I’ve
been employed as an archivist for little over a month now. Only in the past couple of weeks have I
started to feel comfortable with my decisions and finding it easier to make
those decisions. In fact, I’m starting
to think that I might actually be good at this (totally my opinion only).
When I came in on the processing
project, two other temporary archivists had already assessed the collection and
designed an arrangement. Both were gone,
with only their notes left behind to guide me, as well as a graduate student
assistant who had been elbow deep in the records since November.
Coming into the project in media res, as it were, has both advantages
and disadvantages. I think being part of
the accession, deed of gift, appraisal, and well, just opening the boxes and
going through all of the stuff for the first time gives the archivist a more
intimate look into the collection and therefore a better understanding of how
the records were used, original order, etc.
To understand the collection is to provide the best means of access to
it, and access is the ultimate goal, I dare say.
However, the most confounding and
thoughtful aspect of processing any collection, especially one that has no
discernible organization (i.e. original order), designing an arrangement, had already been
done, and I had to figure out why certain decisions were made and consider
revising it. I admit I put way more
thought into the existing organization than was necessary. I felt, since I was now sort of running point
on this project, that I should make changes to show that I knew what I was
doing and that I could take charge. At
times I tried to force changes that in the end just made no sense. The deeper I got into the collection, the
more I backed off editing the arrangement, and ultimately came back to the
original blueprint. I have made changes
since, now that I’m more comfortable with the collection, but it was a great
starting point and trying to overhaul it in the beginning before I’d even
gotten familiar with the records was a waste of time and energy.
Now I’m in the midst of inventorying
the collection for the finding aid, and this is where I’m finding it easier to adjust the
organization a bit. There are files in a
group of files that I believe belong in another group, which just proves that
one archivist’s arrangement can vary greatly from another’s. We’re about three weeks in with this
inventory and I have re-organized the files more than once. So far, that has been one of the biggest
takeaways from this experience: Processing archival collections means arranging
and re-arranging again and again and again.
You would think the process would be tedious and not a little
frustrating, but in fact, it teaches me to look at the collection as a whole
and to look at it how a researcher would.
All that theory learned in library school really does mean
something.
This is a temporary gig, and I
really want to see it through to the end.
When I had been first hired, I had been asked to apply a processing
technique called MPLP (More Product, Less Process) in an effort the speed up the project and open the collection
to users, in conjunction with more traditional methods. I’m not sure I’ve succeeded thus far, because
one argument for MPLP is that you don’t need to look at every item in the
collection (of which there are 9,000+ in this one), and yet, how is it possible
to direct an item to its proper place in the arrangement if you don’t spend a
moment to appraise it? Despite that
conundrum (a discussion of MPLP could warrant its own blog post, and it has on
other sites), I’ve been moving through the collection at a decent speed. In fact, sometimes I have wondered if I would
finish before my time was up. Looking
back on these past weeks, and considering the remaining collection to document,
I can say that will not happen. Although that, in this uncertain economic
climate, does not mean job security; it just means someone else will eventually
come along to finish the project, when funding is available. I’d like it to be me, but who knows? Until then, I’m enjoying the hell out of the
experience.
