out of the past

Today I finished my internship at the Congregational Library. It was an interesting day. First let me explain that at the start of this internship I was given two small-ish projects to complete that were supposed to take the full 60 hours required for my class. They were a collection of correspondence, which I've mentioned in a previous post, and a collection of church records dating from the 1780s to the 1950s. The second collection was more challenging in the variety of formats of documents, but I was really getting into the groove of arrangement by then, and it didn't even slow me down. I finished the first project in three and a half days and ran through the second one even faster, in only two and a half days. My supervisor was definitely surprised. In fact, for the last hour of my time on Friday and for my entire eight hour shift today, she had to find other things for me to do to keep me busy.

(If you've been paying attention and doing the math for my 7.5 hour days [including half hour lunch breaks], you'll realize I'm actually not up to the full 60 hours yet, but am sitting at 52.5. My supervisor decided that it didn't make sense for me to come in and putter around on my own while she is on vacation all month, especially since I've already proved I can do what was required of me.)

She ended up giving me a box of random items the librarians had pulled from their stacks and decided to give to the archives. My job was to look at each folder of materials and search the catalog for a collection it might fit with to be added to. If no such collection existed, it would become a new "small collection." Today Jessica showed me how to create catalog records, and I made several new entries for the items in the mystery box. In the end, only four folders contained items that could be added to existing collections, the rest had to have new records created.

And yes, I finished this last project before 5:00. I ended up spending my last hour just talking to my supervisor about archives, Simmons and vaguely related topics. She's going to be on vacation in Mexico by the end of the week, so she didn't feel much like working either. In the end, she let my go twenty minutes early just because there was no point in my sticking around. And she gave me gifts. I left with a load of three used, but still usable small-size acid-free storage boxes which will be great for properly storing the collection I have at home of my grandmother's love letters from grandma during WWII. She also gave me a catalog for archival supplies so I can order the rest of what I'll need (acid-free folders and mylar windows for photographs) to properly take over my role as family historian, though I think I'll stick with just the one project for now. Taking the subway home, clutching the awkward boxes on my lap, I realized what a nerd I am for getting excited over boxes. I must be going into the right profession. Oh, and Jessica wrote me a great recommendation letter for a summer internship I am applying for, which was very much appreciated.

I'm actually somewhat disappointed I won't be working in the archive anymore, bot I really need the time now for my other projects, which seem to have snuck up on me while I wasn't looking. But, Jessica said I'm allways welcome as a volunteer, and I can come claim as many boxes as I want from the "used" pile, so I may end up taking her up on both of those counts sometime in the future when I have time to spare again, say, after I finish my degree. For now, my focus needs to be out of the past and back in the present, working on the now rather intimidating volume of work to be completed before Thanksgiving.

-Kim