The following relates to discussions regarding the planning for the next
International Preservation Trades Workshop in respect of the need to
provide workshops and encouragement to the skilled trades in the art of
documentation. I present the discussion on BP in respect of wanting to
get a range of points-of-view and feedback.

I know I am full of shit and I need all the help I can get.

I believe there needs to be a bit of deconstruction regarding
documentation for the trades. Within the design professions of
preservation there is an apriori concept regarding documentation
(HABS/HAER). This concept is borrowed from architecture and engineering
practice, not from mud, sticks, and stones. With these forms of
documentation the question to be answered, the rigor of the data, and
the format of presentation have been established. If this type of
documentation, which serves an end purpose that I identify as external
to the experiences of the craftsperson, is used as the model out of
convenience, without making a new model appropriate to the trades, then
the idea of asking the trades to make this type of documentation will
not work. This would be top down intellectual colonialization. So I go
way loose, talking about scratching notes with a copper nail on a piece
of roofing slate, to provide a wider context in order to open the
discussion to hopefully realize a more appropriate model of
documentation from there.

I have a very difficult time expressing the amount of care, cultivation,
and compassion that I face on a daily basis in working with mechanics to
get them over their _inhibitions_ regarding keeping a record of their
actions. I am also pleased with their responses when they begin to
understand the subtleties of documentation. Once they figure out what
*type* of picture I am asking for it is difficult to keep them from
taking a LOT of pictures.

The problem is not one of intelligence or learning ability, the problem
I see is that they have had it beaten into them by peers and teachers
that they are incapable of recording their actions. This is a really,
really sad thing we are trying to remedy here. I believe that if we
screw it up we will do more damage than good.

At the same time we have to bear in mind that WE, being able to document
ourselves as evidenced by our actions of e-mail, if nothing else, are
NOT the subject of the discussion, in fact, I don't even think the
potential demonstrators at IPTW are the subject. If they was us then
they would not be them.

Possibly some of this goes back to the fact that my neighbor, and
friend, in childhood was illiterate mainly as a result of his having a
speech impediment that the students jeered him for, and that the
teachers kept ignoring as he passed through school. I spent a lot of
time trying to help him learn to read. Shakespeare in the woods was not
the right idea. We did get somewhere with the state driver safety
manual. When I left the sandpile, he staid behind.

If craftspeople are trapped and dissempowered as a result of the
inhibitions of documentation, then I feel we have a responsibility to
assist them to free themselves.

][<en Follett