MPLP (Rubber Duckie)

If the world ends today, at least we’ll all have an adorable song stuck in our heads.

MPLP (music from Rubber Duckie [lyrics, video])

MPLP, you’re the one
You make archives efficient
MPLP, I’ll process the fonds with you

MPLP, joy of joys
All those backlogs you destroy
MPLP, tell me, what would Greene and Meissner do?

Oh, every day when I
make my way through the folders
I leave those
little staples and
paperclips
in their corners
(but I don’t cut corners)

MPLP, you’re so fine
Findings aids done in no time
MPLP, I’ll process the fonds with you!

How We Do Born-Digital (Love Me, I’m a Liberal)

How We Do Born-Digital (music from Love Me, I’m a Liberal [lyrics, video])

I’ve seen the OAIS model
I read OCLC reports
White papers from Digital POWRR
And the Blue Ribbon Task Force
To make sure I don’t ever lose them
They’re printed and filed in drawers
That’s how we, how we, how we, do born-digital

I Jumped In with the Manuscripts Section
I counted those disks and CDs
I reminisced about my old Zip drive
I marveled at 5 inch floppies
For now they’ll just stay in their boxes
A time capsule of the nineties
That’s how we, how we, how we, do born-digital

I spent my lunch watching a webinar
On digital preservation
I once calculated a checksum
And someday I’ll do it again
But I can’t even think about starting
Without a forensics workstation
That’s how we, how we, how we, do born-digital

Once our archives were just paper
After you process, you’re through
No worries about obsolescence
Migration? That’s something birds do!
This digital stuff’s for young people
We’ll bring in an intern or two
That’s how we, how we, how we, do born-digital

Provenance (Shake It Off)

If you’ve finally gotten Shake It Off out of your head…sorry, dude.

Provenance (Shake It Off)

Some papers in a crate
They left it at the gate
Don’t even have a name, mmm-mmm
Don’t even have a name, mmm-mmm

I don’t have too many dates
Series all in disarray
And I really need a name, mmm-mmm
I really need a name, mmm-mmm

Cause I’m processin’
Bringing the context in
Person or organization, in my mind
Sayin’ “please tell my story right.”

‘Cause creators gonna make
And the archive’s gonna take
All those boxes look the same
I need provenance, provenance

Chain of custody will break
And those finding aids don’t aid
All those boxes look the same
Without that provenance, provenance

Describe consistently
Bio note or history
And that’s called EAD, mmm-mmm
That’s called EAD, mmm-mmm

Lives lived long ago
How do I let them show?
And that’s what I don’t know, mmm-mmm
That’s what I don’t know, mmm-mmm

So I’m processin’
Bringing the context in
Person or organization, in my mind
Sayin’ “please tell my story right.”

‘Cause creators gonna make
And the archive’s gonna take
All those boxes look the same
I need provenance, provenance

Chain of custody will break
And those finding aids don’t aid
All those boxes look the same
Without that provenance, provenance

Respect the fonds, respect the fonds
I, I, respect the fonds, respect the fonds
Respect the fonds, respect the fonds
I, I, respect the fonds, respect the fonds

Hey hey hey
Just think,
while you’ve been reading all those published books in the world,
you could’ve been getting history from, the, source.
That donor brought some new papers
Got a deed of gift, I record the provenance.
And this photo over there, dude’s got hella good hair,
But I know he’s prob’ly dead, thanks to provenance

‘Cause creators gonna make
And the archive’s gonna take
All those boxes look the same
I need provenance, provenance

Chain of custody will break
And those finding aids don’t aid
All those boxes look the same
Without that provenance, provenance

Respect the fonds, respect the fonds
I, I, respect the fonds, respect the fonds
Respect the fonds, respect the fonds
I, I, respect the fonds, respect the fonds

 

Grant-maker (even more fun with Archivist on the Roof)

Grant-maker (music from Matchmaker [lyrics, video])

Grant-maker, grant-maker, I need some cash!
Find me a line! They’ll fund the match!
Finding aids encoded in EAD
Did I mention we’re 503c?

Grant-maker, grant-maker, you bring the dough,
I’ll be your staff, raring to go
Everything digitized, fully online
Accessible for all time (not really!)

For Papa, make the job full-time
For Mama, make it prestigious
For me, well, I wouldn’t mind
Working only with Egyptian papyrus!

Grant-maker, grant-maker, I need some cash!
Find me a line! They’ll fund the match!
I need to pay off this huge student loan
So fund me a job
Of my own

…

Hodel, oh Hodel, have I got a job for you
In a cute little town
Population 62
But it’s a good job, a first job,
True? True.

I promise you’ll be happy,
And even if you’re not,
There’s more to life than that—
Don’t ask me what.

Chava, I found it
This job is so unique!
Great experience
It only lasts a week
But it’s a good job, a first job,
See? See.

You heard the boss is evil
She likes to yell and fight
But’s you’re just temporary
So you’re alright

You don’t want a project job?
Well that’s real tough to avoid
With no 3 to 5 years of prior work experience
Just be glad you’re employed!

Grant-maker, grant-maker
You know that I
Still need a job
More all the time!
But up to this minute I misunderstood
That not every job is good

Dear Congress, please don’t cut funding
Remember, we’re constituents too!
We don’t think we’re too demanding
We just want a job to do!

Grant-maker, grant-maker
I’m going to let
Backlogs remain
Maybe I’ve learned
Term jobs can leave a new archivist burned
So, fund me some funds
Match me a match
Find me a line
Grant me a grant
But I’ll make a backup plan!

Get Dusty

Archivists, man. They sure get mad when you call their workplaces dusty. Maybe we could channel our collective frustration into a musical number?

Get Dusty (music from Get Lucky [lyrics, video])

So you say you’re a journalist
What story are you spinning?
What cliche are you bringing
To your article’s beginning?

You’ve come so far, to report who we are
So let’s raise the bar, let archives be the stars!

We keep things safe from the sun
We live for preservation
We think that history’s fun
Just please don’t say we get dusty

Sometimes we deaccession
White gloves are so overdone
And yes, we love cardigans
Just please don’t say we get dusty
Just please don’t say we get dusty…

We cataloged these boxes
Spent hours on description
So when you find something
You’re not discovering it

You’ve come so far, to report who we are
So let’s raise the bar, let archives be the stars!

We keep things safe from the sun
We live for preservation
We think that history’s fun
Just please don’t say we get dusty

Sometimes we deaccession
White gloves are so overdone
And yes, we love cardigans
Just please don’t say we get dusty
Just please don’t say we get dusty…

More fun with Archivist on the Roof

Another song! Last week’s is here if you missed it.

Electronic (music from Anatevka [lyrics,video])

What do we leave
to archives?
Only electronic

Before we had electronic
Boot it up, back it up, electronic
Those paper days were pretty sweet

Electronic, electronic
Flip a bit, guess that’s it, electronic
So quickly becomes obsolete

Soon digital archives will be commonplace
And we’ll worry about server space
For electronic

We acquire electronic,
Mi-igrate, duplicate electronic
Let’s save e-records while we still have time!

Let’s make an archives musical; or, An Archivist on the Roof

In my copious free time I have been plotting an archives musical based on the Broadway classic Fiddler on the Roof. Maybe it won’t go anywhere, but I think we should all enjoy whatever I end up with. I’ve heard that the creators of Fiddler don’t take kindly to parody, so good luck getting permission to actually perform this thing, but I aim to misbehave.

The Archives (music from Tradition [lyrics, video])

The archives, the archives! The archives!
The archives, the archives! The archives!

Who, day and night, must generate the records
Papers, correspondence, even photographs
And who has the right as owner of them all
To designate their final home?
The donor! The donor! The archives!

Who must know how to use history sources
Primary and secondary
Who must know her way around the reading room
And fill out call slips for ev’ry request?
The user! The user! The archives!

I have my MLS degree and passed the ACA
I hear we’re going digital, but I–keep printing
The staff! The staff! The archives!

And who has been obsessed
Since Roots came on TV
With finding every branch
On my whole damn fam’ly tree?
The genealogist! The genealogist! The archives!

The OAIS song

Am I being presumptuous, thinking there isn’t already a song about OAIS?

Music is from Oh Shenandoah, public domain. Lyrics are CC-licensed. If you want to record or improve this song, yes, please do!

OAIS
for long-term storage
Gaze upon its reference model
OAIS
for long-term storage
Files sa…fely tucked away
Within a digital repository.

The archive has
Three key stakeholders
Described in this reference model
Producer, consumer, and management
(All want) files sa…fely tucked away
Within a digital repository

OAIS
Has mechanisms
Making a functional model
From ingest on to storage on to access
Files sa…fely tucked away
Within a digital repository

The archive has
Information objects
In an information model
Where SIPs turn into AIPs turn into DIPs
Files sa…fely tucked away
Within a digital repository

OAIS
Is not so scary
Once you understand the model
Now you can build a preservation system
Files sa…fely tucked away
Within a digital repository

Mo Product Less Process

Oh man, it has been way too long since I inflicted my musical stylings on the Internet.

(Audio from this Youtube video, original here. Lyrics are CC-licensed. My recording is not CC-licensed; I claim fair use. I encourage you to finish the song and/or create a better recording!)

Lyrics after the jump.

EAD’s got to love nobody