WWPL Volunteer Diaries

Week one was quite the blur for me seeing as it was the first week of my first ever internship. During this week Brianna and I learned how to log photo information into Omeka, and made significant strides when it came to processing the photos left in the smaller file cabinet. However, during this week I really feel like I was focusing more on completing the task rather than learning about the items.

This all seemed to change when week two came around. I feel like during week two I paid more attention to what was in my hands, rather than just logging it into the computer and putting it back in a folder. This was the week that I felt like I really started to remember and recognize famous faces of the people in Wilson’s life. This then lead to being able to write more accurate titles to the pieces that had very little information on them, and creating a mental timeline of when a picture was taken. This was also the week when Brianna and I realized that not everything in this photo collection was going to be smooth sailing. Her and I started to realize that most of the photos in the collection were either 1) not put into Omeka (easiest fix of them all), 2) not scanned into the computer, 3) completely messed up when it came to numbering, or 4) All of the above. When this was realized it was up to Brianna and I to work as a team and stay incredibly organized over the next week and a half to fix all of this. Lastly, this was also the week that I realized that I could use my knowledge of Art History when it came to putting in photos into Omeka. For example I ran across a lot of reproduced Jacob Riis and John Singer Sargent photos that had no information on them. From knowing this I managed to put in more accurate titles and descriptions into Omeka.

Week three was a lot of work but lead to the greatest amount of success! During this week Brianna and I managed to fix the entire photo collection that we were working on. Doing this required a lot of organizing photos into separate files, a lot of scanning, a lot of daily game plan creating, and a lot of talking out what we were doing. Also during this week Brianna and I managed to find some time and go downstairs to listen to “Coffee with the Curator”. During this the Curator talked about the stories of Oscar Dabney and Margarent Cline from the museum’s Soldiers’ Stories: World War I Through American Eyes exhibit. Afterwards we then got a moment to speak to the Curator and ask him a few questions about the presentation.

Week four was a little slow for me sadly. This was the week that I managed to catch a sinus infection from one of the kids that I work with at my other job, and was sadly out sick for a good amount of this week.

Week five was a whole different story. During this week I started to feel better and was sent out to work on the Institutional Photos (insert dramatic music here). So far there have been no number mishaps or issues of items not being scanned yet. Also during this week I managed to get the most work done yet; basically just making up for my lost time from last week. Currently I am about 1/2 of the way through the collection and going strong!

Breaking News: Intern in Search of Sasquatchial Finding Aids Proves Successful!

There’s a lot of things wrong that headline, I’m fully aware, but typing out “sasquatchial” was just too fun to pass up; who knows when — or if — I’ll ever type it again. Fingers crossed that someday I will.

So yes, my hiking and mapping from last week led me to the land of finding aids, a much read bout place that I’m looking forward to getting to know a lot better. This week I’m working with the collections that already have some type of finding aid entered for them in Omeka; lose ones that have data in their Dublin Core fields with some pieces still missing or in need or some TLC.

So I’m kind of starting off simple in terms of learning what info there is and where it goes and learning the formatting Mark wants the finding aids to go by. It’s a good toe dip into the pond…ocean…whatever size body of water sounds the most impressive, let’s go with that.

I now know the locations of both the accession and donor files in case I need any supplemental information and also accidentally took home the plastic clip I was using as a bookmark for when I pulled a file. Which I just now realized…whoops. Sorry, Mark!

So far I think the most interesting part of doing finding aids is filling out the biographical notes section since it gives you the chance to really explain what the collection is beyond the collection description. Some of these smaller collections I’ve been working on were actually donated by the person they’re about or that person’s family so it’s fun playing Nancy Drew and finding all the clues to put together to get a picture of who that person was or how that collection came to be in the WWPL archive. The donor files are unique all on their own since they’re kind of the timeline of how an item– a letter or photograph — started in one place and ended up in another and how the process went of acquiring it; it’s something I didn’t think I would find as fascinating as I would. Some items have a detailed history and some don’t…those are the ones I wonder about the most.

 

To continue on in the vein of Sasquatch hunting, this week was trail hiking and trying to read the map right in order to get where the last sighting was. Is that a sign of a finding aid I see up around the bend???

Mark had me go through the 2017 collections list to see which ones were already in Omeka, which ones had a finding aid somewhere on the computer, and which ones were just missing…everything. Or a part of their everything. It was a really long list. I don’t remember the exact number, but I do know it was over 100 in terms of how many collections the WWPL archive had last year; some I couldn’t find anything about — meaning there wasn’t anything on the 2017 list beyond a collection name and nothing else — so those ended up with question marks typed next to them and highlighted a special color.

Oh, yeah, I made a new spreadsheet as I went along and, quite frankly, it’s kind of headache inducing. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but one second I’m chugging along, then the next I’m just like “I need to color coordinate this with this and that with that and actually, really, everything just needs to be colored!!!”. Uncolored white spaces became the enemy.

So now I have this…Tetris blocked looking spreadsheet with like…8 or 9 different colors — maybe more — and I can say with 70% confidence that I remember what each color stands for; I forgot to make a key. Whoops. I think I tried to write one down at some point, so that could very well be floating around somewhere, but probably not. I did at least copy and paste an uncolored version of my spreadsheet so in case any poor unsuspecting soul goes to open it they won’t be blinded by the…everything it has to offer in terms of Roy G. Biv and all the color variations in between.

Week three ended in a success for team WWPL interns: Ashley and I finished processing the photo collection!

After presenting our various findings from week two to Mark we came up with the plan to just start fresh and leave the collection some padding in the form of numbering the remainder of it from 2800. When we hit our snag we were just past 2700 when we realized there were some duplicates (and triplicates) of some numbers, each folder with a different item.

From that point it was just a matter of finding out which item was already scanned in and leaving it as that number rather than going through the explorer file on the computer trying to renumber everything. What duplicates we had we just scanned in if they weren’t already or marked as a duplicate to then manually renumber from 2800.

It made the most sense to do it like this rather than going back through the entire collection trying to start from zero; some folders were missing in the earlier numbers we had done during week one meaning they could be misnumbered or misplaced or even part of the institutional photo collection. Speaking of which…Ashley will continue the good work of processing those while I move on to…drum roll, please…finding aids!

And archivist’s bread and butter, or so I’ve read and heard. At this point in time I’ve seen them, read them, used them, but have yet to actually experience creating one. I guess you could say they’re the Sasquatch of my archival studies concentration; the clues and sightings are all there, but the actual thing remains cleverly elusive.

I feel quasi-confident going into this week since I just finished my spring semester coming out of a purely metadata based course, but EAD (Encoded Archival Description) was just something we touched on; a brief wave to as we drove past. I’m not too worried since I know Mark will be there for my more than likely numerous questions (apologies in advance!) and I’ve got a bunch of online resources bookmarked I’d like to get printed at some point, so I don’t foresee this going too disastrously.

This week Mark also had Ashley and I slip downstairs for the June “Coffee with the Curator” program which featured the stories of Oscar Dabney and Margarent Cline from the museum’s Soldiers’ Stories: World War I Through American Eyes exhibit. Both were Staunton locals who went to France to serve in the war only to return home and get married; it was a good story, one fortunately with a happy ending, and it was nice to see how the museum utilized local history. We met with the museum curator afterwards to introduce ourselves and ask some questions mostly about how he handled preservation and if he ever pulled from the archives upstairs.

The program’s actually really neat and happens once a month (July will be about Woodrow Wilson and golf) so hopefully we can make the next two before our gigs as interns are up and we have to peace out at the end of the summer.

Bring on week four; I’ll let you know how the hunt for Sasquatch goes!

 

 

 

So the photo collection processing has hit a speed bump. 

On Thursday, when it looked like the end was in sight as we reached the last three or four folders in the bottom file cabinet drawer, Ashley and I found some rather head-scratching worthy snags. Some of the folders and their contents had already been scanned, but we think just misnumbered. Going through the digital files to double check what was there we found images that weren’t in any of the physical folders in front of us, despite being numbered correctly. So where were those photos? And why were there two WWPL2626’s and some other duplicate folders?

As any confused interns would do we made stacks of what didn’t make sense and what kind of made sense along with notes detailing what was going on in the hopes it would somehow all work out. It didn’t. I’m so excited for tomorrow (no sarcasm intended, seriously, I’m curious to see what Mark has us do).

I’m not excited that things have been mis-foldered or mis-numbered or mis-something-ed, but instead that Ashley and I stumbled upon a real world problem that, up until now, I’ve only read about in textbooks or in other people’s discussion posts in class who already work in an archive. I’ve never really thought of jobs in the LIS field as smooth sailing or easy; there’s too many changing facets to assume there’d never be any mix-ups or technological changes, that the organization of information is just one solid unyielding brick you can toss around. It’s more like a Jenga tower with a few loose sticks; stable for the most part, but filled with all those wonderful “what if?” learning moments such as half a file cabinet drawer of…not organized stuff. So you learn how to fix it, make it better, organize it better, and shove that Jenga stick back into its hole better than it was before.

This internship has definitely been one of Realizations (capitalization fully intended). When I first read about the digitization of records my brain concocted this very convoluted idea of how that goes; it involved lasers and sealed labs and, for some reason, gas masks. Which, in some cases as I’ve found out, there are sometimes labs involved and lasers for scans such as 3D imaging, but no gas masks. Sometimes it’s just you, in a little back room, putting physical photographs into an Epson scanner and making them digital. Rinse, lather, repeat. After getting over my initial wariness of Mac computers and Realizing that I was doing actual record digitization I felt…kind of official. Like, I was actually a quasi-archivist. It was something I actually went to work and bragged about.

I’ve come across some really cool photos, some of which I’ve pulled up online to show coworkers. I think it’d be interesting to put together a mini collection of quirks and curiosities from the WWPL Photo Collection, but I don’t know who, exactly, would be the target audience. Easily distracted and fascinated people like me? One photo in particular reminds me of a textbook my brother had in business school for his critical thinking class; inside were…unusual pictures, like a nun mowing the lawn with a Hawaiian shirt on over her standard nun attire. The purpose was to think critically about the picture; why it was happening, how it was happening, what was going to happen after or what had happened before. 

And, in a way, isn’t that what archives are meant to do? Preserve the past to see where we, as humans, have been and gone? To keep track of what all we’ve done and how we’ve done it and how we’ve hopefully learned and changed from it? To think critically not only about ourselves as individuals, but how we’ve fit into the world as communities and societies throughout history? I probably won’t lobby to make my mini collection idea a reality because of its many faults and more than likely lack of appeal, but it’s something I might unofficially try to keep track of as I come across more critical thinking textbook worthy pictures.

In a 1914 speech to the National Press Club, Woodrow Wilson expressed “I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow…I am listening, I am diligently trying to collect all the brains that are borrowable in order that I may not make more blunders than it is inevitable that a man should make who has great limitations of knowledge and capacity.”

I admittedly don’t know that much about the man himself, but I look forward to getting to know him over the next couple of weeks. World War I as a whole is a time period I’m more familiar with having studied the literature produced during and after the Great War, so I’m definitely looking forward to returning to the early 1900’s, learning about Wilson’s presidency and handling of the war on a more personal level, and also how the war affected the city of Staunton, if at all.

Similarly, I don’t have a lot of hands on experience in an actual archive. I’ve done some volunteering at a local heritage center staffed purely by other volunteers where I observed and helped in that awkward peripheral kind of way, but couldn’t quite get my hands dirty. So this week was exciting for me in that Mark let us hit the ground running; I never knew I’d get so excited over giant folders with lots of smaller folders inside at 10 o’clock in the morning.

About half of the archive’s photo collection, having previously been digitized by another intern, was publicly available online. The other half was still private, lonely digitized images waiting for more bits and pieces to be added to them in order to be published for public viewing. Through Omeka, a web-based publishing platform mostly used in libraries, museums, and archives, Mark had us inputting data for the title, creator, data, source, and contributor Dublin Core fields in addition to each image’s physical dimensions.

Honestly, I was kind of relieved to see the Dublin Core fields since I just finished a whole spring semester’s worth of studying metadata where DC was basically all we practiced with in addition to MODS and VRA Core 4.0, the latter of which I did not get along with. At all. Ironically, our class didn’t really touch on encoded archival description (EAD) beyond the basic reading about it, knowing about it, and moving on. Because of this I’m hoping to actually try it out, to maybe make a finding aid or something since I feel like I’m going to need it later down the line. I won’t complain about Dublin Core though; it’s so user friendly and easy to follow along and Omeka’s interface is actually really nice and fun to use.

I want to say that in just a week I’ve gotten through maybe…200 items? Honestly, the best part of each day is finding out what’s in each folder, so lots of super small moments that add up in three and a half hours. There’s a small label tag with a very brief description such as “World War I” or “Versailles Peace Conference”, but sometimes what’s inside is so much more than that. Something described as just “World War I” could actually be a field full of soldiers on horseback or with a group of cannons so then you have to think of what to actually title the digitized image to best convey what it’s about. I’m not generally someone who likes surprises, but I like these. I try not to ‘ohh’ and ‘ahh’ too much, but sometimes it’s hard not to, especially when you’re holding actual photographs from 1912 that someone’s physically written a note on the back of. It’s the little things.

I actually like what I’m doing and I like working with Mark. I’ve yet to be bored — slightly unnerved by the creaky silence of the Library and Research Center building — but I’m actually motivated to get up in the morning, to drive 45 minutes to get to WWPL, and to open folders and find out what’s inside; to piece together the life of man born in Staunton as told through photographs. To use my brain to the best of its ability and to put all the things I’ve been studying for the past two years to use, to borrow  Mark’s brain to find out what all he knows that he can teach to me.

I’m excited to find out what comes after we finish up with the photo collection, but I already know I’m going to miss it.

Hello WWPL Volunteer Diaries, nice to meet you!

Before getting into the good stuff I figured I’d at least introduce myself so I’m not a complete online stranger, kind of explain who I am and how I got here to the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum (trust me, it’s a story). I’m Bri, a local grad student from Harrisonburg, only 40-45 minutes north of Staunton, who commutes every day to both intern and work five days a week; the drive’s not too bad with the right kind of music.

After completing my undergrad at James Madison University I was conflicted for about a year as to what to do with my life; I really thought editing and publishing was the route for me, had filled out a graduate program application and everything, but chickened out at the last minute after talking to someone already in the industry. They had nothing but horror stories and while you shouldn’t always believe what you hear or read, their stories had some merit after further research, so there I was: kind of directionless and dog sitting for a family friend.

One who happened to be a librarian at JMU. An untapped source of inspiration. Not to be cliche, but actually sitting down and asking her about her job, her experiences in the LIS field, is what changed my life. I applied for the online MLIS program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee shortly after, got accepted, and fell in love with archival studies my third semester in. So here I am.

Back in January of this year I emailed my graduate school advisor to make sure I was still in line to graduate in the spring of 2019; I had just had her for a class the previous semester and had expressed interest in taking more of her courses if or when she offered for the rest of 2018. For two months I didn’t hear anything back and automatically assumed the worse: Was she fired? Did something happen to her? Did she just up and quit without notice? Or, on a more positive note, did she just quietly retire without any fanfare?

Not really knowing who to contact at the university, I sent out some feeler emails only to find out nothing on the whereabouts or status of the woman who had so enthusiastically welcomed me to the MLIS program with what was essentially a glitter bomb version of an email; I’d never seen so many glitter GIFS in one place. Add in the factor of being a completely online long distance learner and I had myself quite a doozy of a situation — I’ve never even been to Milwaukee to see the campus let alone meet any of my actual instructors or advisor. I’ve thought about it, have loosely made plans for it, but will it ever happen? Maybe.

So there I was: advisor-less and hopefully where I needed to be credit schedule wise. I just really wanted someone to look over my color coded Excel spreadsheet and tell me I did the math right and had completed what I needed in order to graduate when I wanted to.

And then I was adopted. Kind of. My archival studies concentration coordinator was really the only faculty person to reply to any of my email inquiries about whether or not someone could at least look at my file and tell me I was going in the right direction. Having previously had him for all of my archival based courses I knew he was a pretty laid back guy who really liked interacting with his students — physically present or not — and that his patience for my millions of questions knew no bounds.

The very first thing he told me was to send him a copy of my resume and to sit tight, that he’d look both it and my unofficial transcript over. Couple days later I’m staring at an email telling me I can graduate this fall and that I also need some fieldwork experience — some volunteering or an internship or anything, really — and I needed it now. ASAP. Like, five minutes ago.

The first part was great, totally doable and unexpected, but the second? I’d like to say I didn’t panic but, well, that’s what it was. At this point it was already the first week of March, which seems random and irrelevant, but not when all the paperwork and applications required by the UWM School of Information Studies required everything filled out and submitted by March 31st. I had less than a month to somehow scrape up an internship, something you usually have to apply for well in advance.

And there was also all the logistics to figure out too: Was I going to have to quit my job? Was I going to have to move? Who did I know that I could pay in food to let me crash with them for twelve weeks? How long would it take for an application to go through? Was I even qualified enough for an internship? How long could I conceivably live in my car if I had to?

And then it happened. I saw it. The Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum. A shining beacon of hope.

This isn’t to say I had no knowledge of its existence before all this happened; I vaguely remembered visiting here for an elementary school field trip and I’ve looked up its hours, number, and directions for people at work. It wasn’t until I physically drove by while joyriding after work one day that I fully realized what it was: a library, a museum, and an archive. It was the holy triumvirate of all my interests smashed into one geographically convenient location that didn’t require me to quit my job, move, or live in my car.

I just had to worm my way in…which actually wasn’t all that bad compared to some horror stories you hear where landing an internship is equated to winning the academic Hunger Games. Yikes. 

I can honestly say my interaction with WWPL in terms of inquiring about and eventually setting up an internship was painless and uneventful in the best possible way. There was really no confusion to anything; the paperwork and application were easy to understand and fill out and I liked that it asked for my specific interests and past experience which, honestly, wasn’t a lot. Karen, the Administrative Officer, got me the information I needed, I gave her what she needed, my unofficial advisor got what he needed, it was #winning all around. I was in, officially an intern.

Then I met Mark. Or I guess I was shuffled onto him, but hopefully he didn’t mind too much. He had me come in to talk scheduling and honestly I was amazed he was willing to work with my kind of weird hours of working Monday thru Friday, 1-5, right smack dab in the middle of the day. There wasn’t a lot of wiggle room and I’m not exactly known for being a morning person, but we got it hashed out and I’m not complaining; I really didn’t want to have to live in my car.

When or if anyone reads this it’s already been a week and I’m honestly still amazed I even managed to get an internship here; to actually be working in an archive in any kind of capacity beyond basic observation or interviewing someone. I’m excited to stretch my legs so to speak — my brain’s legs? — and finally put some of my textbook knowledge to practical use; to see if I do, actually, know what I’m doing. Plus, I’m just really excited to touch some old things, sue me.

Oh, and I almost forgot! For anyone still curious about my advisor situation…at the beginning of April my adoption with my unofficial advisor became official! I opened my email one day to find an invite celebrating the retirement of my previous advisor at some boathouse in Milwaukee and a list of faculty to pick a new advisor from. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I was already being Guerilla-advised under the radar, so I just made it seem like I was surprised my concentration coordinator was listed and asked if he was available (I won’t tell if you don’t!)

This week I continued to upload files to the Omeka site. I’ve managed to make good progress on it, and now there’s only about 70 items that need to be added. I’ve made separate tabs on the excel sheet for the items that need to be uploaded, and the few items that I can’t find a digital file for.

This is my last week, and my time here is coming to an end. It’s been a good opportunity and I’m glad I took it.

This week I wrapped up my internship by finishing scanning the Alexandria Cantonment book. It’s easy to see how the book might be a valuable resource to a military historian or genealogist, since the photos are very clear and well-labeled. I enjoyed some of the narration in the book as well, such as the history of the camp bakery.

I also did some more transcription for several documents in the Ochs collection on Tuesday, when I wasn’t able to get into the building.

Overall, this has been a great experience. I’ve enjoyed working with the collections here, learning from Mark, and getting hands-on experience with archival preservation, both on- and offline.

This week I put finishing touches on the online exhibit, and Mark made it public. It was really exciting to see all my hard work come together and to be able to share it with friends and family, as well as with my faculty advisor, who said it looked wonderful.

Since I still have several hours left in the internship, I began scanning a book called the Autobiography of Alexandria Cantonment, a yearbook-type chronicle of a WWI camp in Alexandria, Louisiana. There are some short histories and descriptions, alongside page after page of photographs of soldiers and staff at the camp. There’s a ton of content to scan, and I hope I’ll be able to complete it by the time my internship ends.