Archive

Following my work on the Johnson-Nance Papers which I discussed in my last post, I began processing the Georgia Ragsdale Curtis Papers which I worked on during the months of November and December 2010. After this I organized a couple smaller collections before beginning work on the William Welling Papers.

In the fall of 2009, I began volunteering three to four hours per week in the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) of Earl Gregg Swem Library at William & Mary.

One of the neat things about working at the SCRC is the sheer variety of projects we oversee. Last time, I told you a bit about the rewards and challenges of putting together an exhibit, but, recently, I got to try my hand at another major part of archival work: processing a collection.

Why can't everything just be online? At some point most of us have pondered this question.

Here are the new accessions for 12/1/2010 through 12/30/2010, a little longer than normal due to the holiday rush:

Well, I have gotten pretty far behind on updating you all on the new and exciting materials that have recently come into the Special Collections Research Center. But no more! In a few quick posts, I shall updated you on all of these wonderful new materials.

Do you ever stop to ogle the contents of the numerous display cases spread throughout Swem Library? Me neither. Or, at least, I didn't. Now, every so often when I'm hunting for a book on the third floor, I venture over to the small flat case outside the Brown Board Room, just to check that everything is how I left it.

Here are the new collections accessioned by the Special Collections Research Center from 11/8/2010 to 11/12/2010:

I freely admit: I am a self-proclaimed craft nerd. In kindergarten, I was the kid who truly enjoyed gluing sticks into haphazardly-formed structures and insisted that every painting my little fingers lovingly created be prominently displayed on the family refrigerator. This creative passion has continued into adulthood as I thoughtfully knit gifts for friends and family and scrapbook every vacation taken.

Throughout the past month, as a part of my graduate apprenticeship I have been working with the Johnson-Nance Family Papers, a manuscript collection from the early twentieth century at Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, at William & Mary.

How often have you stopped to think about the wonder that is the copy machine? If you were like me, not often at all—as students, interns, and young professionals most of us probably spent more time being warmed by the light of the copy machine than we would like to think about.

Here are the new collections accessioned by the Special Collections Research Center from 11/1/2010/11/5/2010:

You are sure to have heard us mention a time or two just recently that William & Mary yearbook, the Colonial Echo, for the years 1899-1995 was recently digitized. A bookmark was created for the official launch of the Colonial Echo Digital Archive during Homecoming 2010.

This post contains links to content that has been newly digitized and is now available to view online.

These new materials were accessioned during the week of 10/25/2010 through 10/29/2010 and are now available to the public.

Often when I tell people that I'm working on making a database of all the scrapbooks in the Special Collections Research Center, I get a reaction something like, "Oh, that's nice," a reaction with subtext that seems to say "oh-that's-nice-but-not-something-actually-significant-like-Thomas-Jefferson's-letters." And while the correspondence of our illustrious college alumnus certainly holds the utmost import

The Earl Gregg Swem Library is pleased to announce the launch of the Colonial Echo digital archive.  All volumes from 1899-1995 have been digitized in full color from cover to cover and are now available to the public. The Colonial Echo has been the student yearbook of William & Mary since 1899.

Identifying authorship of anything is always a long and arduous process, but it is made increasingly difficult when the author is not a famous member of the community.  Norfolk, Virginia, was a bustling town at the start of the twentieth century and had an African American population thirsty for rights and acceptance.  One such person was the author of the 1902 diary.

The Special Collections Research Center in Swem Library is in search of issues of William & Mary newspapers and magazines to complete our collection. Can you help us? We may not be precisely desperate, but the title of a Monroe Project submitted to the W&M Digital Archive yesterday has movies of the 1980s on the brain.

What is "cataloging" you ask? It's more fun than it sounds. It starts with boxes of rolled, often worn and tattered blueprints from the somewhat mysterious archives. One-by-one, I unroll and unfurl the pages and start to assess the situation. I will walk you through the steps of cataloging a single document as an example of the questions I ask myself and the methods I use: