Organizing the photo collection of the Cambridge Community Arts Center

The Cambridge Community Arts Center has been in existence since 1937 providing after-school and summer arts programming to under-privileged kids in Cambridge. Over time they have amassed a significant collection of photography created by the children in their program. These photographs document a side of Cambridge and a group of people living in Cambridge that have rarely had much attention paid to them.

The Boston Public Library is collaborating with CAC to digitize this collection and to collect more information about the people and places documented within it. However, at the moment, this collection has minimal organizing principles and and essentially no intellectual control. This intern will be tasked with basic archival processing tasks. Establishing a numbering system, collecting the box level information that exists, recording the sizes and formats of the photos within, etc... This internship will take place at the Community Arts Center in Cambridge, but will be overseen in person by employees of the Boston Public Library. Ultimately, we hope that this work will enable the larger digitization project to proceed more smoothly and with less potential for duplication and mistakes.