I don't mean to sound monotonous, but this week I spent more time *surprise!* processing the Claxon mss. II collection. My hours were truncated a bit on Tuesday due to my paranoia about the ice and snow storm that walloped a large portion of the country this week, but I still managed to make decent progress. As of when I left the Lilly on Thursday afternoon, I had browsed through all files; added date ranges for every folder, subseries, series, and the collection as a whole; and arranged every folder according to the arrangement scheme I discussed with Craig at the outset of my collection analysis. Craig will sort through my work on Friday and/or Monday, and we'll discuss any issues or changes that he identifies.
I feel pretty good about my progress thus far. Though I worry that the arrangement and description of the writings series--which includes approximately two boxes of sermons--leaves a bit to be desired in the way of intellectual access by potential users viewing what will become the collection's finding aid, I feel that this is inevitable with the MPLP ("more product less process" for any of you outside of the archives profession) approach I took to these particular materials. Painstakingly sorting through each item and re-categorizing it according to title, date, Biblical passage, etc. would be incredibly time consuming, disrupt original order imposed by the creator, and present problems in the way of how to deal with items devoid of titles, dates, etc.
As I have discussed with colleagues in the past, sometimes it is best to let the researcher do the research and dig through a collection to see what they can find rather than have the archivist spell everything out. Given burgeoning backlogs, small budgets, ever-expanding professional duties, and the unavoidable constraints of time, interfering with the arrangement to meticulously process collection materials is frequently beyond the professional scope and abilities of archivists at a large volume of institutions.
I am, however, aware that some collections are still meticulously arranged to better provide more direct access to users. For example, at the Indiana University Archives, the Political Papers archivist recently received a grant to be used toward processing the papers of Birch Bayh, a former United States Senator from Indiana. I am not familiar with all the minute details, but I am aware that a number of student workers are assisting with this project by sorting through materials at the item level and meticulously grouping and arranging like materials so as to provide streamlined access to this voluminous collection, which documents Bayh's term as senator. I can certainly see the rational behind this high level of processing, as Bayh played a significant role in state and national political history, and it is expected that this collection may be used relatively heavily. Because the collection is so large, it would be arduous for researchers to access specific topical information if MPLP was employed during collection processing.
Anyhow, I really do need to expand my topics of discussion on here. While I enjoy that this is an outlet for my rational while processing, I also want to highlight some of the materials within the Claxon mss. II collection. I hope to remember to bring my camera in when I intern some time this week. Some of my favorite items include photographs, a memorial sermon written in memory of John F. Kennedy and present by Neville Claxon in Nigeria, hand painted African greeting cards, and a West African recipe booklet. Expect a bit more variety on the blog in weeks to come.
On an aside, have a good Superbowl Sunday! Though I am not a huge football fan, I enjoy the idea of it as a collective American experience. Relatedly, one of the major concepts that attracts me to archives is the documentation of collective history. I assume that the National Football League has archival holdings somewhere--be it in its own archives or at an existing archival institution--through which people of all backgrounds can connect through shared memories and events.
Cheers,
Amy
Showing posts with label internship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label internship. Show all posts
Sunday, February 6, 2011
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
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