Finding Aid, Florence Site (9SW124) 1988-1990

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 "Florence Site (9SW124) 1988-1990.” This name is consistent throughout the finding aid, the file folders, and the box labels. The extent of this collection is fifteen (15) linear inches.
The Florence Site (9SW124) 1988-1990 collection was contained within one acidic box and in acidic folders. The document collection did not appear to be well organized, but it was generally in good condition. Coffee stains, rust residue, non-archival tape, acidic “self-stick notes” and edge-yellowing of documents were common, but not severe. All contaminants, including staples, paperclips and non-archival tape were removed. In many cases ferrous paperclips, and staples had rusted, leaving behind residue on the documents from which they were removed, while offsetting the surrounding documents. In no cases did this rust and offset obscure any information. Furthermore, some of the rust and offset was removed by cleaning. While all documents were cleaned, not all documents showed a visual improvement. This is especially true of the documents that had coffee stains. In some cases, paper clips had deformed the flatness of the documents. These were flattened as much as possible, but some documents retained a degree of the deformation even after flattening procedures were applied. Given time these documents may naturally return to their natural flatness. “Self-stick notes” were removed from the original documents and, using archival quality mending tape, re-adhered to acid free archival quality paper, complete with reference information indicating the “self-stick note’s” origin.
In most cases folded and dog-eared documents were unfolded and flattened. However, in accordance with repository instructions, numerous legal-size documents, contained mostly in the Background Records series, were left folded. Although these documents were too large to be unfolded and contained in the new acid free box, they were not considered to be “oversize materials.” Therefore, the collection contained eight oversized materials, one of which was a proposed site map of the marina park construction area, and seven of which were map sketches of the Florence Site (9SW124) that were hand drawn on graph paper with pencil. These maps were flattened, cleaned, and photographed. The proposed site map had non-archival tape present. This tape was removed where possible and covered with archival quality tape where not possible. Oversized material that did not fit into letter size folders were removed from the collection and placed in oversized storage. The oversized materials were then placed in oversized storage along with all necessary cross-indexing information. Personally identifiable information (PII) was present in the collection and was processed in accordance with VCP protocols. First, the original document was copied. Second, the PII was obscured on the copy with a black marker. Then, the obscured copy was copied on acid free paper and placed back with the other records. Finally, both the original document and the copy marked with black marker were shredded. Documents in the collection mentioned photographs, but no photographs were present in the collection.