Processing the Collection

This is the first collection I have processed beyond the volunteer work I had at the Vietnam Center and Archives three years ago.  Having the practicum at the University’s archives meant I worked under Jodi Boyle. Jodi has been working with Dr. Sinn’s students for six years, which made her a wonderful mentor! To start the project, Jodi had me look through every document to find any organization, series, information that should be restricted or redacted, functions of the chapter, and other materials beyond paper.

This collection included meeting minutes, meeting agendas, treasurer’s reports, and The Reporter, the chapter’s newsletter.  Many members of the Executive Board kept various information in folders spanning a few years at a time, which accounts for the lack of any organization consistency in the collection. After a tiring month and a half of sifting through papers, I discovered there was no real organization to the documents, nor was there an obvious series. This made the processing a little difficult for me because, throughout my MSIS program, I have only read or heard about record series. Working with a collection with no series and no real organization proved challenging. For further information on how I dealt with the lack of series and other methods by processors with a similar challenge, check out the Research section.