{"id":9300,"date":"2020-07-06T13:50:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T17:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=9300"},"modified":"2020-07-06T13:55:18","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T17:55:18","slug":"chugging-along-my-year-working-in-scrc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=9300","title":{"rendered":"Chugging Along: My Year Working in SCRC"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog post was written by Chris Babbitt, Processing Student Assistant and C-SPAN Digitization Project Assistant. Chris holds a Bachelor of Arts in History with a minor in Economics from George Mason University. He is currently pursuing an M.A. in History from George Mason University.<\/em><\/p>\n

I started at Special Collections Research Center almost a year ago on the processing team. This felt like a monumental step for me, having only worked in food service and retail before. This was my first office job\u2014my first professional job. I was excited to be leaving behind the normal, front-facing work in favor of back-of-house office work. With this excitement came trepidatio<\/span>n\u2014what\u00a0<\/span>if I wasn\u2019t good enough? Archives had been an interest of mine for a while,\u00a0<\/span>but\u00a0<\/span>what if I didn<\/span>\u2019t like the work or my co-workers<\/span>\u00a0didn\u2019t like me? Care<\/span>er field changes\u2014or in this case<\/span>, beginnings\u2014are scary for anyone. Fresh out of undergraduate, going into graduate school, and just starting my professional career, the world was full of possibilities\u00a0<\/span>and that was the scariest part.<\/span>\u00a0I would learn the process and the challenges of being an archivist, but also find the meaning in the work.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Truth be told, I wasn\u2019t entirely sure what to expect\u00a0<\/span>going into my first day at SCRC. As a historian, you only ever see the final\u00a0<\/span>product<\/span>\u00a0of an archivis<\/span>t’s work\u2014documents <\/span>arranged neatly, assembled and placed into pristine record boxes. What you don\u2019t see is this process. <\/span>My first collection, the one I was hired<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>to process, was the Ronald J. Fisher papers<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 Fisher was\u00a0<\/span>a professor and activist who worked in the field of conflict resolution. Processing\u00a0<\/span>a collection\u00a0<\/span>is as much analysis as it is clerical work. Records need to <\/span>be\u00a0<\/span>assessed for their content individually and collectively, finding patterns to\u00a0<\/span>use in assembling series\u00a0<\/span>later on<\/span>\u00a0and in<\/span>\u00a0envisioning who the person was in their professional life.\u00a0<\/span>Th<\/span>e Fisher papers\u00a0<\/span>presented\u00a0<\/span>their<\/span>\u00a0challenges<\/span>;<\/span> it was a relatively big collection dating back to the 1960s and end<\/span>ing<\/span>\u00a0in the early 2010s. However, it wa<\/span>s also beginner-friendly<\/span>\u2014the boxes\u00a0<\/span>were clearly organized and labeled, individual folders inside the boxes were\u00a0<\/span>ordered<\/span>. I tend to do things slower the first time through, so going through the 13 total boxes took weeks, but it was a learning experience at every turn, <\/span>and it helped me\u00a0<\/span>feel confident in the process of morphing an unkempt collection into a\u00a0<\/span>polished<\/span> final project. I came out of that project feeling ready to tackle the world as a future archivist.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I did a few smaller projects after that such as the Doug Nelms photographs<\/a> of the early days of George Mason University (then George Mason College) and\u00a0<\/span>the Virginia Lampe papers<\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>These collections helped me focus on specific\u00a0<\/span>a<\/span>rchival skills<\/span>;<\/span> for the Nelms collection it was photo identification and preservation, and for the Lampe collection it was collection arrangement and clarity<\/span>. These projects helped me prepare for\u00a0<\/span>the largest and longest project I\u2019ve worked on yet:\u00a0<\/span>t<\/span>he<\/span>\u00a0Charles\u00a0<\/a><\/span>Lietwiler<\/span>\u00a0transportation collection<\/span>, which I started in October 2019<\/span>. There were numerous\u00a0<\/span>challenges which arose during this project. First, the documents had no recognizable order to them. Part of a processor’s job is to arrange the records coherently<\/span>, so this\u00a0<\/span>lack of order\u00a0<\/span>isn\u2019t entirely uncommon, but it did lead into the second challenge<\/span>: o<\/span>ver 50% of the collection consisted of slides and photographs of nondescript or unlabeled transit systems. While archivists won\u2019t always be able to identify everything in a collection, there should be a reasonable effort. <\/span>According to an assessment written by the donor, the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, there were over 3000 visual pieces in the collection.<\/span> There was only one way to solve this: a lot of squinting and trying to go through pictures to find identifying objects. I looked for street signs, business names, and destinations signs on trains and buses.\u00a0<\/span>It wasn\u2019t easy at all, but after several weeks I finally had identified every slide box in the\u00a0<\/span>collection.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The last challenge was<\/span>, due to the sheer number of archival-quality slide boxes needed for this collection,\u00a0<\/span>we needed to make additional orders for supplies, which prolonged the project. These kinds of delays are unforeseeable and unpredictable. Supply shortages are an often-faced challenged by <\/span>a<\/span>rchivists.\u00a0<\/span>Nevertheless, throughout<\/span>\u00a0months of squinting and waiting<\/span>, I completed the project in March 2020 (just narrowly before quarantine).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Image from the Charles Lietwiler transportation collection, Subseries 4.1, C0324, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.<\/p><\/div>\n

On top of processing work, back\u00a0<\/span>in January, I had joined SCRC\u2019s C-SPAN records<\/a> digitization project. This is a project which ha<\/span>d<\/span>\u00a0gone through many different stages before I joined, but we\u2019re approaching the final stages<\/span>\u00a0of digitization<\/span> right now. My role was digitizing the viewer mail – essentially taking high quality photos of the mail so they can be uploaded <\/span>and published online\u00a0<\/span>later. Since quarantine, I\u2019ve primarily been focused on redacting personally identifiable information (PII)<\/span>\u00a0in these letters<\/span>. The main challenge of working on this collection has been the grind<\/span>;<\/span>\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>an\u00a0<\/span>extremely large collection, so even performing the step of taking photos of the mail takes months. This is inherent in the size of the project<\/span>\u2014a collection<\/span>\u00a0of this size\u00a0<\/span>takes\u00a0<\/span>a significant amount of time. This\u00a0<\/span>experience\u00a0<\/span>has been an extremely helpful\u00a0<\/span>for my personal development, which is what drives me. Other projects didn\u2019t extend into the digital realm, and these kinds of skills are ve<\/span>ry helpful in the modern career field<\/span>\u00a0for archivists<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the best parts about being an archives worker is seeing the project through start to finish. <\/span>In cases like the\u00a0<\/span>Lietwiler<\/span>\u00a0collection, it can be hard to visualize the finished\u00a0<\/span>product<\/span>, but that only makes th<\/span>at product\u00a0<\/span>more worthwhile. Taking chaos and making order ou<\/span>t of it to enable future research is the greatest reward the job offers. As a historian, I know how useful a well-arranged collection is for research. <\/span>Being able to do this for fellow researchers and add another neatly organized collection to the stacks is what has driven\u00a0<\/span>m<\/span>y work for the past thirteen months.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Becoming an archivist\u00a0<\/span>is<\/span>\u00a0something which\u00a0<\/span>has\u00a0<\/span>intrigu<\/span>ed me ever since I came to SCRC during a class trip in my undergraduate program. My tenure here has helped me learn skills which I will use for a life time, and feel more confident in continuing on in this field or\u00a0<\/span>even in\u00a0<\/span>transferring to another.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Featured image: Charles Lietwiler transportation collection, Subseries 4.1, C0324, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow SCRC on Social Media on our Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Instagram<\/a>, and\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0accounts. \u00a0To search the collections\u00a0held at Special Collections Research Center, go to our\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0and browse the finding aids by subject or title. You may also e-mail\u00a0us at\u00a0speccoll@gmu.edu<\/a> or call 703-993-2220 if you would like to\u00a0schedule an appointment, request materials, or if you have questions.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This blog post was written by Chris Babbitt, Processing Student Assistant and C-SPAN Digitization Project Assistant. Chris holds a Bachelor of Arts in History with a minor in Economics from George Mason University. He is currently pursuing an M.A. in History from George Mason University. I started at Special Collections Research Center almost a year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101014,"featured_media":9306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[529,710,3,162,5,121,784,94],"tags":[348,354,56,626],"class_list":["post-9300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-george-mason-university-history","category-new-finding-aids","category-news","category-recently-processed","category-scrc-interest","category-scrc-picks","category-studentreflections","category-university-archives","tag-c-span","tag-mass-transportation","tag-photographs","tag-student-reflections"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/lietwiler002-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1511&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Ep5i-2q0","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9226,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=9226","url_meta":{"origin":9300,"position":0},"title":"One Final Appraisal","author":"Amanda Menjivar","date":"June 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This post was written by Lana Mason, Processing Student Assistant. 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