archivist-newbie

[archivist-newbie]

Entry for February 7th, 2019

so to summarize what I’ve been doing for the past couple weeks, since I came back 3 weeks ago.

This semester I am working about 15 hours a week in our archive, and once I got back within the first week I finished sorting through the initial piles for the collection I’ve been working on! Yay!

Since then We have been sorting those files into boxes of various sizes, and labeling them accordingly so now everything isn’t just in big piles. that’s been the majority of my time this semester, sorting through and boxing this collection.

Today, however, I’m working on disk imaging once again, while also working on a new project! I am sorting through books for a rare book collection, determining how many copies there are. This is the first time I’ve done something like this so I’m fascinated!

[archivist-newbie]

I spent the afternoon arranging our books by size and color (and it’s so satisfying and looks amazing) and my partner came home and stared in shock at the bookcase and then said “i’m a librarian, you can’t do this.”

[archivist-newbie]

Entry for November 8th, 2018

Today we officially started processing the Ad Collection!! It was absolutely wonderful to start actually processing a collection, and this is an incredibly FUN one to start working with. I won’t lie, it’s also easier to sort a collection that is initially just pictures, although I do have to sort it in the first place because there was no initial organization of the collection. Today was just putting the ads in order by campaign, and it led to some hilarious and fascinating ads from the past couple decades, maybe one day I can share them! :) 

[archivist-newbie]

Entry for November 5, 2018

I REALLY NEED TO MAKE MYSELF DO THIS MORE OFTEN

So! Internship updates from the past month! I have been doing Disk Imaging for the past month or so, taking all of the records on floppy disks and such and seeing what is on each disk. It’s actually pretty interesting, I’m learning a lot about the history of the archives and records management here! That’s been my personal project for a while, since we had to pause on doing work with the Big collection because Reasons(tm). 

However I’ve also recently started on processing a collection for the first time! I’m extremely excited, we started all the preliminary stuff last week, and later this week I will update you all on how the process goes. It’s a collection from a former ad exec so there is some really interesting stuff! I’m going to make myself do this more often because i think this is a really interesting project.

Also since I am keeping this Log as a Blog, what else should I be posting or reblogging? I don’t know, and I’d like to igure out how this blog should work.

[archivist-newbie]

Entry for Wednesday, October 10, 2018

So... It’s been a month, but it’s been a month of mostly the same things. I come in for an hour of two at least three or four times a week, and we either move parts of the collection, or I enter data into Archive Space. On the bright side I’m getting to know B really well! She and I have a lot in common, she’s actually from an area not far from where I’m from, and she and her friends have some interests that I’ve always wanted to get into.

But yeah, no updates because it’s a lot of the same. In the last month or so, it’s been a lot of stuff that’s all the same, but a lot. My thesis project has to take a constant back burner, every weekend is either a birthday party or a convention, and this upcoming weekend is my own birthday, and I feel like I’m burning the candle at both ends. This job is one of the few things that relax me, but sometimes I just need a break.

And now, this is gonna be the last day of moving boxes/data entry! B isn’t in today, but she told me in her texts that we are taking a break from the move, so I don’t know what I’m going to be doing. I know they’ll have something for me! so I’m curious as to what my next project is. I’m kinda hoping it’s something that has me working alone in the vault again, that is my favorite kind of thing.

Hopefully after this week and weekend, my schedule starts to calm down a bit and I can really buckle down and focus on my projects. Fingers crossed.

[archivist-newbie]

Entry for Thursday, September 13, and Friday, September 14, 2018

So I’m combining these two days mostly because I forgot to do one yesterday, but also because the past two days have led right into each other. We are starting to finally physically move the big collection! Most of Thursday was spent by B and I going into the vault and marking out the places where the collections will go, and then some general housekeeping and renumbering boxes. And today we started physically moving them! I am honestly surprised at just how many boxes there are, like, How do you generate that much paper? Then again, it’s over a lifetime. It’s like your entire life in 17 records cartons. That’s how today was eaten up however, and an update! Starting next week I’m going to be coming in more days to help move stuff, so I’ll be popping in on this blog more! I’m also starting think I could use it as a way to document my Senior thesis work. More to come!

[archivist-newbie]

Entry for Thursday, September 6, 2018

So today I split my time trying to get everything I needed done, and I was mostly successful! I got an answer back about the citations I needed to create- S wanted me to use MLA, which, fine, I think it’s clunky but I’m biased against it. Chicago style forever, my dudes. But I got that done, and then spent a nice hour relaxing in the vault, doing shelf extents while listening to The Adventure Zone. I didn’t finish every shelf, so you may see an entry tomorrow if/when I come in to finish that! Also, it’s totally socially acceptable to almost cry at work because of Merle Highchurch, right? 

[archivist-newbie]

The Backlog

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have to start doing the Internship log on my own. Technically, I should have started doing that like two weeks ago. So! Here’ the backlog of stuff that I’ve been doing!

These are the logs from August 21st, to September 4th, in order.

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

After a week long break, I came back, and worked in the Vault pretty much the whole day, working on cataloguing the extents of our Archdiocese collection, which we are working on getting under control. I finished up the remainder of the collections that needed cataloguing, and so my new advisor, B we shall call her, started me working with ArchiveSpace, particularly putting in all of the data we had been collecting about each box into archive Space. It took a little bit, but I began to get the hang of it. New things still freak me out though, especially when it’s new things that are actually going to be used by people.

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

A day off of my normal schedule, so I could try and get home to see people before school started. This time, I measured each of the shelves our Archdiocese collection, because we are trying to put each section of the collection together and in order, which they aren’t now. this is a huge task, and is going to take a lot of man hours just to physically move everything. So the shelves needed to be measured so that we don’t try to fit a giant box on a shelf half its size. I finished up that, and also finished up the drafts for my online exhibit! I put them up, and knew I would need a little more time to finish them, but the bulk of the work was done.

Tuesday, August 28th, 2018

School started this week, so my work was limited to just two hours in between classes on this day. However, this time was used to put the finishing touches on some of the pages on that online exhibit I’ve been a part of, get them set up format wise, set up the pictures and source the pictures, and put together everything before things need to be sent to the printers on Friday. I put stuff together for the best of my ability as the bulk of my day.

Friday, August 31st, 2018

My Ultimate Boss (tm), named S, wanted me to come in, because it was the day where things for the exhibit were going out to the printers. She wanted me to re-do some of my original pages for the exhibit, since the one I had put together, while interesting, didn’t really fit as well. I get that, looking back, I was honestly most excited about that page because it was about specific monasteries of a monastic order, one of which I had visited. I had a personal bias. The page she had me put together, on the rise of the order, made much more sense. She also had me put together a page on one of the nuns in the sister order, which was super interesting! Overall I worked on those for three hours, and all that was left was getting the citations for the pages in.

Tuesday, September 4th, 2018

The current day! today I’m mostly working on three things- collecting the sources for my online articles, putting together THIS internship log, and having a meeting with my tragically soon-not-to-be advisor, who shall be named A. She reminded me that I should be doing these in the first place, so I’ve set this up in a diary/blog format thing, so I can look back on it later. So far, my biggest worry about the citations is what format to do them in, since people get very nervous about proper citations. I’m going to ask S about it, before my meeting with A an B.

[archivist-newbie]

Transitioning

Well, this is my first post to the blog form of my internship log, and what a time to do it, since my former boss (and the woman who got me this internship in the first place) is one week away from completely moving cities! She’s gotten a job at the Library of Congress, which is amazing, of course, however that means I have to start putting together my internship log myself. And with a memory like mine, that’s... gonna be tough.

So. Let’s get some basic info out of the way. I’m a Senior in college, interning in the Archives of my college. This is pretty cool, since we aren’t just the archive for our college, but we also are the repository for our Archdiocese. We’re a Catholic college, so in our vaut we not only have all of our old records, but the old records of ever closed Catholic Parish in our area. Not gonna lie, it’s surreal to keep seeing all the names of places where my mom and dad used to talk about going to church on a daily basis.

My degree is a double major in History and Creative Writing, with a minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the moment. And the eventual goal is to go into archiving, so I think a year long internship is going to be a pretty good start. This blog is mostly for myself, to keep track of my own progress as an intern, and to document it for myself. But hey, if I end up posting any advice that can help anyone else, I figure it’s worth it.

So, here begins the whole damn project. Let’s see how this goes.