Week 11

1) What I have accomplished throughout the week:

Preservation
This week I continued cleaning and sewing pamphlets. I also began listing the Craigie journals I had previously worked on by searching for annotations and cleaning. This listing involved documenting each volume's title, volume number, issue, dates published, and determining if it was a duplicate and the library already held a copy. This created a finding aid for the materials that were donated by Craigie.

Librarianship
This week I continued working on the New Perspectives project, by researching American university rankings by department. I found the top schools in the States for sociology, history, art, and museum studies and determined the department chair contact information. I also helped set up the new display in the rare books room, creating and laminating labels for the pieces being put on display.

Archiving
This week I continued cataloging the photographs from the Miss Great Britain archive. The archive is comprised of 300 photographs, so the project will take some time to complete. As before, I measured the size of the photo, created a short title for it, described it's contents, described it's physical features, denoted the photo's maker, and listed in what album number the photo was held.

2) What intersections I have seen between my job duties:

This week is my last week at my internships, though since I am staying in London a bit longer I am continuing my work at the Women's Library. This week was mostly about tying up loose ends at the Natural History Museum and finishing up the projects I have been working on all summer. The listing I did in my preservation internship was almost exactly like the listing I have been doing during my archiving internship, which has been a common theme throughout my work. It seems that listing and cataloging is a part of all three occupations.

Week 10

1) What I have accomplished throughout the week:

Preservation
This week I continued and finished my work on the divorce hearing pamphlets. Again, I was cleaning, stripping, and sewing the papers. As well, using Japanese Tissue Paper, I mended pages of a book that had been torn, and learned how to use glue to fix a book whose spine was coming off. This involved gluing down the pieces coming away from the text block, wrapping in grease proof paper, and then bandaging the book together to ensure the glue dried in the correct place.

Librarianship
This week I was given a tour of the Conservation department and a talk on the department's processes and activities. It was especially interesting to be exposed to the library materials from this new angle. Many of the items I have been working on at the Natural History Museum have either been through conservation, or need to be evaluated. To see where these materials go was very useful. I also received a tour of the entire museum, and was able to go into many of the science departments for the first time. Through this tour I gained a better understanding of the audience to which the library is directed, and the work that is being achieved using the resources we hold. I also got to see a giant squid, which didn't have much to do with my work but was really impressive. Finally, I continued my work on the New Perspectives project- researching British universities who received high marks in social sciences, art, and history in order to contact the heads of department in each area.

Archiving
This week in my archiving internship I cataloged two folders of posters held within the Miss Great Britain archive. Cataloging this material was really similar to cataloging photographs, one major exception being the focus on color. When cataloging the posters it was necessary to note all the colors used in the printing, and to describe the contents using its colors (ex. poster contains a blue door and a woman in a red dress). This is to make it easy for posters to be identified by the archivists. This week I also finished cataloging another section of the Miss Great Britain photographs.

2) What intersections I have seen between my job duties:

Many of the things discussed in my conservation talk at the Natural History Museum overlapped with my work at my preservation internship. Many of the same preventative techniques are used, such as moderation of temperature and humidity, boxing of fragile items, and proper storage of library materials. Also, many of the mending done in the conservation department is similar to the mending I do in preservation. The two areas are very similar, though the more advanced problems (such as larger paper mendings and chemical cleaning) are held within the realm of conservation and are not dealt with at my preservation job. These things are done in-house at the Natural History Museum.

Week 9

1) What I have accomplished throughout the week:

Preservation
This week I continued my work cleaning, stripping and sewing pamphlets from the collection of divorce proceedings from the 1950s and 60s. This week my work involved patching pamphlets whose paper had been torn. I did this using Japanese tissue paper and non-acidic glue. I also mended smaller tears by figuring out which way the tear would naturally lie, and then glue the pieces back together again.

Librarianship
This week I created space in the Darwin Collection for items that are being removed from storage and added to the collection. This year marks the 200 anniversary of Darwin's publication of the Origin of Species, so many of his works held by the museum are being digitized in recognition of the event. I also cataloged 10 boxes of art work by two artists- Naeve Parker and Maurice Wilson. This involved putting the drawings and paintings in order, numbering the boxes, labeling the art work, and creating a finding aid listing the contents of the box. This was especially interesting because the art work was of dinosaurs and prehistoric man. I also began researching institutions of higher education that may be interested in the facilities provided by the Natural History Museum Libraries. There is currently an outreach effort to attract highly ranked universities to use the library for social sciences, arts, and history. I researched the ranking of institutions and determined the appropriate contact person for each department.

Archiving
This week I began listing the photographs I have been re-packaging for Miss Great Britain. This involved creating running numbers for the photographs, labeling them, creating a title, discovering the date of creation, describing the contents, determining any copyright, and listing the photograph's physical features and format.

2) What intersections I have seen between my job duties:


I saw a similarity between my librarianship and archiving internships this week. I had to organize and number some of the art work in the Natural History Museum library, and used similar techniques I have been using to organize and label the Miss Great Britain photographs at the Women's Library. This shows that similar strategies are used to organize information in both environments.

Week 8

1) What I have accomplished throughout the week:

Preservation
This week I completed my work with Craigie's journals by cleaning the volumes of grime and dust using a smoke sponge and a brush. This took sometime because the volumes were particularly dirty (which shows how improper storage can lead to quick degradation of the text block). I also continued my work on collection pamphlets, stripping, cleaning and sewing them.

Librarianship
This week I continued working on listing and cataloging the undocumented maps in the Oceanographic collection. There were issues while working on these, as I came upon many with missing titles and publication dates. I have not worked with maps before this experience, so I have learned a lot about how librarians catalog and research in this format.

I also organized a folder held within the museum library's archive which held correspondence between a librarian and a scientist in the 1970s. I arranged the letters in chronological order, removed any rusty metal (paper clips, pins, etc.), and created a detailed list of the contents of the folder. The description included the letters' sender and receiver, date, and format.

I also continued my work with the Challenger voyage collection. I removed items from the shelf that related to the voyage and listed what the volumes contained. There is a scientist visiting from France within the next few weeks who is focusing specifically on the Challenger voyage. The list I am compiling will help him find useful materials for his research.

Archiving
This week I completed the biographies of Nan Berger and Helen Joseph. These will be published on the Women's Library website this week. I also finished re-mounting old photographs of suffragists from the 1910s, and also re-packaged them in melanex folders held in a binder. I finished re-packaging the Miss Great Britain photographs and also put these in melanex folders and organized them into folders. Next week I will begin listing the contents of the photos.

2) What intersections I have seen between my job duties:

This week I worked with some museum archive content during my librarianship internship, performing many of the same tasks with that material as I do during my archiving internship (like stripping material of rusty metal, organizing according to original order, and creating a detailed list of contents). As well, I was instructed to follow preservation guidelines when re-packaging the material in the Miss Great Britian archive.

Week 7

1) What I have accomplished throughout the week:

Preservation
I continued my work with pamphlets this week, but worked solely on one collection- minutes and proceedings from divorce cases which took place in the 50s and 60s. I stripped the pamphlets of rusty metal, cleaned them with a smoke sponge, and sewed together the remaining papers. I worked unsupervised this week.

Librarianship
This week I finished my work on the Forster artwork, by checking the published art collection catalog and correcting the numbers associated with each drawing or painting. This will be used to correct official museum records. I also continued my work on listing maps that are uncataloged. This involved working my way through an abandoned pile of old maps, and determining the title, publisher, date, format, and description. I then transferred this information over to an Excel spreadsheet. Finally, I continued my work on creating a finding aid for material within the general collection relating to the Challenger voyage. This involved finding the material, listing the details, and compiling everything on an Excel spreadsheet.

Archiving
This week my work on the Nan Berger archive was posted online. It can be seen on the Women's Library website, and can be used by library patrons to search her archive. I wrote a short biography of Berger that will be posted on her archive, and also wrote a biography for Berger's friend and political partner Helen Joseph. This biography will be posted on Joseph's archive on the Women's Library website. I also began my work on the Miss Great Britain archive. This archive contains over 300 hundred photographs, and began my work by re-packaging the pictures in Melanex folders which will eventually be placed in a folder. I briefly worked on some other photographs that needed to be re-packaged, which were very old photographs of British suffragettes. These were especially interesting because pictures included images of women being arrested, women campaigners, and portraits of celebrated suffragettes. The pictures were mounted on acid free paper, and I had to re size the paper and package them in Melanex envelopes.

2) What intersections I have seen between my job duties:

My internship duties have become much more defined this past week, and there are have been few instersections between them. Again, there are similarities between the methods for listing library material and listing archive material (which I am doing at both the Librarianship and Archiving internships). When I re-packaged the photographs in my archiving internship, I was doing so according to preservation standards. This showed an awareness of the importance of preservation within the archiving field.

Week 6

1) What I have accomplished throughout the week:

Preservation

This week I finished finding notations in the donated journals of Jill Craigie. Now that this task has been completed, the journals are available for library patrons to use in their research. While looking through these journals I found artifacts that were sent to the archive deaprtment, including an eye glasses case used as a book mark and notes written to Jill and her husband. As well I continued sewing and cleaning pamphlets, and sewed together a large publication. I worked unsupervised this week.

Librarianship

This week I worked with various published lists of museum content, as well as the library catalog, to find items in the stacks that contain manuscript content. I then entered this information into the EndNote software to create a working bibliography of the manuscripts located at the museum. This will be used for those researchers looking specifically for manuscript material. I also began listing and describing unlabeled maps within the Oceanographic collection. There are many stacks of maps in the library that came from an unknown source, and these maps have not been cataloged. By listing and describing their contents, the library will be able to determine if they will keep the material or sell it.

Archiving

This week I created folders for photographs and slides located within Nan Berger's archive (which I have been working on for the past few weeks). I also completed the electronic finding aid that will be available online for users of the library to search. This finding aid will be the patron's method of searching the archive. Before completing my work on the archive, though, I copied all press cuttings onto acid free paper to prevent degradation of the content. This will allow users to handle the press contents without fears of damage due to fragile paper (newspaper is especially acidic and degrades quickly). As well, this week I was allowed to sit in on a brief meeting where employees discussed potential aquisitions. This was extremely interesting as I was able gain some insight into the thought process and logisitics behind purchasing archives.

2) What intersections I have seen between my job duties:

While completing my preservation work I found some materials located within the journals that were considered archive material. This shows that there is sometimes a fine line between regular library content and archive content, especially within a special library environment such as the Women's Library. The same was found when packaging my Nan Berger archive, as there was discussion as to whether her publications should be included in her archive or incorporated into the stacks. It was eventually decided to keep the items in her archive. Again, I could see strong connections between the listing and describing of my archive and the listing describing involved in my library work (while describing the maps in the Oceanographic collection).

Week 5

1) What I have accomplished throughout the week:

Preservation

This week I learned more book bending techniques and was encouraged to work independently. I learned how to fix a split hollow central on a book, which normally occurs at the top center part of a book (from people pulling the book off the shelf by the spine). To fix the book, I created a bridge for the gap using cardboard and glued the torn pieces together. I also learned how to fix a book whose boards had become detached from the text block. This involved creating a joint using cardboard to hold the spine in place. I also continued my work cleaning and sewing pamphlets, learning how to sew together pamphlets containing multiple sections.

Librarianship

I began my week working on a project concerned with art work stored in the rare books room. I had to pull items by an artist named Forrster, who went on Cook's second voyage, and check each item corresponded correctly with the published museum index. Many of these items were mislabeled, and it was necessary to check species names and picture descriptions. I also visited the library at the London Zoological Society with some co-workers. The LZS is part of the London Zoo and is used by the zoo staff members. We were given a tour of the library's holdings, including archives, art work, serials, books, and digital photographs. It was a very informative visit. As well, this week I met with the NHM cataloger to receive a tutorial on the cataloging procedures here at the museum. This was especially useful as my experience with cataloging is minimal. I was given a background on the development of international standards, and a look at how cataloging at a specialized library is unique.

Archiving

This week I continued to work on Nan Berger's archive. I finished cataloging the archive's photographs and slides, and then organized the archive into a final order. I then learned how to repackage the archive's items into folders and correctly label the folders according to the library's standards. I also learned how to tie together volumes included in the collection, and correctly label them with the contents contained in corresponding folders.

2) What intersections I have seen between my job duties:

In my tour of the London Zoological Society I was introduced to many different aspects of their library, including archiving and preservation. This demonstrated the point that most libraries do incorporate aspects of these fields into their librarianship work. As well, when checking the published descriptions of pictures held in the NHM rare books room, I was using published museum archive material to do so. Institutions as large as the Natural History Museum are able to publish aspects of their archives, showing the importance of keeping such records.

Week 4

1) What I have accomplished throughout the week:

Preservation
This week I learned how to do some basic paper repairs, mending tears in fragile paper and flattening edges that have curled with age. Using blotter paper, Japanese tissue paper, and P.h. neutral glue I was able to mend some of the pamphlets I have been stripping and cleaning. Many of these pamphlets have rips and tears as they are mostly from the 1930s and 40s and have not been stored in good conditions. I also made my first attempt at patching paper with holes, by gluing torn Japanese tissue paper over the effected area. As well, I continued my work searching donated journals for annotations.

Librarianship
I began the week by assisting the librarians with their annual book sale, in which many duplicates and unwanted materials are sold. I helped by organizing material by topic, and then worked during the sale itself. This was a great experience because I was able to interact with the many scientists who work at the museum and use the library facilities. Later in the week I shelved material for the first time, which helped me become more familiar with the library classification system. The Natural History Museum uses a system created by the founder of the library, and it is quite confusing and difficult to learn. Shelving really helped me become more familiar with the system. I also learned how to catalog ejournals this week. I have never done any cataloging work before, so this experience was especially useful. I was given a list of journals that are freely available online and added these into the library's system, Unicorn. Through this process I had to follow standard cataloging practices and language. This week I also continued my work on cataloging and describing the library's Challenger materials, and shadowed librarians at the inquiry desk.

Archiving
During my archive work I continued describing Nan Berger's papers. I went through my previous descriptions and made sure they were written according to International Archiving standards, and reorganized some folders to assure optimal accessibility. I also marked the format of each item in the archive, labeling items as typescript, manuscript, photograph, etc. I also learned how to catalog photographs and slides, both of which are included in Berger's archive. This process is a little more tricky because things like title, author, and date are not as obvious. As well, I organized both my descriptive spreadsheet and the files in the archive in chronological order.

2) What intersections I have seen between my job duties:

This week the lines between my three internships were much more defined. As I move further into each job, the duties do not cross as obviously. I am still doing some basic archiving work within my librarianship internship, as I continue to work on the Challenger project. As well, I am incorporating preservation into my archiving internship as I place items from the archive into melanex envelopes and mark items that need repair. A new similarity I have seen this week was between the cataloging activities at my librarianship and archiving internship. When describing items in the archive I have to use very specific, syandard language and phrases. The same is true when cataloging an item in a library. Being very conscious of small details is important for both of these tasks.

Week 3

1) What I have accomplished throughout the week:

Preservation
I received a summary of the Women's Library preservation program by the program's director, who described the differences between conservation and preservation, as well as the progress made by the program throughout the past few years. I also continued my work marking annotations in donated journals with acid free paper, and worked on preserving pamphlets. This included dry cleaning, removing rusty staples, and sewing sheets together. This was the first week that I was able to work on my own.

Librarianship
This week I received an overview of the library classification systems as well as more briefing on the NHM library processes. I learned the process of coordinating books to be scanned for the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) project, and processed a cart for this purpose. This included pulling the books from the shelf, searching for the item in the library catalog, adding the item into the BHL database, and creating a list of items within the database that are ready to be scanned. I also created a list within the BHL database of problem items that are unable to be scanned due to fragile paper, uncut pages, or narrow margins. I also continued my work on re-labeling the Darwin collection books with acid free paper. Finally, I also continued my work describing and cataloging items from the stacks for the library's Challenger collection. The items I described included both manuscripts, notebooks, drawings, and books.

Archiving
I continued my work on Nan Berger papers, finishing the listing of items in both boxes, and stripping materials of metal (including staples, paper clips, etc.). I created a spreadsheet of these listed items and organized them according to their natural order, including categories such as employment, publications, manuscripts, trips oversees, and death.

2) What intersections I have seen between my job duties:

I have again seen connections between my internships, most obviously between the archiving and librarianship internships. Both of these jobs included describing manuscript materials and cataloging them. Also, I have noticed that while describing the manauscripts in my librarianship internship I have not been asked to remove rusty staples and paper clips, nor been provided with the supplies to do so. This is a major difference between the two projects- a major focus of the archiving project is preservation of physical contents, while this is not a strong focus in my librarianship project. At the librarianship internship I have been asked to take note of the condition the items are in, in order to inform staff of any future preservation efforts that might be needed. My preservation internship has provided me with insight into what needs preservation treatment and what doesn't, making this task easier.

Week 2

1) What I have accomplished throughout the week:

Preservation
I worked on cleaning books by washing, and also learned a technique to fix the corners of damaged items. As well, I looked through donated journals to determine if and where annotations existed. These journals were donated from a prominent English figure, and all notations needed to be found in order to preserve their content.

Librarianship
I began my work at the Natural History Museum this week. I received a tour of the many libraries, and was introduced to the very complicated organizational system. This system will take some time to learn as there are many sites containing books, and many collections with different numbering systems. I also shadowed members of staff working at the inquiry desk, learning the processes involved in assisting both museum scientists and members of the public in finding information located within the stacks. I also assisted my supervisor in pulling artwork from the rare books room, and arranging this material for an informative meeting. Also, I began pulling items from the general stacks relating to the Challenger expedition, as the museum is compiling a list of all these items in order to describe their contents. This description is especially important because some of the items included in the general stacks are manuscripts and primary materials, and the catalog does not yet provide details of their contents. My last task this week was to pull books from the Charles Darwin collection and remove the acidic paper bookmarks located within each book. I had to replace these bookmarks with conservation-grade paper bookmarks.

Archiving
During my archiving internship I began work on sorting through two boxes of materials, donated on behalf of Nan Berger. I was asked to go through these items, and create a detailed list of the items held in the boxes. The boxes included such things as correspondence, published articles, unpublished manuscripts, and slides. As well as creating a detailed list I began creating an organizational chart describing the original order of materials.

2) What intersections I have seen between my job duties:

I saw many intersections between my jobs this week. The documenting and sorting of Nan Berger's papers at the Women's Museum archiving internship was very similar to my work with the primary Challenger materials at the Natural History Museum during my librarianship internship. In both cases I was going through boxes of materials and describing what was contained. As well, during my librarianship internship I was removing acidic paper from books and replacing with neutral paper, which is relevant to my preservation internship. Many problems that are fixed during my time in preservation are due to the improper storage of books and materials. Also, during my preservation internship I was asked to look though journals for annotations in order to preserve the content. This was very similar to my archiving and librarianship work looking through notes and manuscripts.

Week 1

1) What I have accomplished throughout the week:

Preservation
I began my work at the Women's Library with an introduction to basic preservation techniques. I washed pamphlets, removed staples, and sewed together pamphlet sheets. I also pulled unlabeled boxes of journals from the climate-controlled vault and created date and title specific box labels.

Librarianship
At the Natural History Museum I was given an introduction to the facilities with an introduction to the staff with whom I will be working, as well as a tour of the museum libraries. An overview of the library exhibits and a brief description of my duties were given.

Archiving
I have yet to begin my archiving work at the Women's Library.


2) What intersections I have seen between my job duties:

This week was merely an introduction to my duties at two of my internship, so there was little to connect between the jobs. It does appear that cataloging will be involved in both the preservation and librarianship internships, but it is difficult at this point to determine how large a role it will play in both. Learning about cataloging is exciting for me, as I have not had an opportunity to take a cataloging class while enrolled in the iSchool.

I also noticed that there is a paper conservation department within the Natural History Museum library department, and I understand the two areas work closely with one another. I will be learning some paper conservation techniques while working in preservation at the Women's Library.


I will not be blogging next week as there is a holiday preventing me from going into work. My next blog entry will be on Friday, June 6th, as this will be my first full week of work.

On My Way To London

This blog will be a place where I can share my experiences as an intern in London. This summer I'll be interning with the Women's Library and the Natural History Museum, performing three different job functions: preservation, archiving, and museum librarianship. By drawing connections between my three jobs I hope to gain some useful insight into all three areas. In each blog I will be discussing:

1) What I have accomplished throughout the week;

2) What intersections I have seen between my job duties.

I hope you enjoy!