The Barbara Madison collection

 

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 from online that we could withdraw. Barbara collected many of the now withdrawn materials at a time when many primary sources were not yet digitized and available online. We then began fine folder level processing of a number of smaller series within the collection. All of this took all of us the entire term. We developed a process for future processors. I have, of course, documented what we did and why. I expect we will be processing Madison papers for another year. Additionally there are thousands of digital records, oral history tapes, CDs and cassettes to process. We won't know which of these are duplicates until we finish the papers. Good times. Noelle, Hunter, Maci, Kelsey, Zoe I salute you! Great job! Well done!   This summer I will have a new student join us and processing Madison will continue.