Hello again! I hope everyone had a good week. This week was my fourth week as a SCUA Intern. I was only able to go in on two days this week, yay college sickness, but it was still a productive week! On Tuesday, I finished the physical rehousing of all the materials and finished adding the file names and numbers to everything. The more fragile materials, like the glass maple syrup bottle and old cans, were given to Chris, the book conservator, and his intern, and they made special boxes and trays for the memorabilia to go into. 

Also on Tuesday, we talked about the readings for this week. They were all about digital archives! Each article had good points, like how expensive and time-consuming digitalizing archives can be, how even if the archives are digitalized, it does not mean that the physical materials can be disregarded, and how digitalized archives still need to be monitored because of how fast technology can change and how things can become obsolete. And while the examples are all slightly negative, digital archives are still important! They help spread information to people who might not be able to visit the archives, and also give people the ability to look up what sort of things archives might hold to see if they want to come in to research. 

I got sick on Wednesday, so I was not able to go in. 

On Thursday, I finished and submitted the finding aid for review, which includes the scope and content notes, biohistory note, section headings, and abstract note. I used the processing manual to make sure I got everything right, but Arielle, my supervisor, also answered all the questions I had. Since I was sick on Wednesday, I needed to make up the hours I missed, so I was there for a little longer than I would normally be. I had a lunch break! I really like the break room that the library has on the first floor. There’s a basketball thing on one side and a bunch of books, movies, and TV series recommendations on a different wall. After my break, I got to finish the finding aid before starting on a new collection to process. The new collection is a collection of photographs from the International Student Association! They have a ton of photos, from the International fairs that they host every year, to fashion shows, to holiday get-togethers, and everything in between. It’s a really cool collection! I managed to finish the pre-processing list for it before I went home.

Overall, this was a really short but busy week. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog post! Have a nice weekend!