FINISHED!

Ok, so my title may be a little misleading, I finished my inventory of the collection! My finding aid is now a beautiful 25 pages long. I spent about 16 hours this week finishing up the rest of my inventory. My time was mostly dominated by The Center Collection. the rest of my time was devoted to the Patty Sheehan, Saviz Shafaie, and the Ken Kazmerski GLBSU Collections.

The Center collection is a very large collection to go through. It was originally 9 boxes of various documents pertaining to The Center. Through the process of reorganizing, I was able to bring it down to 8 boxes.
Boxes 1-3 pertain to the actual entity of The Center. That is to say, it contains various documents dealing with The Center. Documents such as Board manuals, minutes, lease information, membership information, funding information, etc.
Boxes 4-5 deal with the various publications The Center published. The longest running of which was The Triangle. Before it was The Triangle it was once New Directions, Centerfold, The Center Fold, and a couple other titles that escape my memory. Box 4 contains documents related to the running of the publication, The Triangle. This contains documents such as ad-agreements, funding, distribution, etc.
Boxes 6-8 contain various clippings from different news sources both locally and nationally. These clippings pertain to various GLBT community issues and concerns throughout the years. These boxes also contain various newsletters from an array of local GLBT groups.
The reorganizing of this collection required extensive work. Many times I felt like I had lost my mind. But the thing that helped the most was the fact that I had originally gone through and took an inventory of every file in the collection. I would move various files in my word document by cutting and pasting. I would then actually move said document to the corresponding box. Furthermore, just when I thought I had it just right, I realized I had to renumber the box! Needless to say, post-its are my friend. However, it is one thing to simply move a post-it, I had to also make sure my word document (my finding aid) reflected accordingly.

Taken about mid-day Thursday 3/7/2013. I simply felt like I had lost my mind! Completely surrounded by boxes and files!

I finally wrapped up work on The Center Collection this morning, Friday March 8, 2013. I was then able to go straight into the much smaller collections of Patty Sheehan, Saviz Shafaie, and Ken Kazmerski.

As I was going through the Patty Sheehan Collection I realized, I had finally found the "missing" Arbogast box! This box has been quite the frustration for me, as the Brian Arbogast collection is labeled as "Box 3 of 5" So earlier in my work when I couldn't find "Box 1" I had given up hope! Alas, the Sheehan Collection is housed in what used to be Box 1 of the Arbogast collection! It seems to me that this box was condensed into one of the other boxes in the collection so that it could make room for the Patty Sheehan Collection. Alas this mystery has been solved.... At least I hope so.

This is the box that currently houses The Patty Sheehan collection, but was once Box 1 of 5 in the Brian Arbogast collection.

The Saviz Shafaie Collection consists of 4 albums with various clippings of newsletters, news papers, photographs, etc. It also has a bag filled with buttons and pins pertaining to various GLBT events.

The Ken Kazemerski Collection, more specifically The Ken Kazmerski's GLBSU Collection, is in two bins. It consists of albums, files, shirts, awards, photos, and other items pertaining to the UCF Gay Lesbian Bisexual Student Union which was started in 1976. The items chronicle the rich history of this originally closeted club. It even includes the files of the 1995-1996 president. It is truly an interesting collection to look through. Though I have to say, honestly, every collection is really interesting to look though. Maybe that's because I'm just naturally nosy!

After I finished inventorying the collections I also took note of approximations on how many boxes and file folders would be needed for future rehousing of each collection in archival quality boxes and file folders. This is information I will include in my final recommendations for the GLBT History Museum of Central Florida. Throughout the current semester I have learned valuable information that I can pass along to the museum and its board. All of this information I will apply to a final recommendation for the future of the museum's archives, which is my next step!

Until next week,
-Kyle the intern