One of the perils of getting student help is that eventually they find jobs. Elsewhere. And while we’re thrilled that they’re achieving one of the goals of getting a college education: bettering themselves, the problem is that we’ve grown to like having them around and occasionally their projects end up on hiatus.
Today was Marty’s last day with us. Marty has been working on the Atwood papers under Kathy Bouska’s long-distance direction. Marty is moving to a great internship opportunity in the field for which he has been training, which isn’t archives. So we feted him with pizza (along with the rest of our Access Services colleagues) to let him know how much we appreciate all he’s done on the project. And we do appreciate it, so very much.
But now we need to figure out how to continue on with the physical work of the collection when our archivist with the most knowledge of the collection is in Germany. So we’ve got a few plans. One is to have Kathy come up with small discrete projects that can be assigned to other students who may only be able to give us sporadic moments of their worktime. Our other solution is that we’re planning an Atwood arrangement/description blast. One week late in July, excepting reference desk hours, all three of us–Nicole, MC & Arlene–are going to totally focus on the Atwood papers. Whether it be labeling folders (MC has already laid dibs on that project) or reboxing or taking photos of materials, or writing description, Kathy will give us directions via phone, email & chat, and we’ll see exactly how much we can get done in one week flat. We’ll keep you posted.
And bye Marty: come visit and don’t forget that if the internship doesn’t work out, we may still have some projects for you.