I'm a real archivist!!

...not really, but I did get to try out a different step in the archival process; accessions.

busy at work with the Gannon Center collection

     This is the first thing that archivists do after receiving material from a donor. The process includes looking through the material and using pretty vague categorization to input information about the collection into a software program like Past Perfect or Archivists' Toolkit. Since this is a preliminary step, the description of the collection doesn't have to be very detailed.

     While going through this collection, which was donated by a Mundelein College alumna, I was floored by how much stuff this woman has preserved over the years! She has all of her class notes, exams, syllabi, and papers from high school and college! 

 

    The best part of going through her materials, dating from 1963-1968, was that there newspaper clippings and fliers from that period. I found a news story about JFK's assassination in her high school newspaper and a flier advertising an anti-Vietnam protest. It was so interesting to see the similarities between the message on that flier and the Occupy movement today; apparently things haven't changed very much. 

2011

    

1968

 After putting the information into the software, I returned to the Gannon Center collection and continued sorting through everything. I got to the planning/proposal material which outlined how Carolyn Farrell and others began the process of opening the center. I'm almost done with print material so on Friday I get to move on to A/V!!