Dear Curator: The Email Behind the Archive

There is an email I write all the time at Tomberg Rare Books.

Dear Curator,

I recently acquired a collection that I thought might be of interest to your library...

Simple, right? Not exactly.

By the time I write those words, I have probably spent days with the collection. I have sorted photographs, deciphered handwriting, searched names, turned postcards over, unfolded papers, followed obscure clues, and fallen down at least three research rabbit holes that had absolutely nothing to do with what I was originally looking for.

Eventually, I figure out what I have. Then comes the harder part: Who should care about it? This is one of the behind-the-scenes parts of rare book dealing that people don't often see. Finding an archive is only the beginning. Finding the right home for it can be much harder.

I start researching libraries. Who collects this subject? Who already has related material? Is there a geographic connection? A faculty interest? Does this archive fill a gap in an existing collection?

Sometimes I find what seems like the perfect institution and become completely convinced that I have solved the puzzle. Of course they will want this.

This confidence generally lasts until I hit send. Then I wait. And check my email. And wait. Maybe check again. Nothing.

I remind myself that curators are extraordinarily busy people and that, despite my current obsession with a particular box of photographs and papers, they are not sitting at their desks wondering when Andrea Tomberg is finally going to email them.

Eventually, an answer arrives. Sometimes it is the glorious: This looks very interesting. Can you tell me more? Sometimes it is a gracious no.

Sometimes there is silence.

The last one is particularly difficult when I believe strongly in the material.

Because by then, I know the collection. I know the names written on the backs of the photographs. I know which seemingly insignificant scrap of paper established a date. I know the letter that changed my understanding of everything else in the box.

The curator sees an email first. I see the story. And that is where this job becomes something more than selling old things.

I become an advocate. Not every piece of old paper belongs in an archive. But when I find material documenting a person, community, organization, or moment that has left very little evidence behind, I want someone else to understand why it matters.

So if the first curator says no, I go back to my research. Another library. Another collection. Another curator.

And every so often, I get the email I was hoping for. They see it. They understand why the photographs should stay with the letters, why the flyers shouldn't be separated from the programs, why the handwritten notes matter just as much as what was printed on the page.

Eventually, the collection may end up in an archival box in a special collections library. Years from now, a researcher might request it and discover something neither the curator nor I ever noticed.

They won't know about the emails, the unanswered inquiries, the research rabbit holes, or the slightly unreasonable number of times I refreshed my inbox.

That's okay. The archive found its home.

And somewhere on my desk, another box is waiting.

Dear Curator...