My last day on the job found me grasping the reality that I might have to come back to finish up my last project–because I just cannot leave anything undone! I managed to get arrangements made to launch the Special Collections Blog. Andrew Welp, the scholarly communications assistant, provided the space and support to create the blog. However, we ran out of time getting the first post up.

I did get items digitized and a blog post written. I have decided (and it’s been approved) that I will return before classes start in August to put together the blog post, including the digitized items highlighted in the post. Still to do: annotations for the digitized items, metadata, and making sure the home page for both the Irwin Library and Special Collections highlight the blog. We will also make sure that the blog is launched with appropriate advertisement from the marketing department.

This last week has been pretty hectic! As might be expected when working with a wide range of people and departments, not everything is complete and I am racing to get as much done as possible before wrapping up my internship. The box order decisions have all been made and one last confirmation means that the order can be submitted and paid for. The last detail is to coordinate getting the department credit card information to process the order.

This whole process has taught me about balancing the needs of conservation with the realities of budgets. Fortunately, money that was initially earmarked for another collection in special collections could legitimately be re-directed to this purpose. As my mentor said, the donor of the original money would no doubt be happy to secure the safety of some of the most fragile items in the collections without sacrificing the stability of the items they donated. It seems an excellent compromise.

This week has been eye-opening. As often happens, items show up on the doorstep (figuratively) of the archives and special collections because a university department is cleaning house and/or they have no where else to go. In this case, Special Collections received four boxes containing a large number of color photographs and negatives from the Facilities Management office.

The photos document building and landscaping projects dating back to the late 1980s at Butler University. The photos, mostly still in their envelopes from the local drugstore that developed them, came to us completely disorganized. Fortunately, many of the envelopes contained two or three-word descriptions of the project depicted and a basic date (August 1989 or occasionally specific dates). Still, there were stacks of unidentified photos (some with dates, most not) and many envelopes that contained no photos, but had the negatives–that needed to be matched up (hopefully!) with the photos.

To acquire some experience and to get the boxes off the floor of the reading room, I decided to take on the task of creating an initial intake list while also imposing some sort of basic order on the mess.

Together with my mentor, we decided that a simple list assigning a Box number, envelope number, with the brief description and count of the envelope contents and date (if available)  would suffice for this initial intake. We also decided that we would have our colleague in special collections (who has been at the university for decades) identify and organize as many of the loose photos and negatives as possible for later inclusion in the initial inventory.

With this basic approach in place, I began the process of organizing and listing. Having lots of extra magazine-style boxes available provided me with boxes that could hold a manageable number of envelopes and which could then be efficiently stored in the stacks. I managed to organize all of the photo envelopes in just about 8 hours of work this week. I made sure to create one master list, but also individual box lists to include in each box. I penciled an item number on each envelope and then labeled the box with its own number.

My colleague will continue to identify the loose photos, but now, at least, there is some order to the mess–and the real possibility that the photos will  become accessible and usable. My mentor is pleased with the work since we have been able to identify photos that are not currently in the archives. The next steps will no doubt happen after I have finished my internship, but will include culling out duplicates and any photos that are deemed unnecessary. The sorting and organizing also allowed us to find personal photos that belonged to a former facilities employee (and return them to him at his current employer!), as well as sort out software and software manuals that had mistakenly been tossed in with the photos–also returned!

While the archives and special collections might end up with many items that others just want to “dump”, it seems that it is always worthwhile for us to give them time and attention to make sure that nothing is lost that might one day have value as part of the institutional record.

Though it might sound tedious and even boring, I have been tremendously intrigued by the work involved with measuring all of the books held by Special Collections at Irwin Library that date prior to 1700. In order to purchase protective storage, each book had to be precisely measured in an exact manner as set forth by the storage manufacturer.

Learning this procedure and measuring each book allowed me to handle almost 100 books dated from the 1470s to 1700. Many of the books are in original or early bindings. The chance to examine each book and learn about how the book was printed and constructed provided a great learning experience.

Now that the measuring is all complete, I notified my mentor to discuss the ordering of these enclosures. Initially, we assumed that phaseboxes would be the most affordable and would be possible within our budget constraints. Of course, we wanted clamshell boxes, but it seemed unlikely that clamshell boxes would work with our budget.

The sales representative for the manufacturer provided an estimate that indicated we could afford the clamshell boxes and that we could purchase heavier-weight boxes for the largest folio and oversized items, as well! This turned out to be an unexpected and happy result. Still, it was useful to have a detailed discussion about balancing protection with budgeting when considering what to order. We had considered several options including ordering the sturdier clamshell boxes only for the oldest and most fragile items, while obtaining phaseboxes for everything else. We also considered limiting the order by books printed before 1600, leaving the others to be ordered as funds allowed at a later date.

Fortunately, we are able to order everything at once. Still, the conversations about conservation needs vs. budget demands proved very useful.