May 13, 2008  

This guide is intended to provide historians with information that will help them to retrieve and use the resources for research in the history of psychology at AHAP. Consulting these data is much like working in other archives in that basic principles apply. But the unique subject matter of psychology has stimulated the staff to devise some special features. These intramural procedures have been developed and modified as experience accumulated, and since some of the changes were not imposed retroactively, an onsite researcher may encounter a few exceptions to the plan as outlined in this guide.

I. The Title of Deposits

AHAP preserves a large and diverse array of materials. They are controlled by names of individual psychologists, organizations, institutions, journals, and instruments. Requests for data about topics such as "learning theory" and "history of statistical inference" cannot be processed. This arrangement, by names, avoids the confusion that comes from the different labels that have been applied to similar topics, for example, attention, Aufgabe, determining tendency, disposition Einstellung, set, and vigilance; phonometer, acoumeter, and audiometer. The reliance on names assumes that researchers are familiar with the secondary literature, that they know the major players, their associates, the crucial institutions, and the interest groups most apt to clarify the public record.

Resources deposited at AHAP are segregated into separate units, and each is labeled so as to provide cues about the nature of the deposit. Part of the title is either a surname or the name of an organization or periodical, or the principal represented in the unit, for example, Tolman, Shakow, Midwestern Psychological Association, Division 26, Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. A second part of the label classifies the makeup of the deposit, either documents (Papers, Oral History, etc.) or three-dimensional objects a dichotomy that reflects differences in storage.

Large objects are placed on open shelves and are immediately visible. Audiotapes are housed in especially designed archival boxes, each 5 inches wide. These are gray in color and are commonly referred to as "gray boxes". Those containing audio materials bear the letter A followed by a number. Many photographs are housed in gray boxes and they bear the letter V (visual) followed by a number.

All documents are stored in gray boxes and these are segregated into Manuscript Collections (materials relevant to a person) or Archives (materials relevant to an organization or a journal). Containers holding Manuscript Collections bear the letter M followed by a number. Containers holding organizational or journal materials are retained in the same kind of container but they do not bear a letter and are marked merely by a number.

A. Manuscript Collections

The titles of Manuscript Collections identify them as:

1. Papers: These consist of unpublished documents and have been deposited by one or more individuals working cooperatively but informally. Papers in which the principal is a person may cover numerous topics but are also homogenized since the items were assembled by an individual and the composite is believed to constitute the corpus of the principal’s materials.

2. Documents: Items that are similar to Papers but cover only one or a limited number of topics or a specific timespan.

3. Record: Materials that deal with a single subject matter and are mechanically produced e.g. newsletters, bulletin notices, apparatus catalogues, and other ephemera. They constitute fugitive literature.

4. File: A series of Records embracing a variety of topics.

5. Oral History: A transcript self-explanatory.

6. Memoirs: Deposits that are made up exclusively of memorabilia. These items may be reminiscences, films, or photographs. The dominant theme is the honoring of a psychologist or an organization.

B. Archives

The title of archival materials identify them as:

1. Archives: Deposits that consist of unpublished documents that are relevant to organizations or to publications, and are deposited by the formal action of the governing body responsible for the group or periodical.

2. Papers: Deposits, in which the principal is an organization or a publication, focus on the activities of the group, and are deposited by people working on behalf of the organization or journal but without its formal sanction, for example, an editor turns over his/her editorial papers or an outgoing secretary deposits the materials that accrued when he/she was functioning in that office.

II. Three Dimensional Units

The titles of objects identify them as:

1. Gift: A single manufact, for example, a chronoscope or a film.

2. Collection: Various manufacts, for example, audiotapes of different lectures on different topics by various lecturers or 200 pieces of laboratory equipment.

A deposit may consist of both documents and objects, and the title that is assigned indicates the more extensive format. For example, a large collection of notes supplemented by two pieces of laboratory equipment would be called Papers. A large collection of instruments supplemented by descriptions of their construction and use would be called a Collection.

III. The Finding Aids

Finding Aids are of two kinds: An inventory of each unit and a series of card files that indicate the different collections in AHAP in which a particular name appears. Both of these retrieval guides are referred to as Finding Aids because they are directives or leads, not guarantees. They indicate the location of resources that appear to be pertinent to a variety of topics.

The Finding Aids refer only to American psychologists. The vast amount of resources necessitates this restriction, and it does not reflect a value judgment or an attempt to exclude. The card files disclose the location of information either about or written by approximately 100,000 psychologists. This number is so large that in only rare instances is a record made of materials concerning highly visible people in other professions. Examples of the exceptions to this restriction include a film made under Pavlov’s direction, and a letter written by Anna Freud.

A. The Inventory

An Inventory provides a kind of table of contents. The entries in an inventory reflect the uniqueness of the deposit, and the specification of what is in the unit takes precedence over any standard format. For example, folder labels that the principal devised are retained even in those instances in which there is a discrepancy between the label and the contents of the folder. Items that are frequently noted include correspondents and their topics, lecture notes (both as delivered and as received), annotated manuscripts, interoffice memos, budgets, minutes of departmental meetings, research designs, etc.

The arrangement of the content is typically the order in which the papers were unpacked. Physical limitations are the main reason for this organization a deposit weighing 700 + pounds is too heavy and large to be sorted before processing. As a result the researcher may find 1920 documents adjacent to those dated 1960. An Inventory is an abstract not a complete record, and the archival clerks do not share the needs and perception of individual historians and thus may omit as irrelevant a detail that to a researcher is a gem.

B. The Card Files

Seven files are maintained:

1. Surnames: This catalogues all deposits in which the name that the card bears appears. The card discloses each of their locations, and they are coded as follows. Materials written by the psychologists are marked OR(iginated); items that he/she received are noted as RE(ceived); and comments about the psychologists are coded as DI(scussed). These cards do not disclose any additional details but they do direct researchers to their location, sometimes in significant amounts. For example, the corpus of the Papers of Clark Hull is at Yale University, but there are approximately 200 letters written by him in different manuscript collections at AHAP.

   In some instances cues about the content may be found in the inventory. To illustrate a name card indicates that something written by John Doe is in the Smith Papers in Box M123. A perusal of the Inventory of Box M123 reveals that on January 2, 1903, Doe wrote to Smith regarding Doe’s possible employment on the same faculty as Smith.

   Only one Or, Re, and Di entry is made for each box, that is Box M123 might contain a dozen letters that Doe wrote, but this can be learned only through inspection of the entire container. Recording Di’s for bibliographical entries turned out to be too time consuming and did not yield enough information for scholars to justify continuing the practice. Collections that were processed after January 1, 1990, do not have Di’s for bibliographic entries.

2. Organizations: The structure of this catalog is the same as that of surnames except that the identifying name is that of an organization. There are cards for special interest groups, educational institutions, clinics, hospitals, etc. Clerks are sometimes confused about this assignment and in actual practice many of these cards are completed by senior staff when the inventory is reviewed. The controls are not as sound as in the case of the surname file.

3. Journals: The structure of this series is the same as that of the surname file except that the name specifies a journal or periodical.

4. Tests: All standardized tests and prepublished versions. At times there is some confusion between a test devised for a particular experiment and a standardized examination, but the intent is to control the latter. The cards indicate the presence of test materials, the manual, record booklets, and scoring keys.

5. Instruments: This roster consists of a card for each piece of equipment that the AHAP houses. These indicate the donor of the apparatus, the manufacturer, dates (when known), and general condition of the piece. These cards are supplemented by cards that indicate descriptions of equipment. The latter may consist of suggested changes in design, criticisms of the instrument, and/or specifications of tasks for which it is the most appropriate.

6. Photographs: This is a register of photographs of individual psychologists, groups of psychologists, laboratories, equipment, etc.

7. Films: This is a film or films those made for commercial distribution, research use, as well as, informal, "home" videos.

There are a few additional archival resources that lack systematic finding aids. The largest of these consist of Newsletters from at least 125 regional and interest groups. A few items of this variety come in as part of larger deposits, but much more numerous are the Newsletters that arrive regularly from the Central Office mailing list and from friends of the Archives. These are stored in gray boxes but are not entered in a card file, and direct searches of the boxes are necessary to retrieve these.

The Archives also maintain a Locator File, that is, a listing of the holdings of other facilities. This ledger notes details that are reported to the staff from various sources and no attempt is made to check the accuracy. If the Archives is informed that there are five letters written by X in Y library that information is merely recorded and transmitted to scholars.

There is one final source of information and that is the Archives’ correspondence file. Letters to the staff often elucidate the context in which deposits were generated and investigators often find it informative to review letters pertaining to the acquisition of a collection. Unfortunately this file is controlled only by the names of the correspondents and information about people, organizations, and journals that is included in the letters cannot be conveniently retrieved.

IV. A Few Alerts

Researchers are reminded that the author, or the author’s heir(s), controls the literary rights and that permission to quote the author is necessary if the proposed quotation does not exceed "fair practice". The Archives will provide as much information as it has at hand about the individual with the authority to grant permission to quote, but it is the researcher’s responsibility to acquire these details and to comply with this requirement. The Archives is the literary heir of several depositors and is able to grant permission.

Donors may designate four conditions of access to their materials:

1. open the papers may be read and/or quoted without restriction

2. material may be read but permission to quote may be restricted

3. written permission to inspect and/or quote is required

4. the documents are closed

The donor may indicate specific dates during which any of these conditions are in force. The Archives staff neither shortens a specified time span nor counteracts a depositor’s restriction, but staff may impose an archival restriction on some materials that the donor has not sealed. This occurs for documents which serve no apparent scholarly purpose and which contain information that could harm an individual or family.

In some instances provocative content is recorded in conjunction with material that is relevant to scholarship. In such instances the staff will pursue approval of the donor to extract the relevant from the irrelevant in order to share the former with the researcher. Exceptions of this nature are undertaken only when a manuscript approaches final form and the information is clearly relevant to the researcher’s goal.

The capacity of the Xerox machine to save labor and to increase accuracy has made it a highly valued but frequently overused tool. Because staff time is limited and must accommodate a series of patrons, researchers are asked to assist with the photocopying. Their presence increases the probability of acquiring all needed documents, and cooperation between a patron and a staff member reduces the time and errors that accrue to retrieving and refiling documents. Researchers are asked to request copies of only items that they have studied and realize that they are of value not merely that they could be useful at some later time. More information concerning photocopying procedures can be found here.

There are some materials that researchers are allowed to review, even to take notes, but which cannot be photocopied. These are typically items that contain sensitive information, and withholding copies may limit their damage whereas circulating copies of them could result in legal action against AHAP. Most researchers are trusted custodians but this trust does not extend to those who break into their automobiles and offices. Granting access informs serious scholars about the content in a guarded and discrete manner. For example, to discover that Psychologist X advised his son, in a lengthy letter, not to apply to Z Graduate School because of the limitations carefully spelled out of two members of the faculty is an interesting tidbit and probably relevant to the son’s education. A copy of the letter is more defamatory than a verbal report of it, but the latter can still convey the influence.

Inquiries should be directed to:


David B. Baker, Ph.D.
Archives of the History of American Psychology
The University of Akron
Akron, OH 44325-4302
(330) 972-7285
bakerd@uakron.edu