Finding Aid, Rood's Landing (9SW1) 1955-1985

The Veterans Curation Program utilizes the standard archival practice of unique naming of collections. The purpose of this practice is to avoid redundant and confusing collection names commonly found with archaeological investigations. Therefore, this collection is referred to as "Rood’s Landing (9SW1) 1955-1985.” This name is consistent throughout the finding aid, the file folders, and the box labels. The extent of this collection is fourteen linear inches.

The Rood’s Landing (9SW1) 1955-1985 archives consist of correspondence, site forms, photographs, photographic negatives, sketches, maps, journal and newspaper articles, and an archival binder. Most of the collection was in good condition and stable. However, conservation and preservation were still necessary. Conservation included: the removal of documents and photographs from the old non-archival binder, the removal of paperclips, staples, and pressure sensitive tape, flattening, removal of some oversized items to oversized storage, general cleaning, and mending. A total of five ferrous paper clips were removed. Numerous staples were removed. In both the cases of paper clips and staples, there was often staining and offset caused by rusting contaminants, but in no case was this severe to the point that information was lost or obscured. Personally identifiable information (PII) was removed in accordance with Veterans Curation Program protocol from several documents. The PII removed was in the form of personal addresses, modern personal phone numbers and social security numbers.

There were twenty four oversized materials and 230 photographic materials removed from this document collection. All photographic materials were placed in archival polypropylene sleeves for protection and storage. All of the oversized materials that were delicate were encapsulated within Mylar. The most fragile of the documents consisted of four printed on onion paper. The onion paper documents were unfolded and flattened using archival bone tools. Next, the onion paper documents had to be mended using archival document repair tape due to multiple tears and holes. Every step along the way proved to be problematic since merely handling the paper created additional tears due to the extremely brittle nature of the documents. Additionally, the one oversized photograph presents a handling risk, as this photograph was previously folded and was split along the crease. The handling risk of this particular photograph should not be a problem as it is housed in an archival grade sleeve and it has also been scanned. Most of the photographs were scanned with the exception being any photographs showing burials with human remains. All oversized and photographic records were removed to the proper storage locations and also placed in the appropriate enclosures. Additionally, all removed items were cross-referenced using records removal sheets that were placed with the removed items, as well as in each folder where applicable.

The Rood’s Landing (9SW1) 1955-1985 archives includes a series of documents that were originally housed in a three-ring binder. The information included in this binder ranged from field sketches and field photographs, to artifact sketches, to portions of the final report. All of the documents were re-housed in an acid free archival binder with respect to original organization. The material was placed in protective polypropylene sleeves with acid free paper as dividers where applicable. All photographs were labeled with corresponding information on the outside of the polypropylene sleeves. The archivist created a Table of Contents for the binder that was added as the first page.