day 30: accomplished

Today I finished processing my very first collection!!

Jen and I went to the 2nd floor to get more supplies for processing the glass plate negatives, to find a spot for the one artifact I had to process, and find a place to store a landscape photograph of Elisha Riggs infantry at Fort Riley in 1812. Months ago when I had pulled boxes from the first collection to get an idea of how to store books and daguerreotypes, I noticed that there were little cubbyholes for objects and picture frames in a few boxes. She had stacked layers of slim boxes with dividers and I hoped that I would be able to find a box that had an open spot for the one ornate smoking pipe I needed to process. We grabbed supplies, box 23 from the first collection, and decided the photograph was too long to be stored in one of the map drawers. Jen suggested that since I'm crafty I should find a way to extend the oversize box to fit the landscape picture folded.

I decided to process the smoking pipe first, thinking it wouldn't take me much time. The cubbyholes weren't numbered in the box so I used my printed finding aid to number the items before placing the pipe. However, I noticed that some items weren't in box 23 and one item that was listed as being in the box wasn't accounted for. I decided to check my printed list against AT and found the my printed finding aid was not what was listed in AT! Well that explained a lot. AT had problems though too. I relabeled all the cubbyholes (there were 29 total) and found a place for the pipe. However I found in AT that "long pipe" was entered 3 times, when there was only 1 long pipe in the entire box, and 2 of the entries in AT were identical and said "long pipe, box 23/item 6". The item that was in cubbyhole 6 was actually an old pair of binoculars. I changed one entry from long pipe to binoculars and kept it at number 6. The duplicate entry I adjusted to record the ornate pipe from my collection that I needed to process in number 29. Everything in box 23 is now officially accounted for and accurately recorded in AT. I explained everything to Jen and she approved of my actions. I feel very accomplished - I love this internship!

Next I decided to finish processing the glass plate negatives. Same process as yesterday, I have 3 slim boxes and 1 flat box for the plates that are either cracked or broken. I entered them into AT and printed labels for each box.

I ended the day reconstructing the over sized box for the landscape portrait.

The entire collection is officially processed. Next we will update the finding aid, which I will link here too.