Talley Your Adventure – The Blog

Hello Bloggers! The first month of school is over and everything is going great! Starting on the process of creating a best practices/workflow for BitCurator, and almost finished with my process paper so that I am able to set a thesis defense date!

Additionally, at the Clinton Library, I was able to hang out with the archivists again this semester in the first of a few cross-training meetings! Basically, for half a day once a month, I go up to the archives and learn the process of being an archivists. Any person in the museum world can do this, just the same as someone from archives being able to come down to the museum and learn a few things.

The best part is that I asked to work with the born-digital archivists. It is very exciting and interested. I worked with Adam, who is mainly responsible for the born-digital files that are sent as a request through the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. There are a few different ways to search for information, which are all of course online. However, before that information can be viewed by the public, the archivists need to edit, or redact, certain private information. Even though we as the American public have a right under FOIA to view information about Bill and Hillary Clinton, it still doesn’t mean that we have a right to view their personal emails where they discuss where to go to dinner. This is where the archivists come in – with redaction’s. They black out information that is either personal to the person or detrimental to the nations security and allow the records to become public. Because there is such a back log of FOIA requests, sometimes it can take a year for a request to even look at records.

The first step in the overall process is the request. Lets say that I send in a FOIA request to research information on Bill Clinton’s political trip to Israel. The archivists are given the request, and they do a general search in order to find if there is actually any relevant information. So, if the request for Clinton’s trip to Israel revealed 18,000 hits, that information is recorded. Since the archivist is already going through a different collection, the request is shelved behind the other requests. Time goes by, and finally the request to search for Clinton’s political trip to Israel is now ready to be processed. The archivist who did that initial search with 18,000 hits now takes the files, PRINTS THEM OFF, and edits them by hand on pieces of paper. Crazy! It’s amazing to me that a born-digital collection at its core is edited by hand on paper – not digitally. These files are then allowed to be viewed for the general public, and I am alerted that the processing is completed because I was the initial requester.

It’s been really cool to be able to shadow and cross-train with the archivists! I love learning this stuff – and hope to continue to update you on the great stuff I am learning along the way!

Hello again, Bloggers! Over the weekend, the traveling exhibit for Charles M. Schulz opened its doors! It’s pretty excited to have played a part, however small, in helping with this exhibit. It’s a neat collection of Schultz’s works, as well as a really cool area where you can put on football clothes and take a picture like you are Charlie Brown! This picture to the left and right are the general theme for the entire exhibit. Panels of pictures with accompanying text are along the walls, with a Charlie Brown statue in the middle and a few other Plexiglas displays of Snoopy, Charlie Brown and fragile or expensive works of art. I think the most dramatic thing about setting up this exhibit was the time frame that was allowed. Like I mentioned in the previous blog post, we only had a few days to change up the displays. Though we had a lot of people on the museum side, there are a few things to consider in the overall process of changing out an exhibit. If there are holes from the previous exhibit in the walls (which there were) it would be imperative to not only fill in those holes, but to paint as well. Maybe a different color paint on the walls would have suited the exhibit better than the one that is already there? Unfortunately, with limited time, the best that can be done is a quick fill and a small dab of paint – or better, having the new pictures cover the holes as best as possible. If the museum staff could have painted themselves, maybe these pictures would look different. As it is, this is not the job of the museum staff here at the Clinton Library. With such a short amount of time, improvisation is key! Overall, the exhibit is wonderful. I am grateful, however, to have these experiences. I believe that knowing the ends and outs, and shortcomings of museum arrangement is important because it exposes me to the real workings of the museum world. Not everything is going to be unlimited. You may not have a large budget, enormous amounts of time, or a staff of multiple people who can assist you. You may only have a few days to switch out an entire exhibit with limited resources for help. You may also have a larger exhibit than the space calls for, and need to eliminate something. We had to eliminate a few items from the Charlie Brown exhibit because of space. What do you eliminate? Does it change the overall theme of the exhibit? These are very important questions in the museum world! We will be getting a new graduate assistant sometime in the near future! Stephanie has moved on to bigger and better things with the Clinton Foundation. I wonder who will be my new partner in crime? Stay tuned for the next update, bloggers! Until then, have a great week!

Hello bloggers! Welcome back and happy start to your 2015! I am very excited to come back and see familiar faces at the Clinton library, and to start off with a bang! Right away, we are putting in a new traveling exhibit on Charles M. Schulz and his cartoon creation Charlie Brown. We don’t have much time – today is Tuesday, and we have to have the exhibit up and ready to view by Friday morning. Its a quick turnover since the traveling exhibit which was in the space before left last Friday, and we did not even get the artifacts and items until yesterday afternoon!

Today we started off unpacking everything and making sure that 1. we actually got everything that they said they sent and 2. that it is still in good condition. This is the registrar’s job. Joe (with help from Stephen, Kit and I) went through and looked at all of the items. Jen came by and helped as well, but her main job is actually to take those artifacts and start putting them up for display. We are working well together and having a little fun, as you can see!

In addition to starting back at the Clinton library, I am also starting school back up. Thankfully, it is not as big of a workload as it was last semester. Which is good, because I will not only be presenting for the Arkansas Museum Association Conference, but I will be presenting a paper on Carl Bailey for Phi Alpha Theta and research on Carl Bailey for the UALR Expo. If you remember, I did it last year as well, on the Civil War Battle of Pea Ridge. Anyway, I will be taking my thesis course, an independent study with Chad Garrett on creating a BitCurator workflow and best practices, and my internship credit. Thankfully, I’ve already done the internship (remember??) so its just adding the credit to my degree. I did get straight A’s last semester, so the I’m pretty happy about that! I’ll keep up the good work!

Until next time!