By: Marian Matyn
Last week, we introduced the
recent acquisition of historic photographs and other materials from CMU's office of University Communications. This week, we talk about what it takes to turn that acquisition into accessible archives.
U.Comm photos arrived last week and we've been re-boxing them to move them into the archives stacks since then. There are all formats and sizes of photographs, negatives, slides, printed materials, videos, and prints of digital photos, some cross reference cards, and some indexes. Also, parts of the beta station are still in the processing room. Not pictured is my son, Zach, who also helped. Now, all that remains in the Clarke hallway are empty storage tubs and empty cabinets waiting to go to the CMU surplus sale. We have lots of collections we are in the middle of processing, so the U.Comm materials will have to wait until later in the spring. First, we'll do an inventory and then, it will go in line to be processed. It is going to take hundreds, if not thousands, of hours to process this collection because it is almost 200 cubic feet and there are multiple negatives and photographs in each sleeve. To accommodate all of the new photographs I will much more in the way of supplies. Here are some photos of the re-boxing event.
 |
| Cassie and Jen with the shelves they filled in one morning |
 |
| Kipp and Cassie packing up the last 5 negative cabinets - which took all morning |
 |
| Suli and I boxing up slides- these were of CMU football teams |
 |
| Except for 2 boxes of a separate collection, we felled 1 entire stacks section (159 cubic ft.) |
 |
| 2 more sections plus 4 boxes = 40 cu. ft.= total for the collection of 100 cubic ft |
