crawl of institutions inside and outside the park, including: University of the Pacific, University of California, Merced, Yosemite National Park Archives, and the Yosemite National Park Library and Museum.

Woman on horseback, Yosemite, 1908?. From The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/tf1x0nb372/

Other highlights include SCA’s award luncheon speaker Steve Bumgardner, a natural history filmmaker who is otherwise known as “Yosemite Steve”, and a very special dinner plenary featuring National Public Radio’s producers The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva), who are about to produce a new radio and podcast series, “The Keepers”, which is fittingly described as “stories of activist archivists, rogue librarians, curators, collectors and historians.” Oh, and I’m really looking forward to the flashlight hike as well!

We’re looking forward to this short archival interlude, and will be back in the archives bright and early on Monday, April 16. See you then.

New Sites in the UCSF Web-Archive

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As discussed previously here, we’ve been working on expanding our web-archives presence in all areas across campus, and one of the developments we’re most excited about is getting the web-archiving process formalized in centralized UCSF workflow for upgrading websites or retiring abandoned ones. Now that we have been successful in establishing this program, archiving a site is an official part of the website roll over or retirement process, which means we have a much better finger on the pulse of the UCSF web presence.

And as this process ramps up, we’ve been adding all sorts of fascinating UCSF websites to our collections, so we wanted to highlight a few recent acquisitions.

First is a complete copy of the website for the W. M. Keck Center for Noncoding RNAs, which is scheduled to be rolled over to a new platform soon. The Keck Center explores the 98.6% of the human genome which is “non-coding,” or which is not the part of the genome directly containing the code to create proteins. Since, in their words, most genetic research focuses on the protein-encoding genes — those genes whose purpose is clear — the area of non-coding RNA can be thought of as “genetic dark matter.” Even though the purpose of this generic material is not clear, it still influences human health, and it is the mission of the Keck Center to figure out how.

screen shot of the homepage of the W.M. Keck Center for Non-Coding RNAs

Homepage of the archived version of the W.M. Keck Center website.

The lab uses mice in their process, modifying mouse stem cells and using mouse genes to examine the function of these non-coding RNAs. And conveniently, their lab website contains all the raw genetic data, as well as the experiment plans, images, and other associated data for these experiments. We’re excited about this capture because we were able to collect all this data at once and provide a snapshot of the lab’s work — complete with all the associated research materials. This is a huge help in tackling the problem of historic preservation of contemporary scientific work, and it even begins to address the very present problems of reproducibility in data-intensive and computing-intensive scientific research.

Additionally, another web-site which we have recently captured illustrates the value of curating a selection of the UCSF institutional ecosystem all together. This is the site of the UCSF Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Say, for example, that in examining the archived site of the Keck center, you also wondered what the legal treatment protocols and procedures were at the time for scientific research involving animal subjects, and whether or not the Keck center was following those protocols. With a little clicking around on the Wayback Machine you would be able to quickly answer that question, and would have a clear picture of where the Keck center’s research fit into the larger legal and ethical questions on campus and in the scientific community about proper treatment of and care for the animals used in research.

screen shot of the homepage of the UCSF Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee

Homepage of the archived version of the UCSF Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

We look forward to continuing to build and enrich our web-archive collections, and remember that if you have a suggestion you can always request that we begin capturing your UCSF site!

 

Processing the John Greenspan Papers

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As part of our current National Archives NHPRC grant, “Evolution of San Francisco’s Response to a Public Health Crisis: Providing Access to New AIDS History Collections,” we’ve been processing the papers of John S. Greenspan. Greenspan served as the founding Director of the UCSF Oral AIDS Center and the UCSF AIDS Specimen Bank. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Oral Pathology in the Department of Orofacial Sciences and the former Associate Dean for Global Oral Health in the School of Dentistry at UCSF along with Director-Emeritus of the campuswide AIDS Research Institute at UCSF.

John S. Greenspan and Deborah Greenspan. Photograph by David Powers. AR 2015-31, carton 2.

Greenspan’s work has played a major role in HIV research and care. He and his longtime collaborator and wife Deborah Greenspan, BDS, DSc, discovered the lesion hairy leukoplakia and determined the significance of this and other oral lesions in HIV/AIDS. He has published and lectured widely on the oral aspects of AIDS, oral pathology, and immunopathology.

Photographs of the Second International Workshop on the Oral Manifestations of HIV Infection, 1993. Greenspan papers, MSS 2016-14.

Greenspan’s research interests include the global health aspects of AIDS and his professional service reflects this. He has served as President of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR) and the International Association for Dental Research (IADR). He is the founding President of the IADR Global Oral Health Inequalities Research Network (IADR-GOHIRN) and of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health’s Global Oral Health Interest Group (GOHIG).

Conference programs. Greenspan papers, MSS 2016-14.

Greenspan’s papers include records of his research and work developing the Oral AIDS Center and the AIDS Specimen Bank. They also include material related to his teaching and service in professional organizations, including AADR and IADR. Greenspan’s papers feature correspondence with members of his global network of researchers and healthcare providers and records of the various national and international conferences and meetings of which he was a part. The collection includes some unique types of material, including audiovisual recordings, glass microscope slides, health science instruments, and conference posters and photographs of events.

Dissection instruments. Greenspan papers, MSS 2016-14.

At the conclusion of the Greenspan processing project, a detailed finding aid will be available to researchers online and a small portion of the collection will be digitized and made available on Calisphere.

E-Cigarette Marketing Web Archive: Capturing Trends in Advertising

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The UCSF Industry Documents Library (IDL) is a division of the UCSF Archives.

The ‘UCSF E-Cigarette Web Archive’ is a resource created to assist researchers and the public in understanding the history of e-cigarette marketing on the Internet.

Home page of the E-cigarette marketing web archive

The UCSF Industry Documents Library primarily collects internal documents from industries and corporations that attempt to influence policy and regulations meant to protect public health.  In addition to our IDL holdings in tobacco, drug, and chemical industries, we capture and preserve websites and online multimedia resources that further demonstrate the actions of these large industries.  The rise of vaping and e-cigarette use over the last 10 years has undone some of the gains in tobacco control and youth smoking prevention won by the public health community.  The marketing tactics and messaging of the e-cigarette companies mirror that of the tobacco industry 20 years ago and the IDL is attempting to capture and preserve these campaigns for future research and analysis.

The UCSF E-Cigarette Marketing Web Archive utilizes the Archive-It service to crawl and preserve designated websites at selected points in time. The preserved sites range from major e-cigarette company websites, e-cigarette trade associations and advocacy groups, to forums and social media such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Preserving sites over a number of years allows researchers to see trends in advertising campaigns and marketing.  For instance, in 2014, Blu was urging users to Take Back your Freedom but in 2017, authenticity was the key with e-cigarettes helping you “Be Who you Truly Are”.

These web archives provide an historical perspective on the evolution of e-cigarette marketing and continued captures will hopefully preserve the industry’s shifts in language, imagery and tactics before and after any possible regulatory actions by jurisdictions.

 

UC 150th Anniversary Highlight: Jay Levy

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This is a guest post by Edith Martinez, UCSF Archives Volunteer.

The University of California is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. Over the 150 years, the UC campuses have accomplished great things that have changed California and the world for the better. To commemorate the anniversary, a 150 year timeline has been created that features the history and accomplishments of the UC and its students, faculty, and staff.

One of the accomplishments that stood out to me was that of UCSF’s Jay Levy. Jay Levy, virologist and immunologist, became the third independent discoverer of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS. Levy received a request for advice about a patient with rare skin cancer lesions which led him to research the virus. His work led to better treatments for the disease and he has dedicated his career to further understanding HIV/AIDS.

Jay Levy

UCSF remains at the center of HIV/AIDS research and patient care. As a volunteer with the UCSF Archives, I am working on the NHPRC-funded grant, Evolution of San Francisco’s Response to a Public Health Crisis: Providing Access to New AIDS History Collections, an expansion of the AIDS History Project. I have learned the important role that UCSF has played in research and treatment and will continue to play in finding the cure for AIDS.