#archivealive

I personally only bought Noxzema and Sea Breeze because of Aaliyah and I honestly can say, Aaliyah was teaching me about natural hair care before it was so popular today. I believe she would be the face of a lot of skin and hair care products today if she was still alive.

I personally only bought Noxzema and Sea Breeze because of Aaliyah and I honestly can say, Aaliyah was teaching me about natural hair care before it was so popular today. I believe she would be the face of a lot of skin and hair care products today if she was still alive.

I also started going through a couple of boxes of raw files from Brother Louis. He was very good at saving and organizing documents. His files are proving longer to go through as they are denser. You can see my workspace and how I have it set up as I go through the boxes. I will be finishing these up this week, my final internship week. Here are a couple of thoughts I have for anyone doing this type of work, whether in archiving or records management. First of all, make sure your tetanus shot is up to date. This may sound overboard, but you will be handling some rusty, stabby staples. It can help you keep some peace of mind as your forge through raw files that may be decades old. And on that note, invest in some hand sanitizer. You may be handling some pretty loved-on folders and documents. Another tip is to use your whole space. I adapted my space around me to make my work more efficient and easier on my back. As a short person, reaching up from my chair to get files out of the box on my desk wasn’t working. I placed them a little lower on the folding chair. Find a system that works for you.

Then I started processing another batch of material objects, which you can see in the first picture. For each object, I created a content sheet in a word document, wrapped it in acid-free paper, and placed it in a drawer, just like last time. These were all newer items from 2018. The beginning of this week (October 1-5), I printed the material object sheets, scanned them into aXs, then indexed each sheet. 

Here are some more example of early 1950′s graphics. The top photo displays an ad for a local Memphis company. The bottom photo shows a ditto sheet where someone was able to put an image of a pirate-looking character in the corner. Someone was having a bit of fun with the newsletter!

Speaking of graphics, these football programs from 1951 are fantastic examples of mid-century graphic design. In the first picture, notice the picture of players on the field that is superimposed on the football. I imagine that took a lot of legwork back in the day. The graphics in the second picture are also fun to examine: the aerial view of the football field, the bottom of a cleat, etc. It shows a lot of creativity and artistry went into something as mundane as a football program. 

These pictures show you how the documents look in real life and on the screen. You can’t beat a classic Coke ad. 

Once the items were scanned, I placed them in these protective sheets and put them back in the folder, which I then marked as scanned. I especially enjoyed seeing the “dance cards” from past CBC dances. Everything from the graphics to the quality of paper was really neat to see. (Not to mention the social convention of dance cards!) Although the few that I scanned were blank, I imagine there are some full ones out there that are dearly treasured by their owners.