What a busy week!
The third full week of my very last semester of school is behind me, and I’m starting my new internship today. Well, I started yesterday with a project review. Meaning I read two versions of the collection processing manual–dry but oddly interesting (I even learned that file folders are meant to be “squared” at the bottom to 1/4 or 1/2 inch along the handy pre-scored lines in order to protect documents by keeping them more upright–a small but important detail). Collection processing is going to be such a different experience than my last internship (digitization project assistant). Honestly, they will seem like night and day, although both are for academic libraries and involve archival collections.
This semester I’ll be interning for UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, at one of their off campus storage and processing facilities in Richmond, California. I’m really looking forward to it. I’m excited to find out what type of collection I’ll be processing. I’ll report more when I know more.
My learning outcomes, based on Bloom’s taxonomy of learning are as follows:
- Develop arrangement schemas and formulate processing timelines for archival collections while considering institutional resources and priorities.
- Apply archival survey and arrangement methods to unprocessed manuscript collections.
- Compare, select and employ appropriate conservation methods and materials for archival objects.
- Appraise collection materials for retention and disposition based on institutional policies, research needs and archival standards/guidelines.
- Facilitate information management and retrieval by designing and constructing descriptive finding aids and accurate electronic records using archival methodologies.
The focus here is more refined than at my last internship where I focused on diverse aspects of a digitization project. I was immersed in metadata requirements and best practices for digital audio as well as intellectual property concerns for pre-1972 unpublished sound recordings. This time around, while I will deal with metadata, particularly in regards to outcome five, where archival description is critical, and with intellectual property concerns in relation to access and description, it will be a much more hands on process. I’ll have my hands in a collection and work through the processing from start to finish. The internship is expected to last at least through May.
So today is the day I go for orientation, and Thursday is the day I’ll get down and dirty with my new project.
Exciting.
LIS Lady 