Category: CCEPS

I have (finally) finished the foldering process!

After weeks of doing the same type of work – re-foldering, creating folder titles, and on and on again – I was surprised and rather excited when I noticed yesterday that I am up to my last box of folders that need to be created! Many times it seemed like an ongoing process with no end in sight, but alas, I can see the light at the of the tunnel.

Last week I was away conducting research in Northern California, which was fantastic. When I returned to continue working on the collection, it felt as though I picked up right where I left off — a good thing… but also somewhat intimidating, considering the seemingly endless work of foldering and re-foldering still ahead of me. But, as I “plugged through” like in past weeks, suddenly there were no more boxes to grab and start anew! The box that was on the table in front of me would be the final one.

Of course, this doesn’t mean the work is nearly complete. First off, although there remains only 1 final box of folders left, I still had to create a few more of our archival-sound boxes, since the folders I have used have added up to more total space than when originally donated. This includes putting together a flat box from “scratch” which provided a fun activity amidst all of the re-foldering.

Secondly, once the re-foldering process actually is complete and all of the boxes are filled with new, archival-sound, and properly titled folders, I will move on to the next process of entering all of the information online and creating the finding aid for the collection.

I will report back in a week regarding this next step. For now, I will enjoy the prospect of working on the collection in ways other than re-foldering and not much else!

Here are a few snapshots of the boxes and their folders… almost all done and ready to go!

Another week gone by, and more folders to create. 

Greetings!

This week contained a lot of repetition in the re-foldering process. It has been really interesting to see from afar, so to speak, the various projects and writings Professor Char Miller has undertaken throughout his (ongoing) scholarly career. I am not able to deeply examine some of these works for myself, because it is my job to process the collection and make sure it is done in an organized and timely fashion, not to necessarily analyze what he has written or accomplished. However, I still get an idea of the materials within certain folders, since often I must create the new folder title based on what is inside the folder.

Sometimes the title originally given by Char works just fine, but more often than not I have to get a grasp of the folder’s contents and try to come up with a clear and simple folder title that is representative of the work but will also make a potential researcher’s life easier.

This is especially fun for his articles written for the Spanish-language newspaper Que Pasa, which often appear in a folder with similar articles written on the same topic but in English and meant for other publications. These articles, although generally the same as that in Que Pasa, almost always contain a different title. Therefore I try to find the most relevant and significant theme of the writings and create the folder title accordingly.

For these types of folders, this includes translating the titles of the Que Pasa articles. Since I don’t know Spanish, google translate has been a big help! (if only the articles were in French, I could simultaneously be improving my preparation for the language exam i need to take for my MA in the Fall! Oh well…)

Once I translate the title, with google’s help, I compare it to the English article’s title and then find the common theme throughout. In addition to the thinking required to devise an appropriate folder title, as necessary for many folders, the folders with the Que Pasa articles take the thinking a step further due to the translations.  It’s the little things that make the repetition not so… repetitive.

Here’s an example of a clipping from Que Pasa:

Who knows, maybe I will be speaking Spanish in no time! Next week, the foldering continues…

So, it has been a couple of weeks now and the work has really “picked up!”

Some excitement, some frustration, some fascination… all in a week’s work. The first major accomplishment following the completion of the excel spreadsheet (which on its own I think I can consider an accomplishment as well!) was to propose my arrangement scheme for the collection. This was done once I was able to take a step back and examine all that the collection entails and how its specific organization may prove most useful.

Following my initial proposal, Lisa looked it over and helped explain why some were good as is and others were necessary to change. Just like I had to learn the first week, again, the key to processing a collection is making it as simple and easy to navigate for the researcher as possible. Therefore, some of the subseries I proposed were deemed unnecessary, since it would simply create more work for me as well as a potential researcher.

Also, I now understand that even if a subseries is not made, certain folders can be organized together online in the Finding Aid once all the physical processing is complete. The majority of the collection consists of Char Miller’s writings. And he ha certainly written a lot! For one frame of reference, his CV (up until 2012) was 56 pages! Maybe this is more common than I think for a scholar of similar pedigree, but I still found it extremely impressive! Some of the other Series’ we came up with include personal materials, audio/visual materials, Pomona College, artifacts and awards, and correspondence.

Once the arrangement plan was in order and all of his original folders were placed into archival boxes, I began the process of re-foldering everything into our own archival folders, while trying to create folder titles for each. For some of the folders I kept the same title as that created by Char (as we are told to try to keep the original order as much as possible) but for the majority of them, I had to come up with a title on my own. The purpose of the title needs to not only provide a good and clear indication of the folder’s contents but it also must maintain a certain type of “standardization” for the entire collection.

Additionally, including a date or date range for each folder could be really tricky if the folder has a bunch of random materials, some dated, some undated, and others containing certain dates that may or may not be too relevant. This proved most challenging for the folders of his personal materials, especially those containing materials he gathered from his family. A lot of these folders included random materials that was difficult to “place” in order to create one title that could explain all that is enclosed.

But, I’ve been told to try and make it as simple as I can and not worry too much about these types of details – something not too easy for me, especially when working on something in which I have little prior experience! But, I will keep plugging away…

One of the more interesting things I’ve gone through so far while re-foldering was a scrapbook Char created for his mother in the early 1990s about a hurricane they experienced together. The old photographs, newspaper clippings, and primary sources of what was being written at the time proved fascinating. Plus, because the scrapbook was very old and was deteriorating in some ways, I had to replace the actual scrapbook by placing each page’s contents into a new sleeve. Overall, this part of the process was really fun!

The main focus right now for my work is to make sure all the folders are created accordingly and all of the boxes will be arranged, by series, with proper folders and folder titles, and with all of the contents either preserved correctly or separated to ensure its preservation, including older artifacts and oversized items that could be damaged in the regular folders and boxes (or could damage the folders and other materials within the box). Hopefully the next week will bring improvement in devising folder title and date entries!

For now, here is one box that is now complete with new folders!

Greetings! My name is Gary Stein and I am a 2nd year M.A. student in History at CGU.  My first week working for the CCEPS Fellowship served as a great introductory week to the type of work I will be doing over the course of the summer. As seen in the picture above, Professor Char Miller from Pomona College donated a number of boxes – of materials spanning throughout his life and career – to Special Collections in order to be processed and catalogued. (and apparently there is still more to be donated!) I welcomed the opportunity to go through this collection and process it according to archival standards.

After hauling these boxes up to the CCEPS room, I began reading through the CCEPS documents provided to understand what Archival Processing entails and began to become acclimated with the type of work I will be doing. As an aspiring historian, I’ve become fascinated with archives – not only archival materials, which I have fortunately incorporated throughout a lot of my work at CGU, but also the process involved in obtaining the materials and creating a collection that researchers will be able to use in the future. In creating the collection Char Miller Papers, I hope to become familiar with exactly what that process entails. I think it will not only prove enlightening but could also provide a greater sense of appreciation for archivists and those who work in Special Collections that continue to preserve important historical materials for future generations.

Dr. Char Miller is an historian who is currently Professor of Environmental Analysis at Pomona, where he first acted as visiting professor from 2007 2009. He is also a proud alum of Pitzer College. Within this collection are his various writings including his Senior Thesis, Dissertation, numerous published books and articles, and weekly newspaper and blog entries, among others. It also contains video publications and personal materials from his family.

Well, it did not take me long to begin to appreciate the work that goes into Archival Processing! After getting to know the type of work I will be doing this summer, I conducted an initial collection survey of each of the (12) boxes, going through the materials in each box and beginning to get a sense what type of materials are in the collection and how it will be organized, or arranged. Because this was just the initial survey, I did not examine each folder in each box thoroughly; rather, I took some initial notes regarding each box’s contents and began proposing potential series or groupings based on some initial reactions.

I then transferred the titles of each box’s folders into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, consisting of a brief description of the box’s contents and all folder titles, as they were created by Char himself, along with any dates he may have included in the folder titles. I also made sure to take relevant notes regarding certain folders and included them in the spreadsheet. For example, I had to take note of any newspaper clippings within a folder, because I will then need to photocopy them onto acid-free paper (once I go through each folder in greater detail later) in order to prevent any future damage to the other materials in the folder.

An important lesson I learned from my introduction to processing a collection is that it is recommended to try and keep any original titles or order that the creator of the collection (in this case Char Miller) provided. For this collection, Char in fact organized the different materials to a certain extent, which means I will have to try and keep it “as is” as much as possible, as long as it fits accordingly within the processing and arrangement plan I devise. At first, I was a little disappointed with this, only because I thought it would make the work simpler and perhaps not include many of the steps necessary while processing a more “haphazard” collection of materials.

But, these fears quickly went away once I really got started! I understand now that the key job of the processor is to arrange the collection in the most clear and simple way possible, so that it will be easier for researches to navigate through the materials and find exactly what they are looking for. I know as a researcher I would greatly appreciate this as well! Also, as I have gone through the collection initially and worked on the spreadsheet, I am gaining an invaluable knowledge of the work – even if I won’t necessarily have to complete each and every task imaginable!  I’ve created my initial arrangement scheme based on the initial survey, organizing the collection through different series, and some subseries, and I am very excited to see if these series will in fact remain or how they will change once I begin to go through the entire collection more thoroughly.

As a distinguished academic scholar, both in history and environmental analysis, and a contemporary writer, Professor Miller stands as a significant originator of the collection. His weekly columns mostly focus on environmental concerns, including Climate Change, and the relationship of the environment with other “hot topics” such as Presidential elections, immigration reform, and the drought in California. Additionally, the collection contains materials from Pomona college including correspondence regarding the hiring process, previous syllabi, and documents related to the development of the Environmental Analysis program at Pomona, a major he helped initiate.

The box of family materials he has donated also seem to be extremely interesting, filled with photos and artifacts! It has been an amazing first week getting acclimated with the process, and has only heightened my excitement for what more is in store the rest of the summer!