Day Thirteen - June 6, 2024

 


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 through every step of entering a record into 

ArchiveSpace including why a resource may not be accepted by the program and how to update the finding 

aid later. The process looks both pretty simple and kinda complicated. As in, the actual technical steps in the

 process are pretty simple (you fill out a spreadsheet, upload it, have it checked, then press the upload button) 

but there are also a lot of ways that could go wrong. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it, one way or another. 

In the latter half of the day after lunch, I mostly worked out ideas for the possible display.  I did a bit of 

research into the Gay Games that Johnson competed in several times. I’m a bit surprised I hadn’t heard of it 

before because the games seem pretty popular. I was happy to see they were still putting on events every 

four years. I’ll have to go through his scrapbook to get context for some of the other items I’d like to use. 

I hope I get the items I sent to preservation back tomorrow.

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