November 6-November 8

I spent this week dedicated to giving the official titles to the folders in Dr. Lawther’s collection. I have completed excel spreadsheet and condensing all the different folders. I am proud to say that the processing of the collection is nearing completion. Alphabetizing and renaming the folders has been surprisingly easy. When giving them their unofficial titles I wrote them down on the right-hand side of the folder’s top. This allows me to write down the folder’s official name starting on the right, incorporating the left hand original title and date, then erasing the old title when I don’t need it anymore. The old title usually consists of the name and date, while the new title includes the collection’s name, Dr. Lawther’s surname and what series to folder belongs to if it is in one. The two series are the ‘CoHPA’ or ‘College of Health and Public Administration’ series and the ‘FDI’ series which stands for ‘Florida Disaster Intervention.’ All the official folder titles are already alphabetized on the excel spreadsheet which made arranging the folders in alphabetical order a very simple task. Also, I have been given a third box for the folders that belong there.

On the topic of archiving, I attended a lecture concerning searching through military archives that I found to be very enlightening. The lecture was hosted by three graduate students of History who discussed their experience with military archives. What impressed me the most was how many recourses there were online. Pension records, letters and many more can be found on digital archives by anyone with internet access. Also, the lecture provided useful advice on contacting physical library depositories in order to arrange time for research. One thing I learned was that in some cases you have to pay the institution the archives belong to in order to have certain privileges. For example, one archive required a graduate student to pay money in order to take pictures of archival documents. This was all very interesting, and it encouraged me to research other online recourses. One recourse was a website called the Perseus Digital Library that possesses many collections having to do with cultures from around the world. The National Archives are also an online recourse that has plenty of materials concerning military material.


The readings given to me by my internship supervisor were also interesting. The first article concerned the efforts of the Delhi Archives in India to digitize its physical material. Many documents in the archives are old and in danger of decomposing. Digitizing will ensure that even if their physical copy is gone there will be a digital copy available for public access. This digitization project is very intensive and even has the government’s support, which I found to be reassuring. It is always pleasing to hear about government taking an active interest in archiving and history. The second article had to do with negative government influence. According to Dennis Molinaro, a historian from Trent University, the Canadian government is in possession of vast quantities of Cold War era documents they are refusing to give to the public. Molinaro argued that these documents were historically significant, and historians can’t educate the public if those documents are denied to them. I agree completely with Molinaro’s argument because archives are essential to historians. Without archives historians wouldn’t be able to find the direct sources they need to do their research.    

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