{"id":158,"date":"2018-06-11T01:15:43","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T05:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/interns.presidentwilson.org\/blog\/?p=158"},"modified":"2018-06-18T00:07:26","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T04:07:26","slug":"week-2-june-4-june-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interns.presidentwilson.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/11\/week-2-june-4-june-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Week Two | June 4-June 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

So the photo collection processing has hit a speed bump.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019t 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\u2019s and some other duplicate folders? <\/span><\/p>\n

As any confused interns would do we made stacks of what didn\u2019t 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\u2019t. I\u2019m so excited for tomorrow (no sarcasm intended, seriously, I\u2019m curious to see what Mark has us do).<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m 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\u2019ve only read about in textbooks or in other people\u2019s discussion posts in class who already work in an archive. I\u2019ve never really thought of jobs in the LIS field as smooth sailing or easy; there\u2019s too many changing facets to assume there\u2019d never be any mix-ups or technological changes, that the organization of information is just one solid unyielding brick you can toss around. It\u2019s more like a Jenga tower with a few loose sticks; stable for the most part, but filled with all those wonderful \u201cwhat if?\u201d<\/em> 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. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019ve found out, there are sometimes labs involved and lasers for scans such as 3D imaging, but no gas masks. Sometimes it\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve come across some really cool photos, some of which I\u2019ve pulled up online to show coworkers. I think it\u2019d be interesting to put together a mini collection of quirks and curiosities from the WWPL Photo Collection, but I don\u2019t 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And, in a way, isn\u2019t 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\u2019ve done and how we\u2019ve done it and how we\u2019ve 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\u2019t lobby to make my mini collection idea a reality because of its many faults and more than likely lack of appeal, but it\u2019s something I might unofficially try to keep track of as I come across more critical thinking textbook worthy pictures. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So the photo collection processing has hit a speed bump.\u00a0 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 … Continue reading “Week Two | June 4-June 7”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/interns.presidentwilson.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/interns.presidentwilson.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/interns.presidentwilson.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interns.presidentwilson.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interns.presidentwilson.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/interns.presidentwilson.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162,"href":"https:\/\/interns.presidentwilson.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions\/162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/interns.presidentwilson.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interns.presidentwilson.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interns.presidentwilson.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}