LCP Internship Week 15: End of the Internship

One of my supervisors continues to be in Africa on business, and my other supervisor has been in contact with me about finding more empty folders and completing the internship. I worked very long hours, as I did last week, and completed the education box, while starting to arrange some of the reports and conference papers. During the week an announcement was made about the new Indiana University finding aids site being available to the public. I am really excited about it, as it means that more patrons will become aware of the contents of the collections, and therefore, the use of the collections will increase. I cannot wait to see Bai T. Moore’s collection on the site!

There were many valuable experiences at the Liberian Collections, and I know that no matter what I may be required to do in a future archival position, I will have benefited from Dr. Stone’s internship structure and Ms. MacDonald’s advice. And if I ever obtain a job with the UN, which is something I hope to do, I will be better prepared from having completed this internship.

LCP Internship Week 14: Wrapping Things Up & Reflections on Processing

Monday morning of this week, I sent my supervisor, Mr. Stone, an email to let him know that I had a class project that I had to work on and so would be rearranging my schedule for the week. On Tuesday morning, I received a message stating that he had to leave right away for business in Africa and would not be returning until after my internship was already over. I was excited for him, and hoped that his trip would go well. I then went back to work on processing the education box. I also started to make certain that my final notes and internship documents were all in order, and ready to be edited.

As I begin to look back on my notes about the internship, I realize how overly cautious I was about my work in the beginning, but also believe that it may have been easier if I had spent much more time on research in the beginning, rather than throughout the process. Toward the end of my time working at the Liberian Collections, I began to move much quicker and be less concerned with the random paper that did not seem to fit within any other folder. I just quickly found the best fit, and then placed the item within that folder. I believe that it is our duty, as archivists, to provide the best processing at the most reasonable pace for our patrons. After all, what is access if no one can quickly or accurately find what he or she is seeking?

LCP Internship Week 13: Caught by a Cold on Thanksgiving Break

The week of Thanksgiving break and of course I would have to become ill. I became very ill with a cold and remained home most of the week. This means that I will have to make up many hours of work during the next two weeks, and also that I did not have much of a vacation.

LCP Internship Week 12: Editing & Spreadsheet Calculating for Project Funding, & Processing Education

Up for processing this week was the box of documents related to education, but I was pulled away from processing this section of the collection in order to edit a document and complete some calculations for an update on the status of a project that the Liberian Collections is in the process of completing.  I had worked on some spreadsheet documents and calculations during one of the previous weeks of my internship, and it was fairly quick and easy to complete. I spent the remainder of the week beginning to look through the boxes for items related to education, titles that could be used for the education folders, skimming through the material to begin planning its arrangement, and then starting the processing.

Processing has become very easy for me, with the most difficult thing being preventing myself from becoming too interested in the items being processed. This would probably be very different if I were not processing at the item level.

LCP Internship Week 11: Proofreading the LC’s Pages on the New IU Finding Aids Website

Continuing to work on the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture documents, I found that some of the most interesting items in the collection were within this box, including papers that had wonderfully artistic interpretations of their subjects, and a lot of discussion about education in Africa. I worked very hard this week to complete the arrangement and description of the materials from this conference, and searched other boxes in the collection to be certain that I had not missed anything.

During the week, I read several interesting articles about Liberia and also proofread the Liberian Collections pages on a new Web site with updated finding aids, which is scheduled to go live in a few weeks. I had heard about the Web site months before, during a job interview, and have been excited to see it. As with many new projects, I did find some errors, but they were few, and the ability to search through finding aids for the Liberian Collections is a great accomplishment for the repository and digital library program. My supervisor, Ms. MacDonald, was working very hard to get them all completed and everything working smoothly before the unveiling of the site.

LCP Internship Week 10: Processing the Second World Black & African Festival of Arts & Culture Documents

Processing programs is now complete and I have started processing the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture items. This is going to be another box that is difficult to arrange and describe because many of the files contain papers that were submitted to the festival, and although most of the papers are from the same year, there are planning documents and reports that may be from different years. Other considerations were whether to list the names of the festival paper authors and the full paper titles on the folders. Ms. MacDonald recommended that I look at how the Indiana University Archives lists them on their finding aids, which I did. I found that they sometimes do list authors, but most likely would not do so for a collection of conference papers. Upon conferring with Ms. MacDonald again, she believed that it was not important to list the authors because most likely researchers would be looking for a topic and not the author. I agreed, and proceeded to list the full titles of the articles on the folders.

As with previous folders, if papers looked like they were still in their original order, I kept them together by placing them between one folded sheet of archival quality paper. Other papers that had severe damage were also placed in similar folded paper. If the objects were in danger of affecting (with ink or paper issues) those that came before or after it in the folder, the item would be placed between two sheets of paper.

LCP Internship Week 9: Editing for the New Website

I worked less than 12 hours this week, so I will need to make up the hours during the next week by working longer. There was a lot of editing to do during this week. I edited and made summaries from biographies written about several of the figures that had collections in the Liberian Collections Project. These edits and summaries were to be used for the new LCP Website that is currently in the process of being developed and designed. Also, I was told that the name “Liberian Collections Project” would soon be changed to “Liberian Collections,” which I thought was a very wise choice, as it makes the LCP seem less like a university based project and more like an archival repository.

The editing took most of the week, and it was mostly due to the difficulty in summarizing the life of Bai T. Moore. I found it difficult to highlight the significance of Moore’s life in a brief way for Web scanning after having worked with his materials and researched his life so thoroughly. Sometimes, everything seems important. Eventually, though, I was able to summarize it enough to be thorough and also brief. The remaining figures’ summaries did not take as long to complete, and it was beneficial to learn more about some of the other collections, and the new Website.

LCP Internship Week 8: Grant Proposal Work & Processing Programs

Having finished processing the speeches, I began working on processing programs and filling out a grant proposal. Completing the grant proposal has been one of the most interesting things that I have done so far. I have not had the time to look at very many grant proposals, so delving into this one for the LCP was very informative for me. I was very cautious about how I completed the forms, and double-checked them to be certain that I had everything right before returning it to my internship supervisor.

My supervisor provided instructions to view several prior and similar forms in order to complete the information. As I connected to their server to search for the specific files, I became slightly lost in the numerous files that existed in the group folders. First, I searched by name for the documents, but the exact file names did not exist. I then searched for the beginning of the file names, or the parts of the files with particular names in them. This was not precise, but before I had to ask my supervisor for help locating the files, I found them.

Working on the programs was fairly quick work, and again, it was difficult not to get too interested in them. There were funeral, wedding, graduation, and even cultural and political event programs. I found the funeral programs to be especially difficult to examine because many of them came from the periods of civil war. Included in the funeral programs was a program for the remembrance of those political leaders that died directly after the first coup. I arranged the programs by topic, and then name and date if there were any to be associated with them.

LCP Internship Week 7: The Many Roles of an Archivist

Having completed the bills, receipts, and correspondence, I continued to work on arranging speeches, as well as some editing. The speeches mostly related to specific events, so I arranged them by subject: political, presidential, and specific events. At this point I began to process much quicker and still precisely. Being nearly half of the way through the internship, I began to wonder how I would use the skills that I have gained.

While I worked, I wondered if an entry-level position at an archive would ever be solely focused on processing or if there would be many other tasks required, such as are often listed in the open position ads. As I have been working over the last few semesters, I have come to understand how much I enjoy working with digital environments; such as with metadata and XML, and on design, usability, online exhibitions, publications, and projects. My goal is to obtain a position working on digital projects within a library, museum, or archive, and work with the physical objects that way. So, will I be able to find a position like this and complete processing as a part of it? I wonder why my program does not suggest the metadata internship with the Digital Library Program as an option for an archival internship. It may be that there are already too many digital library students trying to obtain an internship in that area, but I believe that it could be just as beneficial for archival students. For many archival students that I have spoken with, an internship generally focuses on processing.

Although processing will be a major focus for most archival students, there are so many other types of positions within an archive. In smaller archives, I assume from reading listserv messages and discussions with professionals, that the archivist(s) take on many roles that could be divided into more specific roles in larger archives. Are archivists expected to focus on one area or be able to fulfill the duties in many areas? For example, I have taken archives and records management classes on public programming, audio preservation, general preservation, EAD, and EAC, which are all very different roles for an archivist. Additionally, I have been working with the Website of a Rare Books Library, which is another required role for an archivist. I am certain that there are many things that I have not covered that are part of the positions, such as fundraising, but should these additional roles be included as part of archival internships?

I suppose that is why I have been participating in volunteer outreach and fundraising projects, and also working in such a variety of positions. I am grateful that my internship with the LCP has also included me in outreach projects, such as the editing or layout work for the listserv information. I look forward to being involved in more projects like this with the LCP.

LCP Internship Week 6: How Much is Too Much Processing?

I do not know if I could have spent any longer on the receipts and bills than I did this week. By the end of the week, I was very tired of receipts and bills, and felt as though I could still see them when I closed my eyes. If I could redo any of the processing that I completed this week, it would be to complete less arrangement of the bills than I did; this task was somewhat monotonous. Even so, I knew that what I was doing was important for the collection and for researchers. After I completed this task, I began to work on speeches and also went back to add a few items to the correspondence box that I had discovered in the speeches and receipts. At the end of the week, I felt that the nearly all of the boxes I worked on were complete, and helped with a little more editing for the listserv announcements. I worked 17 hours this week, as opposed to my usual 12, to try to get ahead for the semester. Although 17 hours does not seem very long, with all of the other projects that I was working on for courses and work, I felt exhausted.