Archival Practicum: Week 2

Week 2 was when I really started to work on what the archivist and I had brainstormed as one of my projects for the practicum: the patient files!

UPH Patient Files in about 30 boxes.

The patient files are exactly what they sound like, records pertaining to the men who lived at the home, including things like: medical reports, registration and admission forms, biographical information, inventories of belongings, correspondences, leave or exit requests, and death records. These records were kept in folders for each patient, and the folders themselves are also significant to the archive, with notes on where in the home the man lived (sanatorium, main building, or hospital), dates he was admitted and vacated (or died), who to notify in case of death, their union, and religion among other notes. Honestly, these files are absolute treasure troves of information and are invaluable for genealogical research. The archivist had a brilliant idea to reach out to Family Search about these documents and they were happy to digitize them and add them to their online collections (I also teach genealogy classes at work, so forgive the excited tangent there)!

My work with these patient files is to remove the documents from their original folders, ensure the documents are in the correct folder and remove any not-archival material (paper clips, staples, tape, etc.) then rehouse the documents and the original folder in an archival folder and finally rebox them. So far, this task has been very straightforward, but I will say that despite having worked in an archive for four years now (and in a library for even longer...), I am realizing that the vast majority of my archival experience is either with film, digital archives, or already processed manuscript collections. It's almost embarrassing to admit that this has been my first experience doing what many might consider the basics of manuscript preservation and document processing!

Case in point: one of the documents I processed must have been torn in half and taped together several decades ago. The tape had stained the document and had become incredibly brittle. Thankfully, my work experience and education had me immediately identify this as a problem, but I didn't know how to repair it. The archivist graciously showed me where the archival spatulas were and showed me how to gently lift up the tape and then retape the pages together with archival document repair tape. Something so simple was new to me!

Didn't think to take a photo before I removed the tape, but you can see the removed tape at the top of the photo.

Repaired and archivally sound!

All this is to say, I'm so happy for this opportunity and experience! I'll admit, when I first started at USM and learned that I would need to complete a practicum despite already having years of practical experience, I was a little annoyed. But now, I'm very thankful for this practicum, and it's only week 2! I'm already at the point where I can't wait to come back to work on this project!