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  This is a miniature encyclopedia set, published in London in 1800. It has 7 miniature volumes. This was created by a noble man from his knowledge and experience to educate noble children, particularly boys, about life lessons with the alphabet, manners, how to behave when traveling internationally-to recognize people from different nations and kingdoms by their clothes and key points about their homeland, and court etiquette. For example, how to wear your sword when bowing before a queen or king. It is  all contained in a little purple velveteen box, which has seen better days. You could carry it with you as you traveled for ready reference. The Infant's Own is the alphabet book, but it is not like children's books today. The stories with these letters impart critical life lessons, for example A is for axe. The book notes: "An axe is a tool made of iron, or steel: it is very useful for cutting down trees, and taking off the branches. It has been used in England to punish

Beginning July 5, 2021 all CMU Libraries staff and faculty return to work in the Park Library building 5 days/week. This is part of a national change as employers figure out when, how, how often, if at all, and how many of their employees are returning to work and where. For some this is a gradual shift, for others it is rapid.  I really enjoyed telecommuting and am sad to see it end.  Telecommuting overall greatly reduced my stress levels, saved me travel time and gas, and allowed me to experience uninterrupted time for the first time in my CMU career to concentrate on publications and presentations, allowing me to be incredibly productive during COVID. I hope someday telecommuting will be allowed at CMU again. Learning all the necessary tech to function and figuring out how to transform my classes remotely during the start of COVID-19 was initially stressful. But within days I realized that I could successfully accomplish most of my duties telecommuting and that I could transform oth

  Katie recently finished processing and I cataloging a reel of 1975 CBS Sports Special Olympics Michigan film. Here is the description: CBS Sports Special, a 16 mm polyester color film with magnetic sound  of the national meeting of the fourth international summer  Special Olympics hosted by and on the campus of Central Michigan University (CMU) in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, 1975. This film, Film ID No. 77200-1, is housed in an archival film canister on an archival core. Special Olympics had the film digitized at an unidentified time. The footage and a description with context can be accessed at https://www.specialolympics.org/stories/impact/1975-intl-special-olympics-games-in-the-spotlight The film, 1000 ft., plays for 11 minutes, 15 seconds. The text there notes: "Nearly 3,200 athletes took part in the 4th Special Olympics International Summer Games, held in Mt. Pleasant, Mich. Athletes from 10 nations competed in basketball, bowling, floor hockey, gymnastics, the pentathlon, sw

  Besides the removal of parking lot fences and sodding of what had been flowers around the libraries' parking lot, Finch bricks are being repointed, although it looks like perhaps a band of new bricks or color, some design, might be added in the future, for decoration. Also, the entrance to the libraries parking lot is being changed. Here's a new photo of how the nice, new entrance to the library parking lot looks.  It was completed last night. No more bumps.

The chemical poisoning of the Pine River in  St. Louis, Michigan, from the Michigan Chemical Company, later Velsicol, the manufacturer of "forever" chemicals including a fire retardant containing PBB, resulted in long-term poisoning of land, water and people. For more information about this and the Pine River Citizens Action Group's response as documented in oral histories and other sources, click on this link to a wonderful ongoing student project  led by Prof. Brit Fremion of CMU  at https://pineriverproject.wordpress.com/project-components/ .

Above are Ruth's 1961 commencement tassel, program, invitation and CMU directional materials.  I am processing 2 folders of the materials of CMU student Ruth Ann Sweeney, later Van Erp, (1939-1999) who attended CMU, 1957-1961. Ruth was from Ubly, Michigan. She received a scholarship, and studied Home Economics, becoming president of the CMU Home Economics Club in 1960 and attended a national meeting as part of her duties. In her collection there are many cards and forms used to register for classes, receipts, official and personal letters and notices, some of which are familiar to today's students, and others which are obsolete or their formats have changed from paper to digital. Ruth also received a 1957 CMU Etiquette Book on proper behavior of  male and female students. While at CMU she lived in Larzelere hall. This is very typical female student collection for 1950s-mid-1960s. Ruth later married and had two daughters and two sons. Her obituary recalls that she was "an i

  Sometimes I find matches in the collections while processing them. This has become my method for dealing with them. I leave them in the sink overnight. Then I throw them out. Sometimes the matchbook covers are historically related to the collection. In that case, I first remove the staple attaching all the matches and keep the cover. Then I soak the matches. The New Yorker is outside my collecting scope, so this will soon be a sodden heap in a garbage can. I found that ripping out the matches and soaking them separately was too messy and time-consuming.

 Happy Friday. I hope you are enjoying summer. Here are some lovely CMU flowers.

  I've had a busy week processing and cataloging small collections. I completed processing 13 small collections this week, some of which I've worked on periodically for over a week. I currently have 6 collections to process.  I usually start processing these one day and it may take several days or longer, depending on size, to finish physical processing. Next, I search for additional information and subject headings on another day, review the records one day, edit them, and finalize the records usually on separate days. I'm the only person proofing my work, so I need some time away from them to catch any typos or errors. Some of these are new, others are additions to existing collections. For each of them I physically rehouse and organize them and/or interfile them, update or write labels and box and label them; update or create a catalog record in OCLC (our national system) and transfer it to and then add some additional information within our local system; and if it is pa

  Want or need to learn the following skills from international experts?  (Note: This course program is expensive, but it includes affordable student rates.) Imaging / Digitization Preservation / Archiving Access of 2D, 3D, and AV materials Management and Partnerships Starting today, the  #Archiving2021  Short Course Program online, June 8-18. LIVE courses presented over nine days, with no more than two courses offered per day. Classes, taught by experts in their fields, move from introductory to advanced content within three tracks: Advanced Imaging, Digitization, and Preservation.   Take advantage of the Short Course Passport for access to all 14 courses + recordings and save up to $455 over individual course registration. There is still time to register and attend LIVE classes or view recordings. REGISTER today at  https://bit.ly/Arch2021_ShortCourses   The Short Course Program is provided with support from  Buserdi HEDS High-End Document Scanners .    • 2 and 4-hr courses

  I was on vacation when I presented with Melinda Isler and Katie Higley at MAC (Midwest Archives Conference), so my time was limited o view the live conference presentations. Yesterday, I was able to view all the recorded MAC sessions and speaker. I love having these sessions recorded so you can watch them later. Recording conference presentations, poster sessions, and other parts of conferences increases their accessibility and helps many learn the information who could not, for whatever reason, attend the session live. This is  a wonderful access option. Just to see how it looked online to viewers, I viewed our recorded sessions. It went well. Here's me presenting showing the difference between how I used to teach HST 583 and how I teach it now. 

  Due to COVID-19, I found myself a bit lost in the concluding semesters of my undergrad at CMU. It took me a while to find my niche in my studies, and I felt like I would not be able to have any “real world” experiences before graduating due to the pandemic. That changed, however, when I became a hybrid intern for the Clarke Historical Library. The first day in person with Marian at the Clarke was my first hands on experience in the archival world. I processed a box from the Leonard Oil Refineries collection, sorting through all the material and withdrawing a lot of content that lacked relevancy to the collection, then I created a finding aid. Filtering through material to withdraw was a bit more challenging than anticipating, having to discard pieces that I personally thought were interesting, but did not fall within the scope of the collection. The online portion to the naked eye was a simple task, but many questions arose while typing up the Box and Folder listings, as well as enco

The Michigan Archival Association (MAA) Virtual Annual Meeting, will be held on June 21-22, 2021! For students, new graduates, established archivists, or those who are interested in anything archival, MAA is small, friendly, and a wonderful organization in which to learn and network. This year's disaster preparedness and management workshop   is an excellent idea considering our year of COVID and that all archivists and librarians eventually experience disasters at work. The photo documents a stinkbug infestation in archival collections I survived. You need to prepared for disasters. For a $20 registration fee, "this year MAA offers an impressive list of informational and educational programs...including: audiovisual preservation and exhibits on a budget, digital collection building through regional partnerships, archives advocacy, invisible labor in specialized collections, outreach, teaching with primary sources, systems for libraries and archives, confronting racially insen

The Leonard Simons Jewish Archives in Bloomfield Hills, MI, seeks a part-time archivist. Click here for more info https://jfmd.applytojob.com/apply/aCUa6MenGG/PartTime-Archivist

I now have a huge, digital air filter with multiple settings and two very large filters for my processing room, so I no longer need my small room air filters. You can see its size compared to my recycle bin. This will help purify the air  when libraries employees are all back in the building five days a week by July 5th. Since I often have many students in the space, and there are no barriers between them, and my office door is almost always open to them, this will keep us all healthier. My smaller air filters (below) are 20 years old, but still work great. They turn on and off and have a high, low or medium setting. The red card on the cart is 8.5x11inches, so you can understand their size. We used them whenever my students and I processed collections that smelled from mold, mildew, were full of hay, dust, pollen, or other substances, so we didn't all start having allergic reactions. We've been grateful for them over the years. I will offer them to other Clarke staff who can u