INFO 5090 - Practicum Blog

  A picture of my taken before the internship started. This was requested by the internship supervisors for their records.  At the start of my internship, I was very nervous. This wasn’t just my first time working in a professional archival setting, it was also my first time in Denton and living on campus. So, I was in a very new environment during and outside of the internship. I had a lot of new things to learn and new day-to-day practices to get used to. However, it didn’t take long for me to grow more comfortable in the Special Collections department. Especially, as I started to work more with the collection. What I wanted from this internship was primarily to get a better idea of what it would be like to work in an actual archive. I think from the first week the team of supervisors leading us did a great job giving us, the other interns and I, a general overview of what the UNT Archives were like. Some of the highlights for me were the different tours we got to take of di...

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...

  The day started with a presentation on special collection cataloging by one of the supervisors, Kelly. It was interesting to hear about. I spent the rest of the time before lunch working on the finding aid and the bulk import of the files. I finally got full access to ArchivesSpace today. When I entered the first bulk important sheet a lot of errors popped up, and I wasn’t really sure what was wrong at first. Most of the errors had to do with the dates of files I had written. Which makes since I’m still having some trouble figuring out bulk, single, and inclusive. Most of the mistakes were small, like for a single date, I just needed to write one year, not a beginning and end year like the other date types. I went through the template again, reasoned through what I had done wrong and tried to get everything in the correct order. There were other issues with hierarchy and how I had arranged everything. I wasn’t able to get the template error free before the day ended.

  The day started with a presentation on special collection cataloging by one of the supervisors, Kelly. It was interesting to hear about. I spent the rest of the time before lunch working on the finding aid and the bulk import of the files. I finally got full access to ArchivesSpace today. When I entered the first bulk important sheet a lot of errors popped up, and I wasn’t really sure what was wrong at first. Most of the errors had to do with the dates of files I had written. Which makes since I’m still having some trouble figuring out bulk, single, and inclusive. Most of the mistakes were small, like for a single date, I just needed to write one year, not a beginning and end year like the other date types. I went through the template again, reasoned through what I had done wrong and tried to get everything in the correct order. There were other issues with hierarchy and how I had arranged everything. I wasn’t able to get the template error free before the day ended.  

I am a Library Sciences major with a concentration in archival studies. I'm also earning a certificate in archival management. My internship with UNT has been invaluable since it's given my hands on experience in archival processing, and metadata management, two very important skills in archives work. Processing is basically the, for lack of a better word, process of accessing the value of materials, determining how they might benefit researchers, addressing preservation concerns, and entering them into the archival system. I mean that in the physical sense, many items need to be re-filed in approved boxes made of non-corrosive materials and that a collection needs to be accurately entered into the university's online database to make it available to researchers. Which will often involve the curation and writing of metadata, which is how most search functions connect materials to search terms. However, what I hoped to learn in the interview with Morgan was more focused on t...

  We had a lecture about digitization. I’ve actually worked a bit with digitization before, for school and personal  projects. So, I can see myself working in a digital library or with digitizing materials in the future I spent more time working on the spreadsheet. I managed to get it close to finishing after lunch but I hit a wall while  trying to check it through ArchivesSpace. There’s this step where the spreadsheet gets validated to make sure all the  information for the material has been entered in correctly but for me whenever I tried to do that an error message  would appear instead of the validating screen. It wasn’t even that I had an error in the spreadsheet, it just wouldn’t  take me to the page. The message said I didn’t have permission to view the page. Some other people had the same problem, so at least it wasn’t something I was doing wrong. The supervisors  eventually figured it had to be that we hadn’t been given the right access, so we...

  Sam explained how to fill out the spreadsheet that would let us do a bulk import of all the material in our  collection. So, it’ll be an official part of the Finding Aid on the UNT Special Collection’s website. He was  very indepth and walked through each step. Basically every row in the spread sheet represents a piece of the  collection, it can be a series, sub-series, files, etc. and each column contains different information necessary  for the Finding Aid like: title, identifier, Hierarchical relationship, description level, publish, restriction,  dates, etc. There’s a lot of stuff to remember, but I think it’s kind of straightforward otherwise.  After the lecture I spent time working on the finding aid, writing out what information I would need. For  most of the time after lunch I worked on the spreadsheet. I’m a little confused on the categories of date and  hierarchy. I'm not sure about the differences between bulk and inclusive dates...

  Today the morning was taken up entirely by an introductory presentation to ArchivesSpace.  The website used by UNT to manage the metadata and online database for their archival collections. We  won’t be able to actually input anything into ArchivesSpace yet because the person in charge of that is on  vacation until next week.  The actual website looked a bit like some of the programs I’ve used while freelancing. I’ve done a bit of  data-entry and research jobs for a local newspaper, but of course the focus of the two sites requires some  different features. I appreciated how in depth the presenter went. Especially where we could access tutorials  on how to use the site's different features, even if the videos were in their words “Too long and boring”.  I tend to be more of a visual learner, so having some extra instructions should be helpful in the future. For the second presentation on resource record, eMott went throug...

    Most of the morning was spent on a presentation about Archival Description. The presenter, Jess, was very  in depth and detailed in her explanations. The presentation provided some interesting insights into why  description is done a certain way and how it helps future researchers. From my understanding, archival  description has basically been designed so any researcher can find the material they need in as few search  terms as possible. That’s probably not the actual standard but I find it a helpful way to think about archival  description.  For the rest of the day I spent some time organizing my series and getting a head start on the description  based on the supervisor’s instructions. The collection of musical sheets had come in partial alphabetical  order based on the title but there were a few pieces out of place. An “i” with the “j”s or an “S” with the  ”r”s, that sort of thing. Extrapolating from context clues, this didn...

    I worked more on descriptions today and went back to correct some of my older work. I did take a closer  look at the published material. I set aside what I thought wouldn’t be relevant but I ended up keeping most  of the books. I did some research with UNT’s online catalogue and more of the books than I expected  weren’t in the library at all. Overall, the books cover a wide range of topics: the great depression, the life of  a model, a copy of the New Testament psalms, etc. There was an issue of a magazine I may have mentioned  before might actually be a bit rare but I can’t say for sure. All together, the books fit almost perfectly into a  fold-over box. Although I think most of the AV material should be de-accessioned, I’ve decided to keep his  home movies. Almost everything else seems to be illegal rips of fairly popular movies, which the library  probably already has. I am interested to know what some of them actually have on th...

    The first half of the class was spent on a lecture by our supervisor eMott and a librarian staff member, Ely,  about public services in archives. They went over a few of their past programs, some successful and less  successful. They told us a story about how they tried public out-reach at a tailgating event for a UNT game.  They spent the whole time shouting over the crowd noise to intoxicated people. Even if the trip had been  successful, it’s a really funny story. Their presentation made me want to go to some of the other library  events. They had a few past and future events focused around zine printing and collecting. When this  practicum is over I’ll only be an hour away so maybe I will be able to. The presentation went long so I  didn’t get a real start on work until after lunch. After lunch I started working on some descriptions for the series, boxes, and descriptions. I’m still uncertain  about the amount of published materi...