archivistrising321.blogspot.com

  Hello, my name is Maci Bird, and I was a Special Projects Archives Processing Assistant over the course of this summer. I’m currently a junior at CMU this fall majoring in anthropology and public history. I’ve had the pleasure of continuing to be here at the Clarke, up close and personal with lots of super interesting collections and materials. I worked closely with another coworker, Daria, who was wonderful and always super helpful and fast. I was able to work on completing 5 collections this summer, including Madison, Jelenek, Pine River Superfund Task Force, CMU Office of Academic and Curricular Affairs (OACA), and the Luedke Engineering Collection. Daria and I also worked on and completed the weeding and removal of the 67,000 Madison digital files that were donated with the rest of the physical collection, and that was super interesting to learn to work with digital material and learn new things about how to use a computer w...

My name is Daria Batzner, and I’m going into my fourth year of my undergrad here at CMU as a History Major and Dance Minor. Over the Summer of 2026, I worked as a student archival processing assistant. I mainly worked with the Barbara Madison collection, which was quite the first experience with archival work for me. I spent a lot of time going through Madison’s papers, and I learned a lot about how to process material along the way. Once I had finished processing and encoding the Madison collection, I moved on to other smaller collections that were much easier to process. The switch to working with collections with an original organization system, like the Pine River Superfund and related collections, made everything seem a lot easier. Even though the work could be confusing or tedious at times, I loved every minute of it.   During my time at the Clarke, I worked closely with Marian. She taught me how to process collections, including what should be withdrawn vs. retained, how t...

Daria and Maci with 10 boxes on lower shelves of the Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force Organizational Records.   Daria and Maci with 2 collections, 22 boxes of Barbara Madison Indigenous Tribal Histories and Genealogies Papers, and the 12 box addition to Jane Keon Jelenek's Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force Organizational Records. Maci and Daria Edward C. Lorenz's Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force Organizational Records, 7 cubic feet of which is the latest addition My two summer students, Daria and Maci, have completed a Herculean effort this summer, processing and describing a lot of records in 4 collections. Here is the finished physical result. What does not show here is that they've also gone through many boxes of materials we either withdrew (duplicates, blanks, miscellaneous, publications we already had or which are available online) or returned to donors, as well as reviewed a lot of digital material, making much of it for extra review or withdrawal...

We are excited to announce that registration is now open for our 2026 Save Michigan History Disaster Response Workshops! Please see the attached flyer and feel free to share with your audiences or anyone you think would be interested in attending one of these workshops. Below is additional information that helps describe the initiative, which we have been using in our outreach efforts thus far. We would greatly appreciate any assistance in spreading the word, or any recommendations you may have for organizations that would be interested in passing this message along. A social media post from the Archives is also currently in the works. The Archives of Michigan is excited to announce an initiative to create a cohort of “cultural heritage first responders” who are trained to take action when a natural or human-made disaster impacts Michigan’s historical records. Over the course of two years, the Archives, in partnership with instructors from the Northeast Document Conservation Center ...

  Left to right-Noelle, Hunter, Maci, Kelsey, Zoe and me by what remains of the Barbara Madison collection in May 2026. Here is the crew that inventoried, processed and described the Madison papers. They also withdrew obvious duplicates, learned a lot of contextual and relationship information necessary to understand the collection, and helped review my future processing plans for the Barbara Madison papers. They have processing skills like no others! Barbara Madison was a Michigander and genealogist who specialized in tribal research, working for multiple tribes in Michigan and throughout the US. This is the most complex, challenging collection I have experienced. There are multiple people's penmanship and typed materials, publications, miscellaneous notes, lots of government, personal, church, legal, tribal, land records, and other stuff in the collection. After 3 months of all of us inventorying we withdrew 105 out of 170 cubic feet of copies, duplicates, drafts, and downloads f...

This blog is from my wonderful intern Maci. Brand new to archives, she did a wonderful job with the complex challenges of the Madison collection.    I had no prior experience working in archives or a historical library prior to my internship at the Clarke and with Marian. I had never even taken Marian’s class to have an inkling of what it could be like. I worked with other interns and volunteers to begin inventorying the Madison collection, which was 170 cubic feet of physical material (not considering digital materials). We were able to successfully inventory  and withdraw duplicates, copies, and materials found elsewhere. Zoe, another intern, and I also processed and encoded part of the CMU Athletics Collection, specifically the swimming team material from the 1950-1980. I assisted Marian with other minor tasks as the semester went on, including inventorying a CMU Scrapbook Collection, sleeving postcards. At the very end of the semester, the group of us starte...