This week, I spent the majority of my time continuing to work through the ideal arrangement of the Claxon mss. II collection. Having read Jennifer Meehan’, I tried to incorporate her points and ideology into my every day activities, which meant asking myself questions and continually evaluating my decisions based on the larger context of the records, their creator, and future users. I attempted to balance these concepts with basic archival principles and values, such as original order and provenance for the sake of authenticity, reliability, and integrity of records.
I do, however, find it interesting to consider that a bulk of the materials with which I am working do not reflect their natural system of creation and organization. According to notation marked on many folders, Neville and Emma Claxon--the Baptist Missionary couple whose papers I am processing--looked through and sorted their documents while in retirement in Bloomington. It sounds like at least a portion of this sorting and rearrangement was to facilitate the composition of personal memoirs, thus items were regrouped categorically according to the level of personal importance and relevancy that Neville and/or Emma assigned after decades of spent removed from their missionary activities in Africa.
I wonder, is this something that should be included in my eventual collection description? Surely I will chat with Craig about this in the coming weeks, but my best educated guess at the moment is that yes--this is important information which will affect how materials are intellectually organized, and it would be valuable for researchers to know that documents oriented together in physical files were not necessarily the products of similar actions. I myself am often confused as to how best to categorize such files, but so long as the description and rational for arrangement is translucent in the end descriptive product, I am confident that whatever arrangement I follow will be navigable.
Another interesting issue I faced this past week was how to best organize the two boxes of sermons composed by Neville. The vast majority of these sermons are handwritten notes, often on scraps of repurposed paper. Some sermons include a topical title, others include one or more biblical verses, and some include dates. A number of sermons are also in French, as they were composed during the period of time that the Claxons worked in Benin--where French is the official language--as well as in Florida with French speaking Haitian immigrants after their final return to the United States. I do not see a clear system of organization among these documents, and I have a hard time skimming the notes for related content. Many were housed in a box without folders, though some groups were held together with rubber bands. Others are contained in folders with basic headings such as "Messages" (from what I gather, this is basically another word for Sermons).
Because Cherry told me about a large archival project related to Baptist Missionaries in Africa which is being pursued at Duke University, I went online and searched Duke's finding aid database to see if I could find any similar collections for guidance by example. The collections with online finding aids did not exhibit any significant holdings in the way of sermons. Several had a small number described or named at the item level. I also saw general identification that sermons were present, but no folder or grouping according to any logical system (i.e. chronological, biblical verse, topic, etc.). I spoke with Craig about how best to go about grouping and foldering the Claxon sermons, and it sounds like I'll just do a general grouping according to their original order, noting the date span of items in each foldered group. I will, however, have several folders devoted to strictly French sermons, as these came physically oriented together to begin with. Several French sermons are dispersed throughout the general groups as well, and I will speak with Craig to see if it seems best to leave them in preservation with original order imposed by the Claxons or move them in with the sets of French sermons.
Though the majority of the collection is in good physical condition, the sermons seem to have experienced a bit more wear and tear. More paperclips and staples are seriously corroded, more rubber bands have turned into a hardened, sticky mess, and at least one group housed in a plastic bag exhibits serious brittleness along with mold damage. I set these moldy items aside, and in the coming days I anticipate that I will be oriented to the process of working with the preservation department. The Lilly is fortunate enough to have two full time preservation/conservation staff members who deal with materials and exhibits. Surely these two are kept quite busy! I am definitely curious about how they will approach the mold issue, something I foresee coming into contact in my future career but am currently unclear on the best method of preservation. My guess is that these materials will either be encased in a manner by which to stop the potential spread of mold to other items, or they could alternately be photocopied, with the photocopies being retained in the collection in the place of originals. I know this is occassionally the practice for extremely brittle, crumbling news clippings. Surely it is not ideal, but original physical materials cannot always last indefinitely. These guesses are merely my own speculation, and I anticipate learning the real life outcome in the near future.
In the interests of informing myself a bit more accurately on preservation and conservation issues, this week I plan to search around and read what I can find on the website for the Northeast Document Conservation Center--a resource that Cherry recommended. Also, for the sake of my own curiosity, I will recently read the article by Morgan G. Daniels and Elizabeth Yakel entitled "Seek and You May Find: Successful Search in Online Finding Aid Systems." This topic is something which seriously interests me, and I anticipate that its prevalence within the professional archival dialog will only increase in the coming years. Few analytical studies have been performed concerning search strategies among online archival finding aids, though I think the concept of "searchability" is incredibly important in terms of linking potential users to materials. Before the age of electronic resources, a researcher would interact with an archivist who could connect him or her with collection contents, as the archivist assumably intimately understood his or her repository's holdings. This luxury of a the archivist as a personal research guide of sorts does not exist on the vast, lonely internet interface that is increasingly the mode of information seeking, thus researchers' ability to navigate online resources will have a significant impact on their potential use of abandonment of potential archival sources.
Next week, I look forward to finalizing my collection's arrangement and delve into refoldering. Baby steps... but things are surely coming along!
Amy
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Article Abstract - "Making the Leap from Parts to Whole: Evidence and Inference in Archival Arrangement and Description," by Jennifer Meehan
Though I came to my internship at the Lilly with my fair share of archival processing experience, I continue to be vexed by the process of arrangement. I realize that this is a fundamental aspect of archival work—something not to be taken lightly within the profession at large. It isn’t that I don’t understand the basic principles. I just find it difficult to reconcile original order, respect de fonds, and provenance with decisive rearrangement of materials into series deemed logical by the archivist.
For this reason, I thought it may be helpful to read Jennifer Meehan’s article from the Spring/Summer 2009 edition of The American Archivist entitled “Making the Leap from Parts to Whole: Evidence and Inference in Archival Arrangement and Description.” Though I cannot say that I stepped away from the article with an entirely new revelation about archival arrangement and description, I can say that I gained an informed perspective that will help me remain aware of my actions and their results, both intended and unintended.
Meehan’s article seeks to characterize the archivist’s analytical approach when processing a collection and how this leads to understanding of a collection’s context and ultimately providing sufficient intellectual access for future users. Some of the significant ideas that the author brings up include external vs. internal arrangement, identifying record relationships, and continually stepping back to analyze decision-making to ensure adherence to archival principles—the exact manifestation of which will change depending upon the nature of each individual collection. She also suggests that archivists continually characterize records as evidence of real-world actions and consider what this evidence infers about their process of creation and general life as active records to garner a more thorough understanding of the content and context of physical collections.
Something I already practice in my places of work is Meehan’s “top down” approach to gathering contextual information about records. That is, an archivist should consider the records as a whole and seek contextual information about the creator(s) and processes of creation through donor files, biographical material, and any other generalized sources available. Solid, informed arrangement is not possible without a thorough understanding of the people and actions from whence documents were created. After general reading and research into a collection, an archivist should review the collection itself for content as well as further contextual details which may aid in arrangement and subsequent description. I found solace in Meehan’s admission that there is no conclusive way for an archivist to know he or she is arranging and describing a collection entirely “correctly”. Speculation is required, as unless arranging his or her own files, an archivist will not have been present at the point of record creation and cannot therefore know the whole story of a collection regardless of how thoroughly he or she researches and analyzes collection content.
Rather than worry over whether or not one's arrangement and description is right or wrong, an archivist should merely use what information is available and process each collection in adherence to archival principles and values. In terms of the archival principles and values of provenance and original order, Meehan states that archivists should think of them “less as guidelines to be followed in arrangement and description and more as a conceptual framework for understanding a body of records, highlighting the knowledge necessary to place and preserve records in context” (pg. 84). Furthermore, she offers a list of useful, though in some cases obvious, questions to consider when processing a collection (i.e. Who created the records, how and why? What specific function or activity do the records relate to? How were they used and transmitted over space and time?). Though this seems elementary, it is an excellent way to avoid getting lost in the details, as I so often do. The questions create a “cross examination” which should lead to a higher level of consistency in analysis within a single collection and between different collections which should progress into more accountable general decision making when processing.
These suggestions for greater accountability are offered on the level of the individual, institution/department, and the profession as a whole. Should this process of archival analysis and questioning be standardized on the professional level into generalized questions to guide analysis, individual archivists may feel more confident in decision making, and end users may find it easier to navigate various collections at various repositories since all would theoretically be created under the same general analytical process. This profession-wide standardization is not entirely likely, as subjective interpretation is inevitable by the individual. Meehan does, however, further suggest that it is important in the meantime to track one’s own decisions and make this information accessible to users. This is something that I definitely agree with, as it elucidates the actions of the archivist and offers researchers further insight into how to approach a collection to find desired information. I wonder, though, how electronic finding aids are affecting end-users’ ability to access and navigate collections. Surely mechanized word searching ability is streamlining this process to some extent. In any case, that’s something else for me to think about.
All in all, I found the article helpful in sorting out my own confusion since, as Meehan states, this confusion is in part inevitable. I like to know if I am doing something right or wrong. I like to feel confident in my decisions, but there are many gray areas in archival arrangement and description which often make this difficult. Surely it will grow easier as I grow as a professional and accumulate more experience. However, for now I will refer to Meehan’s suggested list of questions to guide my context and content analysis, and I will keep an open mind for the best possible way to approach each unique collection.
Amy
For this reason, I thought it may be helpful to read Jennifer Meehan’s article from the Spring/Summer 2009 edition of The American Archivist entitled “Making the Leap from Parts to Whole: Evidence and Inference in Archival Arrangement and Description.” Though I cannot say that I stepped away from the article with an entirely new revelation about archival arrangement and description, I can say that I gained an informed perspective that will help me remain aware of my actions and their results, both intended and unintended.
Meehan’s article seeks to characterize the archivist’s analytical approach when processing a collection and how this leads to understanding of a collection’s context and ultimately providing sufficient intellectual access for future users. Some of the significant ideas that the author brings up include external vs. internal arrangement, identifying record relationships, and continually stepping back to analyze decision-making to ensure adherence to archival principles—the exact manifestation of which will change depending upon the nature of each individual collection. She also suggests that archivists continually characterize records as evidence of real-world actions and consider what this evidence infers about their process of creation and general life as active records to garner a more thorough understanding of the content and context of physical collections.
Something I already practice in my places of work is Meehan’s “top down” approach to gathering contextual information about records. That is, an archivist should consider the records as a whole and seek contextual information about the creator(s) and processes of creation through donor files, biographical material, and any other generalized sources available. Solid, informed arrangement is not possible without a thorough understanding of the people and actions from whence documents were created. After general reading and research into a collection, an archivist should review the collection itself for content as well as further contextual details which may aid in arrangement and subsequent description. I found solace in Meehan’s admission that there is no conclusive way for an archivist to know he or she is arranging and describing a collection entirely “correctly”. Speculation is required, as unless arranging his or her own files, an archivist will not have been present at the point of record creation and cannot therefore know the whole story of a collection regardless of how thoroughly he or she researches and analyzes collection content.
Rather than worry over whether or not one's arrangement and description is right or wrong, an archivist should merely use what information is available and process each collection in adherence to archival principles and values. In terms of the archival principles and values of provenance and original order, Meehan states that archivists should think of them “less as guidelines to be followed in arrangement and description and more as a conceptual framework for understanding a body of records, highlighting the knowledge necessary to place and preserve records in context” (pg. 84). Furthermore, she offers a list of useful, though in some cases obvious, questions to consider when processing a collection (i.e. Who created the records, how and why? What specific function or activity do the records relate to? How were they used and transmitted over space and time?). Though this seems elementary, it is an excellent way to avoid getting lost in the details, as I so often do. The questions create a “cross examination” which should lead to a higher level of consistency in analysis within a single collection and between different collections which should progress into more accountable general decision making when processing.
These suggestions for greater accountability are offered on the level of the individual, institution/department, and the profession as a whole. Should this process of archival analysis and questioning be standardized on the professional level into generalized questions to guide analysis, individual archivists may feel more confident in decision making, and end users may find it easier to navigate various collections at various repositories since all would theoretically be created under the same general analytical process. This profession-wide standardization is not entirely likely, as subjective interpretation is inevitable by the individual. Meehan does, however, further suggest that it is important in the meantime to track one’s own decisions and make this information accessible to users. This is something that I definitely agree with, as it elucidates the actions of the archivist and offers researchers further insight into how to approach a collection to find desired information. I wonder, though, how electronic finding aids are affecting end-users’ ability to access and navigate collections. Surely mechanized word searching ability is streamlining this process to some extent. In any case, that’s something else for me to think about.
All in all, I found the article helpful in sorting out my own confusion since, as Meehan states, this confusion is in part inevitable. I like to know if I am doing something right or wrong. I like to feel confident in my decisions, but there are many gray areas in archival arrangement and description which often make this difficult. Surely it will grow easier as I grow as a professional and accumulate more experience. However, for now I will refer to Meehan’s suggested list of questions to guide my context and content analysis, and I will keep an open mind for the best possible way to approach each unique collection.
Amy
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Week Two: The Processing Intensifies
I am entirely confused as to how the second week of my internship has already come to a close. In part, I think this is a good thing: I am genuinely enjoying my time at the Lilly. On the other hand, this is not such a great thing: there is so much I want to do and time is so short! I think this situation conveniently embodies my New Years Resolution to be more mindful of my actions and continue to revisit overarching goals and values of the "big picture" rather than allow myself to get overly caught up in details. This seems to me to be an important thing to keep in mind as an archivist, where details can grow overwhelming, almost all consuming. I need to keep reminding myself that my goal is to process a collection efficiently and effectively ultimately to meet the needs of end users. I need to let myself step away from a construct of definitive black and white decisions and learn to assess what works best for a collection's individual nature.
This pseudo-philosophical tangent does actually relate to my intern work this week. I spent my hours digging deeper into Claxon mss. II, which consists of six boxes of manuscripts with a smattering of photographs. I often found myself being a bit too meticulous, getting caught up on a particularly interesting folder, debating over what the real theme of an unnamed folder's contents is, googling up African maps to geographically situate the Claxons in my mind, etc. Surely making these connections is important, but there comes a point when one must leave the details to the researcher.
This week, my first general endeavor was to glean a basic understanding of what types of materials are in the collection on a topical level. From there, Craig suggested that I use the "piling method" as a way to think through series level categorization. Though this method sounds basic--literally making piles of folders containing topically related documents--it provides a great way to visualize content relationships, volume of materials, and it's also extremely helpful in sorting through the most appropriate designation of more ambiguous files.
In general, Claxon mss. II contains biographical materials, correspondence, subject files, writings, conference files, and photographs. Subject files and writings command the bulk of the collection, as these provide the most substantial evidence of the creators' essential professional endeavors. Craig suggested that I continually keep in mind how a researcher might think as he or she confronts a collection. Though I understand that not all researchers are alike, I can guess that a large drawing factor for this collection is its relation to missionary activities in Nigeria and Benin--the countries where the Claxons spent the most significant portion of their time as missionaries. For this reason, I should think in terms of making my arrangement accessible to such interests. However, given that finding aids are increasingly being launched online, word searchable functionality in part eliminates the requirement for overly meticulous physical arrangement. So long as materials are adequately described, a researcher should have no problem connecting with information of interest, right?
It may not be that simple, so in the interests of improving the usefulness of my collection's eventual finding aid, I will be reading this article from the Fall/Winter 2010 issue of The American Archivist entitled: "Seek and You May Find: Successful Search in Online Finding Aid Systems," by Morgan G. Daniels and Elizabeth Yakel.
Additionally, I also plan to read this article from the Spring/Summer 2009 issues of The American Archivist: "Making the Leap from Parts to Whole: Evidence and Inference in Archival Arrangement and Description," by Jennifer Meehan. This piece discusses the process of intellectual arrangement, its inherently subjective nature, and suggests strategies for archivists to employ which may minimize the his or her unintentional shaping of a collection--something which I hope to will help me process collections more objectively.
That's all on my end for now. This internship, along with work at the University Archives, volunteering at Wylie House Museum, taking another class, and helping to organize our SAA Indiana University Student Chapter's March conference is keeping me plenty busy these days. C'est la vie--at least I'm enjoying it!
Archivally yours,
Amy
This pseudo-philosophical tangent does actually relate to my intern work this week. I spent my hours digging deeper into Claxon mss. II, which consists of six boxes of manuscripts with a smattering of photographs. I often found myself being a bit too meticulous, getting caught up on a particularly interesting folder, debating over what the real theme of an unnamed folder's contents is, googling up African maps to geographically situate the Claxons in my mind, etc. Surely making these connections is important, but there comes a point when one must leave the details to the researcher.
This week, my first general endeavor was to glean a basic understanding of what types of materials are in the collection on a topical level. From there, Craig suggested that I use the "piling method" as a way to think through series level categorization. Though this method sounds basic--literally making piles of folders containing topically related documents--it provides a great way to visualize content relationships, volume of materials, and it's also extremely helpful in sorting through the most appropriate designation of more ambiguous files.
In general, Claxon mss. II contains biographical materials, correspondence, subject files, writings, conference files, and photographs. Subject files and writings command the bulk of the collection, as these provide the most substantial evidence of the creators' essential professional endeavors. Craig suggested that I continually keep in mind how a researcher might think as he or she confronts a collection. Though I understand that not all researchers are alike, I can guess that a large drawing factor for this collection is its relation to missionary activities in Nigeria and Benin--the countries where the Claxons spent the most significant portion of their time as missionaries. For this reason, I should think in terms of making my arrangement accessible to such interests. However, given that finding aids are increasingly being launched online, word searchable functionality in part eliminates the requirement for overly meticulous physical arrangement. So long as materials are adequately described, a researcher should have no problem connecting with information of interest, right?
It may not be that simple, so in the interests of improving the usefulness of my collection's eventual finding aid, I will be reading this article from the Fall/Winter 2010 issue of The American Archivist entitled: "Seek and You May Find: Successful Search in Online Finding Aid Systems," by Morgan G. Daniels and Elizabeth Yakel.
Additionally, I also plan to read this article from the Spring/Summer 2009 issues of The American Archivist: "Making the Leap from Parts to Whole: Evidence and Inference in Archival Arrangement and Description," by Jennifer Meehan. This piece discusses the process of intellectual arrangement, its inherently subjective nature, and suggests strategies for archivists to employ which may minimize the his or her unintentional shaping of a collection--something which I hope to will help me process collections more objectively.
That's all on my end for now. This internship, along with work at the University Archives, volunteering at Wylie House Museum, taking another class, and helping to organize our SAA Indiana University Student Chapter's March conference is keeping me plenty busy these days. C'est la vie--at least I'm enjoying it!
Archivally yours,
Amy
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Week One: An Introduction
[These first-post introductions are inevitably awkward, but I am going to embrace that.]
Greetings, blogosphere! I am creating this blog in tangent with my Spring 2011 internship at Indiana University's renowned Lilly Library. I'll be working in the Manuscripts division, which lays claim to more than 7.5 million items making up a diverse collection of materials dating from medieval to modern. Highlights include, but are certainly not limited to, the papers of Upton Sinclair, Orson Welles, and George Washington's letter accepting the presidency of the United States. I am continually surprised to learn what bits of history made their way to this small city in southern Indiana by one means or another. Please pardon my boasting. I am still getting over the star shocked phase.
As for myself, a brief introduction: my name is Amy Jankowski, and I am currently a graduate student working toward an MLS under the Archives and Records Management specialization at Indiana University Bloomington. I first considered archives as a career path during my senior year of college while employed as a collections registration assistant at the University of Illinois' Spurlock Museum. At the time, my supervisor was working toward an MLS herself and hoped that it would advance her opportunities in working with museum collections. As an anthropology major panicked about how I might find a career for which my interests in cultural heritage preservation would remain relevant, this sounded like the perfect solution. Since then, I have dabbled in museums, libraries, and archives in various capacities, and I am increasingly convinced that this is the right path for me.
Since coming to Indiana University, I have been employed as a graduate assistant at Wylie House Museum--the home of IU's first president, Andrew Wylie, which was restored as a historic house museum in the 1960s--and as a student processor at the University Archives. Both experiences have given me invaluable perspectives into the profession's diversity and how I may adapt my degree in the future. My interest in interning at the Lilly Library is to work more directly with special collection manuscript processing, which will add one more facet to my understanding of the field. Cherry Williams, Curator of Manuscripts, is serving as my official internship supervisor. On a day to day basis, however, I will be working more directly with Manuscripts Archivist Craig Simpson, who will be orienting me to my projects as well as answering all of my minute processing questions over the course of the semester.
My time as an intern will primarily be spent on processing, though I hope to also have the opportunity to try my hand at reference, learn about the acquisition stage collection level description process, and soak up whatever other morsels of archival wisdom may come my way. At the outset, Craig selected the Claxon mss. and Claxon mss. II for me to process. These collections represent the papers of Emma and Neville Claxon, who spent more than thirty years working as Baptist missionaries in Africa. The collections include correspondence, sermons, writings, and a variety of other subject files.
On my first day, I already learned something about the Lilly's acquisition policy, which advises that each distinct acquisition be organized and identified as a distinct collection. For example, though Claxon mss. and Claxon mss. II represent the papers created by the same individuals, they were acquired by the library at two different times through two different individuals--Emma Claxon in the case of Claxon mss. and Carol Polsgrove (daughter of Emma and Neville Claxon, who parted with the materials after her parents' death) in the case of Claxon mss. II. This is interesting to me, as I have worked on amalgamated collections at different institutions in the past, where related materials are combined to form a single collection. I can see certainly see how the Lilly's policy makes sense in terms of intellectual content and original order, both which may represent intellectual relationships and organizational values of the creator. I also gather that this policy is may be related to varying legal terms upon which different collections are donated, purchased, and subsequently made accessible. I plan to search around the archival professional literature for an article related to similar ideals in order to gain a more sound grasp on the Lilly's acquisitions ideology.
Anyhow, having completed my first week as an intern, I can say with confidence that I know how to navigate my way from my work space to the lunch room, a small feat in itself after a whirlwind tour of the building (Ha-ha). More impressively, I can also say that I completed processing my first collection, Claxon mss.! I must be a processing machine, right? Well, not quite. The collection is housed in a single document case box (~0.4 cubic feet), consists of only two series: Correspondence and Writings, and was largely already processed. I just needed to double check that all correspondence was in ascending chronological order, type up the inventory (aka folder list), and revise the collection description. Craig explained the Lilly's streamlined, "assembly line" sort of process to encode and make finding aid materials available online. Working in an abundantly staffed institution certainly makes the process much less arduous on the archives staff! Nevertheless, I hope to eventually try my hand at encoding my own finding aid towards the end of the semester.
As week two of my internship begins, I will continue preliminary evaluations of the materials in Claxon mss. II. This collection was only basically described in terms of probable general series at its point of accession, thus I will need to evaluate the materials, manage any preservation problems, develop a processing plan, refolder, arrange, and describe the materials in more thorough detail. As usual, I just need to keep myself from getting too enraptured by the materials and stay on track with my processing objectives. I am exciting for what the coming weeks may bring!
If my archivally oriented rambling are of interest to you, I hope you will check back on my blog periodically to learn about my progress and any other intern adventures!
Best,
Amy
Greetings, blogosphere! I am creating this blog in tangent with my Spring 2011 internship at Indiana University's renowned Lilly Library. I'll be working in the Manuscripts division, which lays claim to more than 7.5 million items making up a diverse collection of materials dating from medieval to modern. Highlights include, but are certainly not limited to, the papers of Upton Sinclair, Orson Welles, and George Washington's letter accepting the presidency of the United States. I am continually surprised to learn what bits of history made their way to this small city in southern Indiana by one means or another. Please pardon my boasting. I am still getting over the star shocked phase.
As for myself, a brief introduction: my name is Amy Jankowski, and I am currently a graduate student working toward an MLS under the Archives and Records Management specialization at Indiana University Bloomington. I first considered archives as a career path during my senior year of college while employed as a collections registration assistant at the University of Illinois' Spurlock Museum. At the time, my supervisor was working toward an MLS herself and hoped that it would advance her opportunities in working with museum collections. As an anthropology major panicked about how I might find a career for which my interests in cultural heritage preservation would remain relevant, this sounded like the perfect solution. Since then, I have dabbled in museums, libraries, and archives in various capacities, and I am increasingly convinced that this is the right path for me.
Since coming to Indiana University, I have been employed as a graduate assistant at Wylie House Museum--the home of IU's first president, Andrew Wylie, which was restored as a historic house museum in the 1960s--and as a student processor at the University Archives. Both experiences have given me invaluable perspectives into the profession's diversity and how I may adapt my degree in the future. My interest in interning at the Lilly Library is to work more directly with special collection manuscript processing, which will add one more facet to my understanding of the field. Cherry Williams, Curator of Manuscripts, is serving as my official internship supervisor. On a day to day basis, however, I will be working more directly with Manuscripts Archivist Craig Simpson, who will be orienting me to my projects as well as answering all of my minute processing questions over the course of the semester.
My time as an intern will primarily be spent on processing, though I hope to also have the opportunity to try my hand at reference, learn about the acquisition stage collection level description process, and soak up whatever other morsels of archival wisdom may come my way. At the outset, Craig selected the Claxon mss. and Claxon mss. II for me to process. These collections represent the papers of Emma and Neville Claxon, who spent more than thirty years working as Baptist missionaries in Africa. The collections include correspondence, sermons, writings, and a variety of other subject files.
On my first day, I already learned something about the Lilly's acquisition policy, which advises that each distinct acquisition be organized and identified as a distinct collection. For example, though Claxon mss. and Claxon mss. II represent the papers created by the same individuals, they were acquired by the library at two different times through two different individuals--Emma Claxon in the case of Claxon mss. and Carol Polsgrove (daughter of Emma and Neville Claxon, who parted with the materials after her parents' death) in the case of Claxon mss. II. This is interesting to me, as I have worked on amalgamated collections at different institutions in the past, where related materials are combined to form a single collection. I can see certainly see how the Lilly's policy makes sense in terms of intellectual content and original order, both which may represent intellectual relationships and organizational values of the creator. I also gather that this policy is may be related to varying legal terms upon which different collections are donated, purchased, and subsequently made accessible. I plan to search around the archival professional literature for an article related to similar ideals in order to gain a more sound grasp on the Lilly's acquisitions ideology.
Anyhow, having completed my first week as an intern, I can say with confidence that I know how to navigate my way from my work space to the lunch room, a small feat in itself after a whirlwind tour of the building (Ha-ha). More impressively, I can also say that I completed processing my first collection, Claxon mss.! I must be a processing machine, right? Well, not quite. The collection is housed in a single document case box (~0.4 cubic feet), consists of only two series: Correspondence and Writings, and was largely already processed. I just needed to double check that all correspondence was in ascending chronological order, type up the inventory (aka folder list), and revise the collection description. Craig explained the Lilly's streamlined, "assembly line" sort of process to encode and make finding aid materials available online. Working in an abundantly staffed institution certainly makes the process much less arduous on the archives staff! Nevertheless, I hope to eventually try my hand at encoding my own finding aid towards the end of the semester.
As week two of my internship begins, I will continue preliminary evaluations of the materials in Claxon mss. II. This collection was only basically described in terms of probable general series at its point of accession, thus I will need to evaluate the materials, manage any preservation problems, develop a processing plan, refolder, arrange, and describe the materials in more thorough detail. As usual, I just need to keep myself from getting too enraptured by the materials and stay on track with my processing objectives. I am exciting for what the coming weeks may bring!
If my archivally oriented rambling are of interest to you, I hope you will check back on my blog periodically to learn about my progress and any other intern adventures!
Best,
Amy
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)