Working in Archivists’ Toolkit (AT) was an exciting and challenging experience. Everything seemed final and definite once it was entered into its appropriate section. My supervisor talked me down off the ledge and helped me see this program as a sketch pad to help reach the final product. So I jumped into this part of the project head first knowing that I was so close to the final product!  After the arrangement was completed I was able to transfer my physical arrangement, OR the four series, into AT to construct the foundations for the finding aid and the MARC Record fields. In each series I had to count the folders for the corresponding box to allow for some structure without going too far into series level description (remember, MPLP!).

I had done some background research to fill in the gaps on Michael Gizzi for his biographical note and used Google translator to read his diploma for his Masters degree (written in Latin in 1977). After writing this description of his life, I constructed the scope and content note which is useful for researchers to ascertain the types of materials that are in the collection. For example: in the Michael Gizzi collection there is extensive correspondence but it would be important for a researcher to know that the correspondence series is predominately incoming mail to Gizzi that typically dealt with business or editing requests. Additionally, each series has a scope and content note to further identify what specific pieces or materials can be found in each box that could be of value for researchers. From these notes I developed an abstract that will function as the hook for researchers to develop further questions to investigate with the collection.

After these two crucial notes were completed, I was able to index subject headings to increase access to the collection. I was also able to write minor notes on major players, such as Barbieo Barros (Michael Gizzi’s second wife) and Craig Watson (the person who helped open Gizzi’s publishing house). After these subject headings were checked through Library of Congress Authority Headings lists and Brown’s cataloging services through Connexion and Millennium, my supervisor walked me through creating a MARC Record.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the final step before integrating the finding aid and MARC record into the Brown catalog, Josiah, and ultimately to include it in the WorldCat catalog. These steps cannot happen until the boxes are sent to the Annex where they will be housed and shelved in a climate controlled environment to ensure long term preservation. This is important for a collection anticipated to receive a lot of attention and use from researchers.

Thinking that I had actually completed processing the collection was probably a little ridiculous because is processing ever really completed? Processing is one of the most time consuming duties that an archivists has. When you?re working within the scope of a Basic Processing Grant governed by MPLP (More Product, Less Process) principles, you are forced to fight some of your inner instincts to follow the basic guidelines of the project. Somehow in the midst of being MPLP aficionados my supervisor and I completely ignored a whole box of graphic materials! Of course, it wasn?t anything easy like 5 large posters. No. It was hundreds of unmarked photos, an oversized poster accompanied by random unidentified works of art, and cassettes of poetry recordings with a SONY recorder. PROCESSING NIGHTMARE! Constructing the actual EAD finding aid components of scope and content and biographical notes were unfortunately brought to a halt.

After consulting with the friendly and brilliant curator at the John Hay, the photos were sleeved, the art work was placed in folders, and the oversized poster was designated to be housed in an oversized map case. (I am still actively ignoring the cassettes but we housed them too.) All was restored in the universe of MPLP at the John Hay. It seemed pertinent to address another looming and occasionally time consuming task, arrangement. Arrangement, as many practicing and learning archivists know, occurs throughout the processing of a collection. Viewing the materials you establish intellectual and physical access to users by how the information is delineated. I have learned that creating an arrangement is something that I struggle with. Intellectually, I can structure the information but organizing the components appears to be a hang-up. Why would you put correspondence first? You wouldn?t in this case but I kept trying to make that happen! Thankfully, with some guidance and thoughtful explanation the four series of the collection took shape: writings, correspondence, printed materials, and graphic and audio materials.

After the series were established it was time to physically move the proper materials into series structured order. Six hours, infinite paper cuts, chipped nail polish, and 26 boxes later Michael Gizzi was arranged and ready to be made accessible in the Brown catalog, Josiah!

It?s like professors plan these things. I have reached the point in processing the Michael Gizzi papers where I can start to construct the finding aid components, specifically the biographical note and the scope and content note. It just so happens that this week in LIS 438 we have an exercise in writing finding aids due on a collection that we have been looking at and working with for over a month! Lucky me, right? After completing the finding aid exercise for class, I went confidently into my Thursday meeting with my supervisor and told him that I would begin working on the biographical note outside of my internship time. Of course now I feel like I might have been a little too ambitious. However, the general research I have done and what I know about Michael Gizzi from the materials I?ve handled has me situated to take this step and write the biographical note.

I?ve mentioned the man responsible for the manuscript collection for the past few posts but I?ve never explained who the man behind the papers is and why he matters. So who is Michael Gizzi?

I don?t want to give too much away because then you all won?t read my incredible finding aid upon its completion. I will tell you that he was born in Schenectady, New York in 1949 and died in Providence, Rhode Island in 2010. He was a quintessentially eclectic American poet of the twentieth century with intimate connections to other interesting characters on the poetry scene (I?ll name drop John Ashbery to perhaps peak some poetry buff?s curiosity). He did more than write poetry; in his lifetime he worked as an arborist (definitely had to look that up) and was also a teacher on the high school and collegiate levels. He opened his own publishing company and worked with international poets. He worked right up to his passing in September of 2010. The last work reflected in our materials is writing lyrics for a song or score, which is pretty cool. Stay tuned for scope and content developments down the road!

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.

The Archivist

Hi! I?m Claudia and am currently in my first semester of the dual-degree program for archives management and history. I graduated this past May from Simmons College with a Bachelor of Arts in history and a minor in East Asian studies. I am obsessed with the American presidency and have a personal goal to read a biography on every president (4 down, 40 to go). After GSLIS I hope to work in an academic/university archive or in a presidential library and museum. When I kick off my academic shoes and relax I enjoy books, running, wine, the Red Sox and pie.

Introduction to John Hay and Michael Gizzi

The big oak doors are opened to student workers at 9:00 AM; the library does not open to the general public until 10:00 AM. Walking into the John Hay Library at Brown University for the first time felt as intimidating as writing this first blog post. I move forward confidently reflecting on how incredible my first experience with a collection that is mine went.

The project I am assisting on, Revealing Brown?s Hidden Archival and Manuscript Collections, is funded by a National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) grant. The John Hay Library was awarded a two-year Basic Processing Grant of $141,455 from NHPRC to make accessible 892 archival and manuscript collections. This project will reveal a number of significant collections, papers, and records held in Manuscripts and University Archives. These include the papers of prominent literary figures, gay writers, poets, screenwriters, scientists, historians, Brown faculty and alumni, and the records of small presses, literary magazines, and cultural, arts, political, and activist organizations. The grant will support a full-time processing archivist to survey 6,500 linear feet of ?hidden? archival and manuscript collections and create catalog records and Encoded Archival Description (EAD) finding aids. In addition, Archivists? Toolkit will be implemented in order to manage archival and manuscript collections through a single database.

In the following eight weeks, I anticipate working with two or three collections. My first collection is the papers of Michael Gizzi (or, to me, MS 2011. 025). My posts will follow my adventures through protecting, constructing, and accounting for Michael Gizzi?s and others? contributions to the Brown community and the research community at large by developing finding aids, accession and assessment records, and all of the other cool archives lingo I can manage to conjure up during my posts. Hopefully, you?ll get a sense of what it is like working on a grant-funded project and the turmoil a new archivist feels as a tiny fish in a giant lake.