I'm chiming in very late on the white gloves controversy, since it is
an annoyance I will be dealing with daily for the next year.
Virtually every archive where I work in Mexico requires not just
gloves (cotton or latex) but a surgical mask as well. (Not quite sure
what that's supposed to do, except provide protection from drooling
mouth-breathers). Setting aside the perennial lack of soap and paper
towels in the bathrooms (in an archive that boasts of recent
multi-million peso state-of-the-art renovations), the conservator's
concerns don't seem to extend to the book easels that are a terror to
binding structures. The latest victim to this fetish is the National
Archive of Mexico, who only began the requirement within the last
year or so. This is more than a rant, since it concerns me very much,
and I want to find some way to broach the topic with my historian
colleagues.
As part of my pre-dissertation course work, I took a research methods
class offered in the English department. One day was spent with a
conservator who went over the proper care and handling of books and
documents, oriented towards the user. While some of my colleagues
complain about not getting an "orientation to the archives", by which
they generally mean training in paleography, how to understand
archives' structures and different types of finding aids, all
together too many need remedial training in the physical handling of
materials. Some days I leave an archive feeling, quite literally,
sick to my stomach.
(The worst horror story comes from Spain: a well-published senior
historian would arrive at the archive every morning. He would
gleefully lick his index finger and literally "rip" through a legajo
of 16th century documents. When he was finished, he would beat the
stack of documents against the desk to "shake loose the dust", then
happily point out the debris to his colleague. Then he would do it
again, and again, and again. What can I do, considering he had coffee
with the reading room attendant every day?)
For myself, I'm taking the example of an excellent teacher with
tremendous respect for his students and special collections
materials, and will include a day with a conservator in every one of
the classes I offer. I suppose I'm asking for suggestions on how to
gently broach this topic to a parallel list for historians, most of
whom probably think they're doing just fine and would resent the
suggestion that they are not.