The North Adams city clerk’s office applied for and received a state grant this week that will help officials decide the best way to store and preserve it's decaying archives.

NORTH ADAMS — Decades before city clerk Tina Leonesio started the job in 2022, the city moved older records into City Hall’s basement to make room for more in the clerk’s office.

The records, some dating to the 18th century, have remained there ever since. While the basement is dry, Leonesio said, it’s still not an ideal environment. Some records have been exposed to mold and bacteria and lack proper cataloguing, making them too contaminated to return upstairs without risking other collections.

That’s why Leonesio and the city clerk’s office applied for and received a state grant last week. It will help officials decide the best way to store and preserve those downstairs archives.

Archives in the basement of North Adams City Hall were moved to make room upstairs decades ago, though an exact date hasn't been determined, according to the city clerk. The photos were submitted as part of a grant application that the city received to assess how to better preserve its aging records, many of which downstairs are decaying with age.

The city was one of a handful of communities that was selected for a Strategic Historical Assessment through the Massachusetts State Historical Records Advisory Board’s Roving Archivist Program, which connects organizations that are stewards of historical records with a professional archivist to assess archival collections and create a strategy for preservation and organization.

As part of the assessment, archivist Thomas Doyle will come to City Hall on Friday to meet staff, evaluate the condition of the collections and review the city’s archival procedures. Following the visit, Doyle will give the city a customized report that contains recommendations and resources for preserving and managing the collections.

The clerk's office, composed of Leonesio and two other clerks, manages the city's vital records, business certifications, dog licenses, City Council journals, contracts, election records, the census and more.

After multiple years of staff turnover before her that delayed further work, Leonesio has begun assessing the basement records with hopes of eventually creating a searchable digital archive, but the project's scope and her severe mold allergies have made the work difficult.

“I cannot go down there without having a mask on,” she said. “Once I start opening those books, it's a hazard.”

Organized archives in preservation boxes in North Adams City Hall inside the city clerk's office. The photos were submitted as part of a grant application that the city received to assess how to better preserve its aging records.

When applying for the program, the office had to determine how many letter-sized boxes the collection would fill. Leonesio determined the city has about 350 boxes of records, with the basement archives accounting for about 45.

But many of those archives are fragile, brittle and actively disintegrating. As a first step, the city is in the process of buying a conservation vacuum table that carefully removes mold, dust and debris from affected records. It would run the city about $4,000, she said.

“I wanted to be able to discuss that with Mr. Doyle because he has that expertise,” said Leonesio. “ I don't want to spend that kind of money if there's something less expensive that's going to work just as well.”

While the grant didn’t have a monetary value attached to it, Leonesio said, it would be expensive for the city to hire someone to conduct the assessment. Similar strategic studies have cost the city anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and she was grateful to have this step of the work done at no cost.

“This is going to take him not only the time he's here, but he'll be doing other research and stuff after, and we'll be getting that strategic report in about 30 days," she said. "So he's going to be putting a lot of time and effort into it.”

Leonesio also said an opportunity like this is critical before applying for the bigger preservation and digitization grants that the office wants.

After the assessment, additional follow-up assistance will be available to the office to help implement recommendations and pursue future grant opportunities.

North Adams traces its history to the 1745 construction of Fort Massachusetts. After Adams was incorporated in 1778, an industrial boom in the northern section fueled a movement to separate, leading to North Adams' incorporation as a town in 1878 and as a city in 1895, Leonesio's application said.

“This is a huge first step and extremely important,” Leonesio said. “We’re very honored to be able to have Mr. Doyle come here … and I look forward to seeing his strategic analysis and being able to move forward from there."