Week Twelve: Moving Right Along

I shall start off with my standard "Oh gosh, I can't believe I only have four weeks left before the end of my internship!" line.  The days are rolling by.  I think it's definitely a good sign for my future career satisfaction prospects that I still get to the end of each day and think, "Well, that was fast."

Week twelve didn't hold a lot of groundbreaking revelations, to say the least, but I'm still moving along with processing.  I finished with the majority of the difficult sorting and arranging--i.e. breaking up a number of subject file series (series-es?) into the logical series that I devised for the collection.  When I began, the materials were oddly arranged to some extent in series, but with the majority of materials filed under a generic "Subject Files" series.  I retained this designation for some files, but I found that many folders more appropriately fit under "Administrative," "Correspondence," "Events," "Regional Chapters," etc. than were originally oriented as such.

I honestly encountered no big ethical dilemmas over the course of the week.  Though I do have a "Questions" pile that I've thus far avoided, I don't think it will be too much trouble to sort things out.  I tossed most materials in the pile during the first week or two of arrangement.  Since then, I think I've gained a good grasp on the differentiation between series, even when topics, qualities, or formats overlap.  [Clarification: The toss was figurative, of course!]  Craig and Cherry will check over my inventory once I get to a good review point, but until then, I'm feeling confident.

No, I have not yet tackled the bulk of the Financial series.  About four boxes stuffed with small, itemized ledgers, envelopes full of check and deposit stubs, receipts, tax forms dating back to the late 1940s, etc.. remain... it's a bit of a mess.  I plan to find Cherry on Thursday (During this week, number 13, I am yet again a bit late in posting) and talk things through with her.  I don't want to make any suppositions, but I also don't want to waste my processing energy on anything that should be "de-accessioned," "weeded," or whatever the appropriate term may be in this situation.  I will also make it my point to find out what the appropriate term is!

Otherwise, I have a couple more boxes of manuscripts to add to the inventory, which are large files that will not take much time at all to process.  After that, I'll address the "Questions" pile and get the series into the proper order.  Right now I just have boxes per distinct series but not in relation to one another (i.e. two boxes of Correspondence, two boxes of general Events, two boxes to the Edgar Awards Dinner (annual) event.).  Like I explained in my last post, it will be easy to shift the processing on to my predecessor, whoever the lucky individual may be!


Now, I leave you with a couple more photos!

To help visualize the financial materials... here is an exciting box full of canceled checks!

 

An invitation to the 1953 Edgar Allan Poe Awards Dinner -- the MWA's annual event during which the organization awards prizes to mystery authors/books/related, including a best novel of the year, best novel by a new author, best short story, etc.

An Edgar Award certificate (with editing on the date at the top; I assume this was a draft!) for George Thurston Scott's first novel, "Cure it with Honey"

Article abstracts soon to come on what RDA cataloging means for Archives, an overview of Archon software, and one more yet to be decided--not for lack of options, rather for an overwhelming abundance of options  Should you have any suggestions, don't hesitate to post a comment!

Best,
Amy