October 23rd-October 27th

           This week has been another productive one. At the pace I am currently going the second box will be completely processed soon. However, organizing everything has gotten more difficult. Usually the documents were placed in old, used folders and are loosely connected by dates, these last documents are all shoved together with no semblance of organization. This isn’t too large a set-back, but it does mean my pace will slow down. I’ve learned a lot more in the meantime about Dr. Lawther. He was not only head of the PHD program, but he worked closely together with the deans of his college and he also played a large role in employing new members to the faculty. That is the reason why I’ve seen so many resumes among his collection. When it comes to creating the finding aid I voiced my concerns to my internship supervisor. We discussed whether to organize it based on alphabetical order or chronological order with me recommending a mixture of both. Mrs. Rubin recommended creating an excel spreadsheet counting up all the different folders and I found that to be a good idea. That way I can take better stock of what I have because in my processing I have created dozens of new folders with different names and dates. Some dates are a single year while others range across a decade. This makes them hard to organize chronologically.

            The readings given to me this week were interesting. The first article concerned the Webcomics Web Archive that collected award winning or otherwise significant webcomics. Webcomics are definitely worthy of preservation, they are art forms that combine quality artwork with riveting plots but that was not the main thing that grabbed my attention. What did was the fact that this project was part of the American Folklife Center which was established by our Congress. I never equated archiving of cultural material with the federal government. Whenever I considered the relationship between those two aspects I only thought of archives storing government documents for federal agencies. The Webcomics Web Archive, along with other websites, is displayed by the Library of Congress and can be viewed by anyone. The second article had to do with the importance of archival preservation when it comes to fan created content. The article cites an example from a Star Wars movie in order to voice it’s point. In it, a Jedi archivist states that a planet does not exist because there is no record of it in the archives. But the planet did exist, it’s record was just wiped, and this was not noticed due to the fictional archive’s poor preservation methods. This article made me consider how the profession of archivist is not just about organizing things but rather, it is about gathering different types of material and making sure that it will last. Paper can yellow and crumple, websites can be taken down and forms of digital media can be rendered obsolete. It is the archivist’s job to counteract all of these obstacles so that all material, even public made material made by fans of different genres, can be appreciated by everyone for years to come.  

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