Tekla's Blog October 1-20

October 1-7, 2009

Continued working with Photograph Curator Karen Keehr. We worked together, creating the preliminary arrangement for a small a family collection. The items hailed from Omaha, Nebraska and were the belongings of an immigrant family named Grunwald. The box contained a lifetime of photographs and were very interesting. . .

I also worked on labeling photo sleeves this week. The materials came from the United States Senate and were negatives of U.S. Senators from Nebraska. . .

At the Malone Center, I continued processing the container lists for the topical files (the bulk of the collection). The executive director offered to purchase any items that I might need in order to complete the processing of the collection. I asked for spacers to go inside of the archival boxes. Another development is that a masters student in history at UNL wanted to use the collection for research on her thesis on the YWCA of Lincoln. She is especially interested in the local reaction to the National Y's anti-segregation resolutions. She will come by on October 20th to look at the papers, and I will have a container list and collection outline ready for her.

October 13, 2009

The spacers were waiting for me when I arrived at the center today! I put some into the boxes with the older board records and elsewhere as needed. I will work diligently on the container lists and should finish by tomorrow night--with topical files anyway.

Oct. 14, 2009

Finished the Container lists for the nine (9) cubic feet of topical files. There are four additional feet of administrative files to create container lists for. . . Series 1, Board Records, was simple to arrange since most of the items are already organized chronologically, with the same structure repeated for more than two decades. I will describe the contents when I write the Collection Description in December. . . I had an extra helper today. Mr. Moses Gaskins, who attends the senior center diner (held at the Malone a couple days per week) spent a few hours identifying people in unmarked photographs. A sort of humorous encounter occurred because, at one point, Mr. Gaskins, and Ms. (Florine) Joseph disagreed about who one of the people in the photos were. In the end, Mr. Gaskins deferred to Ms. Florine's memory, but this outcome was not inevitable.

Next session, I will type up the container lists. I am a bit rushed as I attended the WHA last week and missed a day at the Center. On Tuesday, the masters student in history is coming to look at the collection.

Oct. 19, 2009

There is heavy construction at the NSHS this week. There was actually little heat in the building as the workers need it turned off.

I have completed a preliminary draft of the Malone Center Archival Collection Container Lists (and a suggested collection outline). I am pleased, but will need to ask Tom a couple of questions before going on to the next stage--arrangement. . . Physically, the collection looks great. Approximately one-half of the materials are in grey-acid free boxes. Nine additional feet of topical files are in the tan 1 sq. cu. ft. boxes. . . The photograph collection is also contained within archival boxes. Karen Keehr told me of a technique for separating damaged photos (the Malone collection has a ft. of them). The method is to separate photos stuck together (from exposure to moisture) using dental floss. I tried the dental floss today, and it really worked.

Oct. 20th

Today Brianna, a UNL study came by and spent a few hours with the first box in the first series of the collection. She seems like a serious intellectual and I would not be surprised if she wrote her dissertation on the subject that she is interested in.