Well, my time here as a CCEPS Fellow is nearing its end. Last week all three of us CCEPS Fellows had the pleasure of giving a presentation on what we have been doing the past semester. Giving a presentation is a fantastic way to punctuate our time at CCEPS. It allowed us to give our own insight into the work we have been doing behind the “glass wall” and what it has meant to us individually.
Winding Down
This is the final week for the Spring CCEPS program, and it’s been a great experience. The IAC records presented challenges, but I feel like I’ve learned a lot from working on it. The archiving classes I took during and prior to starting here taught me about the challenges that can come up, and the different approaches you have to take to different kinds of materials. It’s almost never going to be all neat 8 1/2 x 11 pages. Processing this collection let me gain experience working with oversize and difficult items, cassette tapes, learn how to sleeve photos, film, and slides. Archiving is very hands-on, and it was great to put all the theory into practice.
So it’s time to say goodbye and move on to the next thing – I’m heading to Haines Alaska this summer to start an archives internship at the Sheldon Museum! I’m excited to continue working with archives, and I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to work here with Lisa and the Special Collections crew this semester. It’s been a fantastic learning experience and I can’t wait to keep honing my skills. Thanks to all who’ve been following the blog and make sure to keep an eye on it for the next group of CCEPS students!
– Sara
Farewell!
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This is my final blog post as a CCEPS Fellow. This semester
I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of archiving the Ethel M. Reed Papers, a
process that is almost finished. I’m going to finish entering everything into
Archivists’ Toolkit (finally!) and then I’ll be done!
It’s been a great semester and I have learned quite a lot. I
knew pretty much absolutely nothing when I started back in January, and now I’m
a budding archivist. I learned not only about the physical preservation necessary
for keeping the collection in good condition (all that Mylar sleeve-ing) but
also the intellectual organization of the collection, to make it useful for a
future researcher (all that reordering of my folders of Ethel and Nancy’s
documents). And now, I’m putting it all into AT so that it can be posted online
and used by researchers in the future.
Also, I realized that I was going to post sometime about
Nancy’s work as a chemist, and I completely forgot. Nancy graduate from Pomona
College in 1944 with a degree in chemistry. She worked for the War Department
during WW II with another scientist who was working to better preserve food for
soldiers. Check out the photo below–there’s some serious science happening.
There are problems and issues of all kinds related to equality
of women in STEM fields in our own day and age. I can only imagine what it
would have been like in the 1940s and 50s. Also, Ethel never married and
adopted and raised Nancy by herself. I feel honored to have been able to
process the documents of these women.
This Fellowship has been a fantastic hands-on learning
experience. My eternal gratitude goes to Lisa, for helping me throughout this
semester and always answering my questions. I’ll be starting a job full-time in
the fall, but this Fellowship has made me consider going back to school for
archival studies or a related field.
Farewell!
Tamara Savage, CCEPS Fellow Spring 2015
Encapsulation
Lisa showed us how to encase a photograph in mylar this week – the satellite photo I wrote about a few weeks ago:
The operation was successful. There are a huge number of photographs in the collection so we’re not going to have time to do that this semester, but we got to learn how to encapsulate a photo that doesn’t fit into any of the standard mylar sheets.
Other than that I’ve just been labeling the folders, adding last things to archivist’s toolkit and working on the finding aid.
Also, if you find yourselves in Claremont on Friday the 8th at 2:30, myself and the other two CCEPS students will be giving presentations on our work this semester. It will run until about 4pm, come check it out!
Later –
Sara
Almost There!
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I have (finally!)
officially finished foldering and labeling everything. All of Ethel’s diaries,
all of Nancy’s artwork and memorabilia from France, two scrapbooks, a
collection of historical documents, and other miscellany. Below are pictures of
my three doc boxes and a close-up of all of the labeled folders in one box.
This coming
week, I’ll be putting everything into AT (and taking finals) and presenting on
my work as a CCEPS Fellow this past semester.
Cheers!
Tamara