Archival Practicum: Day 16

Today was the most productive day so far, with 91 patient files processed. I'm hoping to up that number to 100 a day, since there are still about 1100 files left to process. Ultimately, I'd need to get up to 150 a day, since I only have 7 more weeks that I can work on this project. With that said, I checked with the archivist to see if I could come in on my own time for a few hours on Sundays (my only day off!), to get caught up and work on the finding aid. If I do this, I will include those stats separately within that week's practicum update, just so that I can keep track without changing the format of these posts.

Today, I had the help of two volunteers for a few hours, and their help was definitely felt! It's probably why we processed more today than previous days. After the volunteers left for the day, I took a break from processing and worked for a bit on the finding aid. I also started an index since I had my laptop with me, and I'll check with the archivist to see if it's something worthwhile that I should continue working on. I think it could be helpful in case anyone wants to quickly search for certain unions or organize by date, but then I work with metadata every day at work, so of course I think it would be helpful.

Here is an updated photo of the progress on the boxes. We are currently on box 18.

Also, here are some photos of the headers I found today. I've seen these patterns several times before, but today one of the volunteers helping me fawned over one of them, and it made me realize that they are pretty neat, and of course, it makes sense that a home for printers would have cool designs on their letters.

The one the volunteers liked

Even on the onion skin copy!

Stats:

• Files processed: HOIST - JONES, 91 folders (956 total folders processed)

• Hours: 8hrs (128 total hrs)