Talley Your Adventure – The Blog

Welcome back, bloggers! I wanted to take a moment to introduce you to my desk at the Clinton Library! I’m pretty excited about it. As you’ve read throughout the past few weeks, Joseph (the other GA here) and I have been going through the collections of photos located throughout the personal side of the Library and switching them out for new ones. I showed you some picture switch outs from the archivists area, but we also switched out photos from maintenance, security, and decorated our own work space! I chose Presidential Pets, more specifically Buddy. The pictures around my area are very cute, and I love that they still tie into the overall theme of President Clinton! Just a small taste of what we do here, and we it can affect our own space!

In addition, we have been crazy at work finding lost items. I think I’ve explained what these are before, but just in case I’ll let you know again. Lost items, besides the obvious, are items that may not exist or were lost in transit from the White House to Little Rock. Let me give you some examples. Depending on who was inventorying the items, some people choose to label five pictures as item 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, etc, OR 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, etc. Sometimes, the confusion on what items are “lost” is simply a numbers scenario. Another example: Say that with the first inventory, there were 5 items. These 5 items are actually five parts of ONE item. One person may think that’s five, one may think one. If there is confusion, it may seem like we have lost four items, when it actually is one item with five parts. Does this make sense? Hopefully – but its confusing to us as well! Sometimes the gift office decides to keep part of an inventoried collection for whatever reason…because of all of this you can easily see how a simple item can go missing and after awhile, those items add up. Whew! It’s a crazy system that is working itself out slowly. There are over 100,000 items here at the Clinton Library, so there are bound to be even more items lost based on the confusion! It’s a complex system, but hey, someone has to do it!

Until next time, bloggers, stay tuned here for more museum excitement!

Hello Bloggers! Last entry we were hoping that we had seen the last of winter…guess again! We have had two weeks of on-again, off-again ice and snow that has resulted in not only the Clinton Library to shut down, but UALR. In addition, we may have another storm headed our way tomorrow. What a winter!

But fear not. We are still hard at work behind the scenes to make sure that history remains alive for you patrons, and this starts with the Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference in Fayetteville, AR. I was honored to present a small portion of my research on Carl Bailey while attending the Conference last week (between breaks in storms, of course) with two other students. The Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conferences are nice because every paper is broken into categories relevant to the topic, and a professor hosts the session to give feedback and advice. In addition, the audience is able to weigh in on the discussion. I met one professor in particular who gave me some excellent feedback on Bailey, and in turn I invited him to come to Little Rock when my exhibit on Carl Bailey is opened for him to take a look. Hopefully this comes to fruition! It’s also a nice way to meet other students from across the state. The University of Arkansas is a huge, beautiful campus with extraordinary buildings and a gorgeous stadium. The history and culture is obvious as you walk around campus, and I am glad that I drove there a day earlier in order to walk around and see the area – even if it was just above freezing! We left in record time, as well. It started snowing only a few hours after we arrived home in Little Rock!

Next on my list is my thesis defense! I finally have a date – April 8, 10am. It will be so excited to finally showcase not only my digital exhibit, but the time and effort I put into making sure that Little Rock and Arkansas are introduced to the amazing man that Carl Bailey was in his lifetime! More details to follow, so make sure that you stay tuned to this blog!

Until next time, bloggers! Keep those jackets out, it isn’t over yet!

Hello Bloggers!

Welcome back after a frigid break! It’s been crazy here in Little Rock. The Clinton Library has been closed for the last few days, and the city has basically shut down because of icy roads, cold temperatures and late night snow! Keep safe and warm out there!

Last week, Joseph and I decided that it was about time that we as GA’s start and finish a major project. To be more specific, we decided that the pictures on display up on the 3rd floor for the Archivists to view needed to be switched out for more exciting pictures. We decided that our theme would be “The Clinton’s Abroad”, and went through the many (MANY) pictures in storage and found great pictures of either Hillary or Bill Clinton during their time in office, specifically them traveling abroad. One of my favorites is the one to the right. This is Bill Clinton in Russia. Look at that hat! I can’t believe how cold it looks there…and then I think of how cold it actually is where I am living!

Since this is only for the eyes of the Archivists and the other employees who venture up to the 3rd floor, it does not have to be super perfect – but we did want it to be close since this was a project we were doing! The pictures were all measured so that they are even on the walls, and we made sure there was an even-ish amount of landscape and portraits. The pictures span the entire length of the walls on the 3rd floor. Besides the pictures, you’ll notice the panels below the picture. Each picture has a number associated with it, which is written, as well as a description and the photographer credit. The date and place are also in the description. The reason for this is not only to educate the people looking at the picture, but if they wanted a personal copy they can take that number and talk to the AV department and have them print off the picture. How cool is that?

Joseph did a great job of going back and making sure everything lined up exactly and switched around a few photos to make the “flow” better. It’s little things like this that will help us in the museum world when we actually have our high profile career! We didn’t want too many Hillary Clinton photos next to each other, or even a repeat of a picture in the same area but at a different time. Now, everyone can enjoy the exotic pictures of the Clinton’s travels and we can say we’ve helped set up a photograph display – even if it was just for fun!

Now that the ice is starting to thaw (and hopefully no other storm is heading our way) I will leave you with these pictures as well as the notice that my thesis should soon be approved and I can then start planning a defense date! Yay! More details to follow when I know them! Enjoy the rest of your week, bloggers, and stay warm!