Another Collection down

Got word from Dina today that Phil approved my finding aid from Robert Cochran's time as director of administration and assistant to the vice president. This collection was not very big, 4 cubic feet after processing, so I was able to get through it fairly quickly. I did have a couple of things to alter with the collection. There were materials from Cochran's time in the budgetary office and as assistant business manager. I also found deposition in the collection that we kept in the collection, but closed to researchers. It was an interesting piece of material, but had to close it because of legal issues.

I also started working on the Podcast project again. I have found some interesting information dealing with the buildings of the Old Crescent and am close to finishing up my notes. I have also compiled some photos of the different buildings in the Old Crescent. I got to look through the archives reference files on the different buildings and was amazed of history some of these buildings had. I also got the chance to look through one reference file that dealt with an old IU tradition, "class scraps". Around the beginning of the new campus in Dunn's Woods these "scraps" took place between the freshman and sophomore classes. The interesting thing is that the scraps where actual fist fights to begin with. Over time the administration wanted do away with this tradition, but it was eventually morphed over time from a capture the flag game to a field day with multiple games being played. It was all very interesting and I enjoyed looking into some of the history of IU.

The Next Collection

My work on the first collection I processed is officially done. I learned some valuable experience with it. I have now started processing my second collection. This collection is of Robert Cochran's time as Director of Administration and Assistant to the Vice President. The collection is relatively small, 5 cubic feet, and might be slimmed down to 4 cubic feet when I am done with the processing. This might happen for a couple of reasons. The collection, which was supposed to be from his time Director of Administration, also had some materials in it from Cochran's time in the Budget Office and materials from his time as assistant business manager. There were also about ten binders in the collection that took up a large amount of space. I have removed the materials from the binders and put them in folders. I now need so create different series for the collection and organize the folders in the series and create the finding aid. I don't think this will take much time with the collection being so small.

Today I got the chance to work on another reference question. This one was different in regards as it dealt with IU Nobel Prize winners. There have been 8 individuals who are affiliated with IU that have won the Nobel Prize. With IU's own Elinor Ostrom winning the Nobel prize for Economics and her giving a speech in a few weeks, a member of the Presidents Office was looking for information that President McRobbie could use for his speech introducing her. They wanted to know if there was any information on former Nobel winners speaking at IU. I was able to find information on IU's first winner Herman Muller when shortly after he returned to IU after recieving his medal in 1946. I was also able to find a little information about James Watson speaking about the time he spent at IU. I scanned these and sent them to the person who had requested them and they seemed pleased with what I had found.

So today I got word from my supervisor that Phil got back to her about the finding aid I had created for the Art Administration collection. It needs a few minor tweaks and then my part will be completed, and will just need a MARC record to be created for IUCAT for the collection to be officially completed and available for researchers. It will feel good to have my first collection completed and I learned some valuable skills and lessons for when I work on processing collections in the future.
The last few days I have been working finding information to update the Chronology of Indiana University History. I was able to pull a few things that had not been included from older dates that I felt were important to add. The bulk of the research I did was from mid-2004 to February 2010. I don't think I will be doing the HTML markup of these events as we were having trouble logging into the network that would allow me to do the markup. So far my internship experience has been very interesting and beneficial. I have been working on things that I would didn't even think about having the opportunity to do. Can't wait to see what the coming months will bring and the experiences I will have in training for a career in Archives and Records Management.