I have (finally) finished the foldering process!
All of the folder titles have been created and arranged in the appropriate boxes and series order. It was a long and thorough process, but it was essential. And now that it’s complete, it will make the remaining tasks that much easier.
— Well, it isn’t totally complete, because I still have to enter box and folder numbers on each folder. But at least they are all in proper order now! I didn’t really think I could escape the process that easily, did I? —
But, particularly the excel spreadsheet that I created at the beginning of the summer, and have been consistently updating while creating and re-arranging folder titles, proved invaluable when it came to the next step in the archival process – entering all of the necessary information into Archivist Toolkit. With the help of Lisa’s “Excel savvy” we were able to transfer a lot of the information from the excel document into Archivist Toolkit, using appropriate formulas and codes (that I know next to nothing about!)
Here is a screen shot of some examples:
Now, the Series, subseries, and folder titles are in Archivist Toolkit and I must enter the date ranges for each folder and make sure everything – all of the information for the entire collection – is correct and arranged accordingly. This includes adding descriptive notes for many folders, series/subseries, and even the collection as a whole. More on this next week…
It is exciting to begin the next step and inch closer towards the “finish line” of processing the collection. It has been pretty neat to be able to see a lot of the work I have done over the past several weeks on screen, entered into Archivist Toolkit, and becoming more and more refined until it will eventually be ready to go and accessible for researchers. Knowing the research process and what searching through archives entails, I am happy knowing that my work this summer could potentially help someone researching in the future. I look forward to the remaining tasks I have left, including creating the finding aid and writing the Front Matter, which will aid researchers interested in Prof. Miller’s work even more.
I cannot believe how quickly the time has gone (did I say this work has been repetitive?!). It has been a really great experience in a number of ways, and although I only have a few weeks left, I am excited about what lies ahead, both in terms of finishing the work for this collection as well as incorporating the CCEPS experience in (hopefully near) future endeavors.