Rehousing a collection

This week I started the actual process of rehousing the Brian Arbogast collection. It took me a combined total of about 11 hours to rehouse just two boxes. The process is quite tedious (as I've mentioned in my previous post). Basically what I had to do was go through each box again and make sense of what I like to call "organized chaos."

I started working on box one which contains the files concerning the ILGA (International Lesbian and Gay Association), GLAAD Florida, and the various correspondence with other GLAAD chapters in the country. This should have been an easy process, and it was for the most part. Until I got to the files pertaining to the formation of the GLAAD Florida chapter. I went through these folders and had to find like files so that the organization makes more sense for future researchers. Once I made sense and reorganized these files I put them into new acid free file folders that were purchased from http://www.hollingermetaledge.com/. I then relabeled the files and put them in new acid free boxes purchased from the same site.

The second box I went through was box two (naturally). With the exception of about two or three files, this collection was almost entirely composed of files in plastic document sleeves housed in three ring binders. These are incredibly bad to store documents in long term. They allow for moisture to get trapped which adds to the deterioration of the documents. I took a similar approach to this box as I did with the first one. I would open one of the three ring binders and take the documents out. I then sorted all of the documents while they were still in the plastic document sheets. Once I sorted the documents, I then took them out of the plastic document sheets and removed any paperclips (which along with staples, rust). I then placed the sorted documents into the new acid free files folders and into the new acid free boxes.

Overall I was nervous at first, but once I got started I found the work to be rather enjoyable, and the time seemed to fly by. At times I would hit a road block and become frustrated with certain documents, asking myself "Where on earth should this go? It doesn't pertain to this, but it kind of pertains to that." Eventually I would overcome that road block and make sense of the matter. Rehousing is a lengthy process, one which I do not know if I will be able to complete before the end of the semester. Alas, where I leave off, the next intern will pick up. I will have left detailed information pertaining to what all I have done, and what all needs to be done. Ideally this will make the next intern's job much easier.

I leave you all once again. Have a great weekend and Until next time,

-Kyle the intern

Creating an abstract for a finding aid and rehousing a collection

So this week was rather paper work intensive earlier in the week and more hands on later in the week.

Earlier in the week I started adding more to my finding aid. The inventory is just the first of many layers. The next layer, which I started this week, is an abstract of each collection. In each abstract I cover a brief biography of the creator of each collection. I then talk about the history of each collection and how that specific collection came into the hands of the GLBT History Museum of Central Florida. It is a bit tedious and takes some research. Overall, it helps me as the archivist become more intimate with the collections, and in the long run it aids researchers who want to know if that particular collection houses something of interest to their research.

Yesterday, Thursday April 4, 2013, I met with Dr. Beiler to get the guidance needed to process/rehouse am entire collection. This is a bit intimidating because it is a lot of responsibility. It involves going through a collection and deciding where to place things. There are many things to consider and it is not a decision to be made without considerable amount of thought. Things to consider are:

Did the creator of this collection place these documents in a specific order? If so, for what reason?
Do the items in a folder belong together? or were they misplaced?
Other things to consider/take note of are dates for a scope of the collection. This way I can state for certain in my finding aid the dates the collection covers.

This process is a lot of responsibility, but I know at the end of this process I will know where everything is, and it will reflect in my finding aid. I think my doubts come from me feeling like as an intern I should have my hand held through this process. However, how am I to gain the experience if I do not do it myself? I guess I am just worried about messing everything up. I just have to continue to have confidence in myself and my work. At the end, if my finding aid matches the content of each box, than I did my job correctly!

I leave for San Diego next Thursday for my significant other's sister's wedding to her partner. This is really exciting, especially more so now with the recent supreme court arguments on same sex marriage. I will try and post my blog next Thursday. If not Thursday night, than Friday.

Until then,

-Kyle the intern