 Hey, we're back in the studio here at Davis Media Access for another episode of In the Studio. I'm your host, Autumn Laberino, and today I have with me some folks from the Friends of the Yolo County Archives. With me today are Anastasia Panigakos, who's the chair of the Friends, and Ryan Baum, who serves as secretary. And welcome to you both. Well, Autumn, thank you for having us, Ryan, for that pleasure. So I told you earlier, I asked a couple of folks, when you think of archives, what do you think of? That replies like dusty boxes, really old stuff. Okay, so I think there's this common perception about what archives are, and you're here to tell us really, you know, what they encompass. Ryan, you made a very interesting comment that Yolo County is one of the few counties to sponsor an archives. Can you say a bit more about that? Yes. Yolo County is one of the few California counties that actually has a county sponsored archives. Although it sits within the greater library system, it is independent and dedicated, and it's really our direct connection to our county history back to its founding in 1850. So in other areas, other counties, I imagine that it's largely a volunteer run project, if an archive exists at all. And then it's not so well integrated into the rest of the county government system. Yes, or it may just be a special collection in one of their libraries as opposed to a dedicated staff that's there as a resource to help researchers and maintain our history. Right. Well, let's talk about the archives for a second and the staff. I've met Heather Lankto, who's the, is Executive Director of her title? Her title is Archives and Records Center Coordinator. Okay, she's that, yes. And I'm not familiar with exactly how the archives is staffed. I understand the role of a friends of group to, you know, fundraise to boost awareness. So tell us a little bit about the staffing and then we'll move into what the friends do. Sure. So the archives itself is located up in Woodland on Buckeye Street, and it is pretty much the repository for all county historical documents and those kinds of things. And when it comes to staffing, Heather is sort of the main person who runs the archives. She has one other full-time staff person. And then she has probably anywhere between eight to 10 volunteers who come in on a regular basis to help process collections, and that could be anything like digitizing photographs. It could be entering data into the big database that's searchable. And then she also has some interns who are paid, and that's something that the friends helps with. So we help with staffing hours. So kind of covering those different bases. So let's take it one step back. What are archives? Let's start with a definition. What are we talking about? Well, we would really think of any records that the county has generated back to its founding. So there's a process where records that may be current, like from the court system or taxes, over time it will transfer into the archives. And so the archives has retained a lot of material both at the county level as well as some local information. What few people realize is that oftentimes the early draft boards, because they were locally administered, they have military records of those from the county that went to the Civil War or World War I, and things that are searchable by those interested. And how are the archives indexed? You mentioned searchable. So I imagine we're dealing with things from paper to microfiche to more contemporary forms of technology. Well much of the material still is in paper form, and one of the goals of our archivist is to convert it to digital. That's one of the things that we would like to assist them with, not just the searchable database so that we could search it at home, but ultimately scanning more of the information to make it available directly on the web. Because when I think of my son, for example, going through his schooling, nearly everything that he sees is on his iPad. So how do we get the archives onto his iPad? Right. Right. And then from someone doing academic research to genealogical research, there's all kinds of reasons people might want to access that information. Let's talk specifically about the role of the friends. What's your mission? Sure. So the Friends of the Ola County Archives has been around since 1986, and it was instrumental in actually helping the archives form and become what it is today. And we have three different main things that we sort of help out with at this point, which is outreach, advocacy, and then funding. And so for outreach, we've started to do, or we've tried to get more into the community, so doing things like the events such as the 150th anniversary railroad event. That would be one. We also go into the schools and try to do fun projects with primary sources with school children. So we did a fun transcription exercise with some students from Cesar Chavez Elementary here in Davis about a year ago. And so they took county board of supervisor minutes from the 1860s and 1870s, and they had to try to transcribe them. And that was really interesting as a first step into understanding history. So trying to get into the community, because like Ryan mentioned with his son, we both realized that we're not native to Yolo County, but our children are. And so it's really important to give kids a sense of place and belonging, and that this is also part of their background and their history. Things like advocacy is really important. So for example, the grand jury recently came out with a report in terms of things that should be done to improve the archives. And so that's something that we tracked closely and also responded to because there were certain things in there that needed addressing. So we try to advocate at the county level and also in the communities for the archives. And then funding, one thing for us is we also do fundraise throughout the year. We just started doing Big Day of Giving, so that's new for us. And we are a completely voluntary organization, and so we collect funds to help the archives. It could be things like sending Heather, for example, we sent her to the Society for American Archivists in Washington, D.C. at their annual meeting. She just came back from that. And so that's kind of, we like to support professional development for the staff. We do everything from buying boxes and supplies to helping with some of those staffing hours as well. Right. You mentioned the 150th anniversary of the train arriving, which was an event done August 25th. And so that's an example of your work to kind of bring the archives out into the community, kind of make history come alive. Do either of you want to talk about, there's some other events coming up, right? Well, I think that railroad event was a great example, because as Anastasia said, many of us and Davis tend to be transient in the sense that we've come in from elsewhere. Maybe we're here for a little while. But we wanted to have the community and the county realize that we're not for that event 150th year, 150 years ago, that much of the county would have developed differently. Sure. The train shaped Davis. Absolutely. And opened up the county to agriculture. And so along those lines, we've had Mel Russell, a former archivist and a volunteer the last few years, do extensive research on every man and woman who served in World War I. And so she's gone around the county and she has another series lined up here through the end of November, where she goes to local libraries. And each talk is different because it focuses on the people and the actions of that community 100 years ago. Now I understand that you are a collector of vintage and antique ephemera. I know you brought in some envelopes that aren't, unfortunately aren't going to show very well on camera, and that you're a history buff and a writer. So for you, what's the most interesting thing in the Yolo County archives? Well just to have it as a resource, so for example, I'm interested primarily in what are called Western Express Covers. And there was an express company in central Nevada in the late 1800s, but it turns out the gentleman who founded that, Mel Raum, was born in Yolo County. And so it's only through research through the archives that I was able to make that connection and with his mother, Catherine Raum, and land that they owned up by what today is Zamora. And so I was able to write an article for a journal and share that with other collectors that no one else had known before. We have something in common here because at Davis Media Access we have an archive of locally produced programs dating back to about the early 80s. And what we deal with from the video realm is the degradation of the source material. If you go back to early 80s we're talking original Betamax, you know things aren't, they're not accessible anymore or they're degrading. And I spoke a little bit with Heather at one point, that's a real challenge for the archives is how do you save things and how do you get that information online? So is there a specific push within your work that addresses that or is that what Heather is addressing? Yes. So that actually is sort of the challenge of the 21st century it seems where we have new types of ways of storing data. So and when you're going from paper which as Ryan was saying much of what's in the archives is still on paper and some of that is very old and brittle and it's not even just going from say a paper copy to a digital copy but sometimes there's an intermediary step of making things into photocopies which is interesting. So if you have like a newspaper article that's degrading you actually photocopy it onto archival quality acid free paper first. So there's an entire process. Now with Heather and we've had that we've discussed this with her as well that part of the issue is that the county doesn't yet have a digital content management system. So there's no way really to manage all the information. So the different collections that they have how they're organized, how do you search and all those things have to make sense or sort of a formula that goes along with that so that if you go into the archives and say well I want to know everything there is to know about my house which a lot of people do that. Sure. They might be interested especially if they live in an older home and they want to find they might be able to find deeds or they might be able to find information about previous owners and unless there is a really good way of doing keyword searches and doing relatable searches and all that has to come with digital management and whether it's photographs or documents and so for Heather right now that's a challenge and that was something that also came up in the grand jury report which was the idea that the county should be investing in this kind of system just to ensure the longevity of the archives that it will go into perpetuity and be there for future generations. So that's something that is very much on our minds or something that we will address. It's really interesting to learn that this issue was kind of elevated through the grand jury because I imagine honestly the archives are not the first thing the county supervisors think about when they're dealing with zoning they're dealing with road repairs they're dealing with health care delivery you know social services so and yet yeah it's our history. It is and actually the county so the county is investing two million dollars in renovating the archives and that was something that also came up in the grand jury report so they've invested money in compactable shelving which will increase storage capacity by about 40% which is very substantial yeah they've also invested in new heating and air conditioning and humidity control which as you can imagine is really important when you're trying to preserve primary documents from 1850. Absolutely. And so there is I think the county is doing as much as they can there's always room for improvement but as you said there's so many other pressing items and that's I think really where the friends comes in because we also feel that part of our job is to help promote the fact that there is an archive right because a lot of yolo county residents don't know that there is one and that's a challenge because unlike the libraries which have a storefront where you can walk into the davis library and it's this fantastic space we're really tucked away with limited hours and most people don't know where the archives is so that for us it's really nice to be here because that helps us promote the archives as well. I imagine there are challenges to having people go through old source materials you know you'd have to wear gloves you'd have to you know take care not to damage the materials. Right yeah absolutely. So like any volunteer organization I imagine that you're always looking for others to join you so how can people reach you and what kinds of needs do you have? So would you like me to address that or would you? Well I think it's great for anyone who's interested in history to join the organization as a member and so we're always looking for new members and then yes as we have these activities around the county to have volunteers and this railroad event was an example where it was just a couple of us who thought of the idea worked with the city with Union Pacific pulled people together so a lot of it is coordination and others can support. Good well I hope you'll let through me you'll let us know about some of the World War I events and we work with a lot of volunteers and interns I'm not making any promises but maybe we can get some of those recorded it's another way of helping to preserve that aspect of local history so I hope we'll be able to work together a bit. I want to thank you both for coming in today and I want to thank you for tuning in in the studio is where we highlight local issues because local voices matter it's what we here do here at Davis Media Access. This is in the studio find us online at dctv.davismedia.org and on CONCAST channel 15 here in Davis thanks so much.