The Borns Jewish Studies Program Collection, my first collection of my internship, has been approved! I just had to add a couple of dates and it was ready to be cataloged. Today while I was working on my new collection I heard Dina going through the steps of cataloging it. I just looked and it's in IUCAT, IU's online card catalog, and it's there ready to be used! The five boxes with just paper got sent out to the ALF. The box with VHS tapes is still in the archives for now, but the new ALF has a lovely area for films to be stored. Someday that box can move there, perhaps. The new area is temperature and humidity controlled ideally for materials on film, instead of paper.
Today I also got to help with a reference question. It involved going through President William Lowe Bryan's correspondence and pulling out letters to or from K.P. Williams. I learned that Bryan's papers are actually divided into two collections, covering the first and last part of his presidency. Bryan was president from 1902 to 1937, so that is a very large span. The first collection has correspondence organized by sender. Carrie noted that had to have taken dedication and a lot of time. I was working with the second collection. It was divided into sections such has "Willi" which contains correspondence from people with the last name Willis, Williams, Williamson, etc. They are then divided chronologically, but individuals are not separated. I took all of K.P. Williams out and he will now have his own folder, as a few others already do. In theory if this process is repeated for all the individuals it could eventually match the first collection. But for now researchers looking for correspondence between K.P. Williams and Bryan can have it all in one convenient folder! I found it fun to look over this correspondence because Bryan began each letter, "My dear ...." and ended them, "yours truly." We should bring that kind of language back, my dear readers.
I also dove into a new collection. It is the papers of Herman T. Briscoe, Dean of Faculties from 1940-1957. The collection is already processed and has an html finding aid the archives website. My job is to clean it up. I'm surveying the folders to make sure that there isn't anything that should be restricted, such as tenure discussion. Hopefully this helps to hone my privacy skills. Also, the html finding aids tend to get forgotten, so it would be great to get it prepped to become and EAD finding aid, which are kept in a separate place. There are 23 boxes, though, so I am now surrounded.
And even more exciting news this AM as you came in to a (tiny) bit more space to work in! :)
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