Cataloguing the Rose Griffiths Archive
During week 3 I began to get deeper into the cataloguing process, and I also began to re-box all the material. The cataloguing process can be at times a bit tedious and sifting through documents which you missed during the box listing phase can be a bit daunting. Especially, when you thought it was originally just one item that turns out to be three. Also, re-boxing everything has been very satisfying seeing everything how it originally was, and then creating a sort of order that still captures the original intent of the creator over the items with the arrangement is quite nice. It also finally puts into perspective how spread out the collection is because so far, I have been able to get what were originally eight boxes to fit into four archival boxes. Finally, the neatness of everything being stacked in folders makes it tremendously easy to track down items, which is exactly what re-boxing is for. Doing all these tasks, and while things are going a fair bit quicker than I originally anticipated, I have realized why it can take archives and museums so long to put together a thorough catalogue of the collection. While, it has only taken me three weeks to get about half the collection done. This is just a drop in the bucket compared to how large the total collection is here at the Archives at the University of Leicester and at many museums. The process has given me a respect for museums and archives and their staff who try to do as much as they can with the little resources and time that they are given to preserve these great collections.
During week 4 I got further into the collection and began to branch out into other tasks as well. Although, I have catalogued even more of the collection. I learned this week that when doing cataloguing you need to be flexible, and willing to go back and change things, because inevitable something will need to be changed. Also, some days I have devoted a little time to thinking how this collection can be used to educate and entertain people outside of the archives. One of those ideas is to develop an exhibition for the collection. Creating an exhibition can be a large task, but over the next coming days I will be developing my plan further and will hopefully have more to say about it in the next blog post. I have had a lot of fun so far doing these kinds of tasks for the archive, and I am excited to see what else pops up in the next week.
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