Week 4. Processing the Boxes.

I completed processing Boxes 7-13 of the Arts Wire collection. It took me an average of an hour and 15 minutes per box.

Most of the folders were clearly marked, but a number had labels that were either falling off or about to fall off. For those, I removed the contents, pulled off the label, brushed off the flaky glue, turned the folders inside out, wrote the name of the folder in pencil directly on the folder tab, replaced the contents of the folder and saved the labels.

When I saw them, I also removed paperclips. All of these have rusted and some have damaged the paper they are holding and the papers around them. Removing paperclips takes a bit of work to gently lift them and remove them so that the rust doesn't stain the papers.

I made notes about paper clips, staples (which are also rusting but I did not remove any) and any other noted conditions of the boxes or files.

I also spent time investigating all of the various organizations that Anne had noted with acronyms. These are significant but I felt that in the future it will be helpful to have them identified in the container lists for easier research.

The next steps will be to combine the work of Anne's previous interns with into my spreadsheet. They completed Boxes 1 through 6 to the item level, so the lists are quite extensive. I will be exploring how to manage such lengthy container lists within a Finding Aid so that information is findable by users.