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.