Feb 13

Have had a whirlwind of activity at the Local History room. Monday I put in 8 ½ hours and really made a dent in the project. Up to now I’ve been doing sort of preparatory work which has been interesting but not challenging – that is, I’ve been setting up display binders, creating title pages, creating labels for file drawers, labels for folders, creating a flyer for the Local History room etc. Lots of the work has been using my new skills on the computer and paralleling my current job (and my other class) which I really like. I wonder how manual these same tasks might have been if I didn’t have these new skills? Oh well, it doesn’t matter now. But I see there are benefits and drawbacks to working and interning in the same place – certainly I have free rein with the copy machine, the computer, the color printer but would a visiting intern have to pay for access?

I completed the photograph binder which reflects the changes over the past few years to the Local History Room. Similar work effort as postcards – title page, printed copies of the photos in slip sheets rather than the original photos – however, instead of documenting Long Branch history through the old glimpses and a scrawled note, these recent photos reflect the growth of the room through the construction and through the donations of file cabinets, furniture, new rug (obtained from money received from the sale of old books no longer required – note, comment on Deed of Gift) etc. So now I think we want to display these binders or classify them somehow so visitors can see them.

About the notes to self:

As I was reviewing the Authority File (something new to me – new term, concept) for an existing collection with my supervisor, we discovered an entire page of the file was missing. This page was a list of all the folders containing material on Long Branch – everything between Long Branch and Middlesex County was missing. If all the folders themselves were missing, we would have no way to cross reference. Luckily this was just an oversight and the page existed on the computer and the situation corrected. But it was interesting to see the immediate response.