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