Into the Rabbit Hole

Week 10

This week, I dove back into the boxes of archive materials. I’m focusing on the three boxes that are somewhat organized, in the sense that the materials generally relate to each other. There is a considerable amount of material within these boxes, so I’ve decided to organize them, and then scan and document them. I quickly discovered the easiest way to do this is to lay out all of the materials on a large surface, and then group by topic. From there, I started scanning/documenting the easily identified material. I began with items like the spiral-combed booklets that outlined the RFPL’s (many) renovation plans, and black and white photographs of the 1989 renovation in progress (over 130 pictures in the collection!). At the same time, I also began to group together documents that I think should not be added to the online archive, such as a series of valuation reports, insurance information, and additional financial detritus the RFPL collected over the years. I plan to speak with Sophia next week to confirm that these files should be documented, but not included in the online archive. I managed to scan and document almost a full box of material, which puts me about halfway through the ten boxes I started with. Fortunately, two more of those boxes are now organized, so it should be easier to get through them.