Many of you probably remember taking LIS 438 or some version of an Introduction to Archives course. You never really get the satisfaction of practical application in a lecture; it really does take an internship to reiterate and reaffirm the lessons from the course. For the past two weeks my LIS 438 class discussed arrangement, description, and the function of archivists?all of which came in very handy on my first day with the Michael Gizzi papers! Before going into my internship I believed that archivists needed to be the main agent in processing and arrangement but the scope of the NHPRC grant does not allow for item level description and an entire overhaul of a collection?s structure. In the very succinct words of my supervisor, “we’re trying to intervene as little as possible in these collections, it?s going to be quick and dirty.” For me that seemed a little silly and worrisome at first. I understood the ideas of original order and provenance but they hardly stood in my mind as pillars for organizing the information. What if we miss something important? What if a lack of intervention handicaps researcher and public usability? I wondered about these and many more questions until I got down into the boxes of materials.

The Michael Gizzi papers were purchased from a dealer and consist of twenty shipping boxes with assorted mediums: print, illustration/graphics, and photos. (I know I keep mentioning Mr. Gizzi but for a number of reasons I?ll hold off on delving in to the man behind the boxes for a later post.) I think now, after sorting through some of the boxes and actually beginning to process the collection, sometimes the materials exist the way they should exist and that archival intervention should be determined on a housing and box level as much as possible. Sometimes the materials are the agent for organizing the information. This collection might be an exception since it came from a dealer and may have been altered for shipping purposes or it might provide a new rule. This is not to say that materials that need serious attention don?t deserve their due consideration?I think I am advocating for a stricter criteria to help save materials that truly are invaluable and in jeopardy. So here?s to my first real-life lesson in being a little more hands off and still being hands on in preserving the legacy of collected materials.