Alan J. Pitts
Re: Alabama visit
Thu Jun 28 13:33:55 2001


No.9 lead pencils. For a quarter donation, you can own an official Department of Archives & History pencil. I've never gotten the point exactly right using the sharpener available to patrons, but it's serviceable. A few months ago my supervisor was kind enough to provide an IBM portable, so I'm out of the pencil business.

Like most other archives, ADAH wishes to discourage patrons who wish to make notes on original manuscripts or just happen to be using a leaky pen. Also, they have to be careful because some patrons are inclined to +borrow+ archival materials and forget to return them.

I proudly drop a quarter in the plate and take an ADAH pencil home on every trip. But somehow my dogs are always able to sniff out and chew up every one.