Shirley!

This post is dedicated to the wonderful Shirley! Shirley is a long time volunteer at the Public History Center - at least 15 years working here. She is the one who taught me how to use PastPerfect, and has helped with with a million tiny details since I started my internship. She is one of the sweetest and most caring women I have ever met - everyone who works here has been absurdly nice and awesome, and I would just like to give my thanks. Last week I used a scanner for the first time in years and had no trouble at all with it! Success! I also noticed a packaging error in our collections toolkit. The collections toolkit is full of our supplies for writing accession numbers on artifacts. There are a number of different acrylics, and solutions, and things with names like B-72 or N-67. While reading through the how-to manual, I realized that we had double the N-67 and none of the B-72! It just goes to show that everybody can make a mistake when putting together a kit, and that having good observational skills will help you with life in the long run.

Accessioning post #2

Remember how in the last post I said I learned how to accession? Not quite true. I learned how to put my inventory into the computer, but there is more to it! With every item put into PastPerfect, they are given a number. Which you then have to in one way or another label the artifact with. I have spent the last two weeks putting things into PastPerfect but then also labeling each artifact with what I've started calling its "SM" number. (All accession numbers start with SM - standing for Student Museum). It is taking awhile and leading to me having several projects at once. I mean, you can't just sharpie the SM number onto the artifact! With papery substances you can just write with a pencil, but I haven't had anything papery come through yet. So instead we paint on a clear coat of protective almost nail polish-like substance, which is then covered in white acrylic paint, which I can finally write the SM number on! To make sure each coat of paint is dry, I leave a day in between each coat, making it take much longer to write the SM number on each artifact. Maybe I'll start leaving just an hour or two between each coat. We will just see what the future holds!

Hello All! It's been another great week at the Sanford Public History Center! I only have one bookshelf left to inventory, but that includes well over 60 books. But I will get through it! Today was very exciting, because I learnt how to accession objects into PastPerfect! I had watched videos on how earlier in the semester, but it is much more intricate than the video showed. I did my first accession on a Model B Balopticon. That is basically a projector - this one made in 1911. I have a feeling it will take me much longer to accession everything into PastPerfect than it took to make an inventory list of all the objects in the room. But that just means that I will have enough work to finish up the semester with!