Second OAC

I worked two days at the archive today because I took last week off. We were able to get the Baptist papers posted to OAC. http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8n29vbb/ . Very exciting.

We spent some time talking about the structure of the organization. They are collaborative with UC Berkeley, allowing cross-registration and library privileges and the like. The individual departments work fairly independently; it seems the head librarian is fairly hands-off. It looks as though I won’t have the opportunity to really spend time with anyone outside of the archive.

I finished bundling the condolence correspondence for the MacAfee Brown collection and began on the second box of materials. It is..well…a mess. Letters, photos, newspapers, and notebooks were all tossed in the same box. I have had to pull out random items such as his expired passport, the bill for the kids’ tuition, a check to the DMV, research for a trip to Scotland. It is a challenge to find order in this submission.

Leaving things alone

I began working on a new collection this week. I am told that this donor has already submitted 300 boxes of materials to the GTU. It includes 200 boxes of books and 100 boxes of archival materials. Apparently the MacAfee family has saved everything related to Robert MacAfee. I was processing hundreds of condolence cards sent to the widow. It was my inclination to pare these down to a representative sample. I found the cards and letters that told of memories of MacAfee interesting, as were those from some prominent theologians. But many of the cards were store bought cards signed illegibly with nothing notable about them. I was instructed to keep everything and arrange it as best I could. I suspect there are some donor relations issues to which I may not be privy.

The correspondence was received over a period of approximately two month, so a chronological arrangement would be difficult. I have decided that an alphabetical arrangement best shows the relationships between the senders and the MacAfee family. I thought it might be best to store the cards and letters open and somehow attach those that have envelops, perhaps a plastic clip or sleeves, but I was told to leave them as they were, they may decide to do that project at a later date. That is where I left off this week.

Week of firsts

The donor of the nuclear disarmament collection I have been working on added a VHS tape to the collection this week. I was able to digitize the tape and transfer it DVD. The GTU uses Adobe Elements. It was a new program for me but it was easy to use. I added some basic metadata and added the DVDs into the collection boxes.

The exciting news is that they posted the first of my finding aids on OAC. The Suzuki collection is available at http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8tm78gd/. The Baptist collection is still in testing, but should be up soon. It was a very exciting week full of firsts. I am starting to feel like a real archivist.

steady rhythm

We were able to enter the Baptist collection container list into the EAD finding aid. It was confirmed as valid and the supervisor will check it for other errors. He believes that we will be able to publish two or possible three finding aids onto OAC before my next status report.

I continued work on the Nuclear Disarmament Project collection. I found that this collection includes a number of press clippings about the group. The GTU handles these by using interleaving between the sheets of newsprint, rather than photocopying as some other institutions do. This seems a reasonable step. Copying and replacing newsprint can take a lot of time and not necessarily add that much life to the document. The interleaving will prevent them from discoloring each other. I typed the container list into the Word document. Next week I should be able to enter the context information.

I have got a good rhythm with processing the records. I think I should try to look outside the processing room more at the overall workings of the GTU. I certainly needed the hands-on time with processing but I need to remember there is more to running a program than processing.

Take the time to do it right

This week we were able to make a few corrections to the EAD for the Suzuki collection and enter the collection level data for the Baptist Convention. The supervisor will look over the Baptist EAD and then we will be able to add in the container list to the record. I am anxious to get it posted on OAC but it will be worth the time to get it right.

I completed re-foldering the Nuclear Disarmament collection. The collection was organized by function: Activities, References (letters), and Peace Pastoral (a letter from the Council of Bishops calling for peace). I opted to retain the original order. On my next work day I will begin on the in-house finding aid for that collection.

Donor Relations

This week’s EAD progress was hampered by not having the current version of the software on the computer I was working on. The supervisor should have the right version installed by my next working day.

I began processing a new collection in the interim. It is a collection of mostly educational materials which the church used to teach about nuclear disarmament. It is pretty well organized I believe original order will be best in this case. I am mostly re-foldering and removing rusty clips and such.

On a different subject, I was able to spend some time talking with the Asst. Archivist about creating relationships with donors. We talked about how it often takes years to move from first contact to finally taking possession of records. It is not only convincing the donors of the institutions ability to care for the records, it is about the donor giving up their own responsibility for the records. They may have had possession of their records for 25 or 50 years. At that point the donor may be facing their own issues of mortality and immortality. Do they even want their records available after they are gone? 

First EAD

This was a good week. I finished the container lists for the Baptist Convention and was able to enter the Suzuki collection into the OAC. Well at least I began I finished entering the metadata. And I saw the EAD. I believe there is a proofreading step before it is officially posted. I love being able to do this. I have made more use of the LOC title and subject headings than I thought I would. Here is just the first part of the EAD.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

  <!DOCTYPE ead (View Source for full doctype...)>

- <ead>

- <eadheader langencoding="iso639-2b" scriptencoding="iso15924" repositoryencoding="iso15511" countryencoding="iso3166-1" dateencoding="iso8601">

  <eadid countrycode="us" mainagencycode="CBGTU">suzuki.xml</eadid>

- <filedesc>

- <titlestmt>

  <titleproper>Inventory of the Suzuki, Lester Eisaburo Collection</titleproper>

  <titleproper type="filing">Suzuki (Lester Eisaburo) Collection</titleproper>

  <author>Angela Noble</author>

  </titlestmt>

- <publicationstmt>

  <publisher>Graduate Theological Union Archives</publisher>

- <address>

  <addressline>Graduate Theological Union</addressline>

  <addressline>2400 Ridge Road</addressline>

  <addressline>Berkeley, California, 94709</addressline>

  <addressline>Phone: (510) 649-2507</addressline>

  <addressline>Fax: (510) 649-2508</addressline>

  <addressline>Email: lglenn@gtu.edu</addressline>

  <addressline>URL: http://library.gtu.edu/archives/</addressline>

  </address>

  <date>© 2011</date>

  <p>Graduate Theological Union. All rights reserved.</p>