INFO 5090 - Practicum Blog

After a weekend of rest, I was able to return on Monday to give my presentation on my collection and hear everyone else’s. Getting able to hear about everyone’s collections and seeing some of the materials inside was really cool. Some of my favorites was the collection of correspondence between a husband and wife during WW1 and WW2. There was a lot of material in the collection and in general, I find collections that preserve a person or persons average day to day life very interesting. I also like the collection of pictures taken by an amateur photographer of different landscape scenes around Texas. The collection was actually found in a garage sale and I thought the pictures taken were really nice. I was really nervous during my presentation, and honestly felt like I took too many pauses in some places but overall I think I did pretty well.

So, a few things happened. We had the day off on June 19, for Junteenth and I had started feeling a bit sick before that but I thought at first I just hadn’t gotten enough sleep. However, I took a covid test and it came back positive. So, in the interest of not getting anyone else sick, I spent the next two days in my dorm, mostly sleeping, drinking water, and coughing a lot. On the upside, I was already basically done with processing, and the few things I still needed to do could be taken care of online, with my laptop. My supervisors were really understanding, which I really appreciated. The first few days, I really didn’t feel good.  

 I spent the day mostly doing small things. I cleaned up some small things with my finding aid and the info inside. Not things that were errors exactly, more like things that weren’t as accurate as they could be. The subject of our displays came up and I was talking to one of our supervisors about it and she noticed something on a picture I wanted to use that could be mold. It was just a very small spec, that could have been a bit of smudge but she couldn’t be certain with just eyeballing it. After getting another supervisor's opinion on it she suggested I send it to preservation just to be safe. I thought that was a good idea, and I do have other pictures I want to use for the display.  As part of the display I also finished making the captions for the different pictures I want to use and a small blurb explaining the contexts of the collection. I think it’s going pretty well.  

  Today started with Sam going over the barcode system so the actual collection can be physically tracked in the actual archive. Each box needs a sticker with a barcode and a number. The number needs to be entered into the bulk import so it’s available in the finding aid. We also need to make labels with the collection, series, subseries, barcode number, etc. that can be seen on just the side of the box. Same sent everyone a template for those after he was done with the lecture. It’s pretty simple but also kinda precise because everything needs to be in the right place or else no one will be able to find anything. I spent most of the morning working on those stickers, and entering in the right barcode so I was actually able to email the labels I need back to him by the end of the day. There is a small complication, since I don’t have the first series box right now, since the pages I need for my display are still being made but really it’s a minor thing. The barcodes are all in numb...

  I spent most of the day working on the bulk important template. I finally got it to the point where it’s organized and everything's in its place. It only took another two or three tries, but I got it. I got my stuff back from preservation. They did a good job on the folder, it still rolls up a little bit but not nearly as bad when I first got it. I don’t think I’ll be able to use it for the display though. The rolling is one problem but it’s also just too big. I also got the picture back but they weren’t able to separate it from the glass. They did manage to remove the rest of the frame around the picture. So, I put the picture and glass in their own folder with a special warning on the side. I guess it’s not a huge issue, we still have the picture after all, I just found it kinda surprising. That’s some really strong glue. I had a little extra time at the end of the day, so I worked on some homework for my other class.  

  I spent most of the day working between the bulk important template and the plan for my display. Today, our supervisor eMott had a cart brought in the room and told us anything we wanted scanned and copied for the displays should be placed on it. So the tech team can work on making the stuff as soon as possible. There are a lot of pages in the scrapbook I think would make good display items, So I’ve decided to mark a bunch with bookmarks and have a few extras. That way I can decide what to put up, with the actual display. I mean, I already have a pretty good idea but I’m not the best visualizer, so I worry I might be using too much or too little. I guess, we’ll see when I actually start setting stuff up. In the interest of making sure none of the pages of the scrapbook got put out of place, I put the entire box on the cart. It’s only a fold over box, so it’s not like it took up a huge amount of space but I really didn’t want anything to be out of place. I also did get the bulk im...