day 46: finish line

I continued my search in the archives to find photographs that might be of use to Ashley. I went down to the archives and searched through the remaining boxes that held photographs from the Cherry Tree yearbooks. I quickly browsed through the remaining 12 boxes and discovered that they only held pictures of GW from the 1990s.

Since the Cherry Tree collection didn't hold materials for the years I needed I decided to start with the University Relations collection. Some of the images were scanned and uploaded digitally from this collection. They are searchable by year, which we happily discovered. The rest of the collection is unprocessed and kept on numerous shelves and boxes like the Cherry Tree collection. In order to avoid wasting time, I decided to do an initial browsing of this collection in the archives and select 5-10 boxes to bring back upstairs for a more thorough search. Of the first 12 boxes in this collection I pulled 7 boxes that might be beneficial. I filled out the proper slips and left them in the place of the boxes I had taken. The remainder of my time I spent searching through as many of the boxes as I could. Unfortunately I only made it through 3 boxes, but I found a lot of materials for Ashley to use! I flagged numerous photographs for her review and selection. I felt that even despite it being my last day I was able to help Ashley and direct her toward 4 more boxes that contain more materials she can use.

I realized today that Jen and Jenny had left me to work entirely on my own on projects, research, and collections for the SCRC for the past month. Every day I would check in with them, which would promptly be followed by a "you know what to do!" and I would get to work. Occasionally I had questions but mostly I was left to accomplish the work that was requested of me. Initially, when I needed to get more supplies or boxes from the archives Jen would walk downstairs with me and fill out the proper forms. The past month I've gone without her assistance or even without informing her first. I had an incredible experience at the SCRC and completed numerous projects that I'm very proud of. The Riggs family papers are a unique collection that I am very excited to say I completed in its entirety on my own. Jen told me it's not often they get a collection like the Riggs family papers donated and available for processing for interns. I feel incredibly lucky and I enjoyed every minute!

I was happy and sad to leave today. Happy because I had finished over 160 hours of hard work; where I learned an immense amount from everyone at the SCRC that helped me toward my goal of becoming an archivist. Sad because I was done working with them and doing what I love with materials from history and it is back to classes and homework! I am excited to use everything I have learned during the past few months toward my archivist future.