Progress and the Basement

This is a shot of what my processing table did look like with the Jewish Studies Program Records in the back and the Long Papers in the front.  They are both in limbo now waiting to be checked.  I have finished arranging and describing them unless something else comes back.  I did flag more sensitive materials in the Jewish Studies Collection this week.  This was after I learned that what courses students took was protected.  Since a whole subseries is devoted to an overseas course program, I went through to check for student lists.  In other news, it was decided that the Legionnaire's folder in the Long Papers was most likely mistakenly included in the accession.  I was glad to have Dina and Carrie both weigh in on that decision.  It really didn't make sense to me and neither of the Longs were ever mentioned in anything that I went through.  The collection was easier to describe without the extra folder.  Now everything has to do with musicals, plays, and pageants that the Longs wrote.  Comparing the two collections, one being records and the other personal papers, I think that the personal papers were easier (minus Legionnaires).  I had to worry a lot less about privacy and student information, but that could have just been these two collections.  Each collection is different.

After making some edits to the Long Papers finding aid I went with Carrie (and Amy who kindly volunteered to help) to the basement storage to pick up my next collection.  I was not aware until I started this internship that the archives had storage elsewhere in the library.  I think that they would prefer not to have this storage though, as it is not ideal.  The ALF is a much more ideal location.  Carrie said that things that leave the basement storage get processed and go to the ALF instead of back in the basement.  The goal is to not have to use it. 

My new collection is several accessions from the Bureau of Public Discussion.  From the reference file I learned about the Package Library Service offered that provided IU library materials to people who could not make it to Bloomington.  It worked like the picture on the right according to a pamphlet found in one of the folders.  If I find more visual materials like this it could possibly make a good exhibit!  One of the two boxes I made it through today contained a lot of personnel information which will have to be restricted, though.  There is quite a bit more material in this collection than in my last two combined.  There are 15 (possibly 16) boxes so this should keep me busy for a while. The processing table is not full with new boxes for me to go through!