Expectations vs. Reality

I was recently on a job that got me thinking about expectations versus reality when it comes to undertaking a large-scale project.  A smaller museum had contacted me about help for their collection and asked me to come on for ten hours to try and assess the situation, start in on it, and then give a timeline on how long this would take to complete.  So I broke it down into five hours on one day and five hours on another day. I was very nervous about how to best use the ten hours because I was unsure on the scale of this project. When I inquired about the size of the collection, I was told 10,000 items and then later that figure jumped to 50,000 items - I nearly had a heart attack because that’s a LOT of stuff!  And the staff was very eager to get items entered into PastPerfect.

So my plan of attack was to take an inventory of every item in the collection - it’s hard to really know what you have when you don’t know what you have!  So I wanted to get an idea of what we were really working with. Then I had wanted the staff and Board to go through and decide, based on their collecting policy, what items they were keeping and which items would need to go.  Then I would be able to go back through and begin entering each item into PastPerfect.

So Day 1 rolls around, and I go in and start to tackle making an inventory list.  You guys, I.was.flying. I have never typed so fast in my life! I stopped only long enough for bathroom breaks.  I was really trying to maximize my efforts and time since I knew that this was a very small window I was working in.  After five hours of banging out item after item into an Excel sheet, I got about 150 items in. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’re trying to document the item, if it has an object id., if there’s a deed of gift, if it needs to be scanned/photographed, the condition of the item, and then any other little tidbits, it takes a while!

So when Day 2 arrives, I show up and there is a flatbed scanner waiting on me.  Again, they really wanted items in PastPerfect, like, yesterday!  However I was determined to keep working on the inventory list as I felt it was important to get a good grasp on what we were looking at as a whole and then go from there.  Thankfully, the cords to connect the scanner to the computer could not be located, so I was spared from having to fight that battle. I continued with the inventory and again, was typing like someone possessed, trying to get as much done in my remaining five hours as possible.  I was able to plow through about 170 more items. Unfortunately, even after my insane typing spree and successfully cataloging a little over 300 items, it was barely a dent in the overall project.  

After returning home, I wrote a final report as I always do, to summarize what we had talked about the project encompassing, what I was able to do, and my guidelines for continuing with the overhaul they were wanting.  I suggested a timeline of six months but noted that that is dependent solely on how many hours per week are dedicated to working on this project. 

I felt confident in my approach and the steps taken to get the project underway, however I can’t help but think that the staff who hired me may be disappointed in the progress made.  While I know that most archival jobs are going to take a fair amount of time and steps, others not normally exposed to these types of undertakings may expect a faster turn around. I tried to express the need to follow steps X, Y, and Z for this project and had even laid out a projected timeline in my initial proposal.  

So, this brings me to my real conundrum:  when starting on archival projects, is it better to follow what you know and execute steps according to that knowledge or is it better to bend to what staff or Board may want, despite your best efforts?  For this, I decided to stay the course and go with what I know. I guess if push came to shove, I would’ve had to really fight my battle or change course. It’s hard when you are the expert brought in to handle a task, but then the person that has hired you has different ideas of workflow and process.  Just stay the course and be confident in your knowledge and the work that you are doing!

New Year and New Projects!

You guys, what a whirlwind 2018 was!  The last couple of months of the year were especially hectic for me with Thanksgiving, special event scheduling at work, Christmas with families (including travel), and to top it all off, I got sick right as my time off for the holidays began and this bug is still hanging around!  Needless to say, getting back on track for the start of 2019 hasn’t been the easiest.

But here we are, at the start of a brand new year!  A time full of fresh starts, exciting possibilities, and resolutions for the best year yet.  I know many have mixed feelings about New Year’s resolutions: do I make them? Not make them?  Aim high or take smaller steps to new things? One of the most often heard resolutions is to get organized, so I thought, “what better topic to kick off 2019 than about trying to organize your archival items!”  And normally when I talk with people, their “archival items” are family photos, documents, and various heirloom artifacts (clothing, jewelry, etc.), so that’s what we’ll focus on in this post.

Ok, so let’s get started!

A good first step is to decide what you really want to accomplish from getting yourself organized.  Are you working on a bigger project that would benefit from having everything sorted? Do you just want to not have sentimental things haphazardly thrown into a box?  Is this an inherited collection of items that is in no particular order? Is there a big family reunion or anniversary coming up? Once you have a clear idea on why you’re trying to get everything in order, it will help you stay focused on the end product.

Alright, you’ve [hopefully] come to a clearer conclusion about why, now let’s get to the how.  

First, you want to try and get an idea of what you’re working with.  Do an inventory of the items in your collection; does it contain photos, scrapbooks, slides, papers, clothes?  All of the above? Once you have a list of what you’re working with, it is usually easier to get a handle on how much you’ve really got and how long it may take to get this process completed.

Next, you need to decide what to keep and what to toss.  This can be a hard process if it’s a family collection with a lot of sentimental value and you may very well end up keeping everything; this is your project!  But it’s also important to remain realistic and keep your end goal in mind.  I mean, is there any real value to a grocery store receipt that your great-great grandma wrote the phone message “call Bob” on the back?  Probably not. But no need to turn into some heartless, collection-clearing robot, just be judicious. One of the most reassuring things I ever heard during graduate school was, “no one is going to die because of a collections decision you made”.  And if you’re in doubt about a particular item, start a separate stack and return to it at a later time.  Sometimes if you walk away for a bit and then come back to it, you’ll look at it in a totally different way.  

Once you have sorted through everything and decided what you are going to keep, it’s time to put everything back in a nice, neat, archival-friendly way.  Companies like Gaylord Archival, Hollinger Metal Edge, and Print File all sell archival quality products that will help ensure the longevity of your family’s history.  Yes, I know you can buy file folders at Staples that claim to be “acid-free”, but there are concerns about the validity of those claims as most big box stores do not carry truly acid-free items.  

So, re-sleeve photos, folder important documents, and then figure out a logical order sequence.  Personally, I am a fan of chronological order, but you can choose alphabetical, or whatever works best for you and the purpose of your collection.   A word of caution here though: there is an archival principle called “original order”, this is the order that records were created in and in most cases, this should be maintained if at all possible; it helps give context and meaning to the collection.  However, like I mentioned earlier, a lot of folks I talk to are asking about their own personal items and I’ve found that original order is not present or was lost long ago. Inevitably, things have been sort of thrown together, or things have been taken out of their original order by someone and then not put back in the proper place, or things have been misplaced and just gone wonky.  So, it might be a good idea to sort of gauge the state of things before really diving in.

And as with most resolutions, they can start off strong but then fizzle out, so keep your end goal in mind and be realistic about the timeline you’re working with to get this project done.  I find judging the time needed to complete a project so tricky, and not just because I am bad at math!  You think that you will be able to devote more time than may be accurate or there are more items than you realized or sometimes life just gets in the way!  I hope this crash course in archival organization provided some good basic tips to get you started on your journey to an organized 2019. Just stay focused, do what you can, and before you know it, you will have a perfectly organized collection of family heirlooms to treasure!