May 28th - Learning the ropes

After speaking with Lindsey, it seems that my primary task will be creating item level records for collections of personal correspondence by World War II soldiers. The museum is different from many archives in that it has the funding and resources (qualified volunteers, employed archivists) to push for this level of collection description. Often time, archival description ends at the series or sub-series level, as there are just too many pieces and not enough people. The museum is in the midst of a drive to digitize and make public as many photos and letters as possible, and creating collection records is one half of that task.
Each collection that I will work on has fairly standard description practices at all levels. Each collection has an accession number beginning with the year and followed by the order in which it was received, e.g. 2012.057 would be the 57th collection received in 2012. Each collection is comprised of correspondences and sometimes photographs.  My task is to give each letter and photo an accession number, with photos always assigned the first few accession numbers. Written items are then assigned numbers by the order in which they were written, which is typically determined by written dates, or post-marks if the mailing envelopes are included among the items. If a letter has multiple pages or an accompanying envelope, all parts are paper-clipped together using a metal clip separated from the actual items by a strip of acid-free archival paper; I will note that only the actual pages of the letter are counted as parts in the record, however. Lindsey has told me that collections that the archivists work with usually come to the museum in one of a few common states--primarily correspondences, correspondences with a few photographs, mostly photographs, or as part of a completely mixed donation
My first collection is a small one from 2013. It's from a pilot in training at an Army Air Corp base in the South to a friend of his back in Astoria, New York. His letters begin with a description of learning to fly, but almost immediately turn to social goings-on, namely how the local girls are. Which is odd, because he has a wife! I thought passingly about the small dramas I might encounter in reading these letters to describe them, but this is a juicy beginning!