archivistrising321.blogspot.com

  It looks like a body bag, and it took two of us to lift it, but no, it is not a body bag. If you look at what Maci is holding for a clue, you'll see it's really oversized, rolled railroad drawings, which are densely packed, wrapped and taped inside several garbage bags to protect them. She's holding a smaller rolled drawing, but some of them are quite large, bigger than our processing tables. These drawings are part of the collection of the Grand Trunk Western Railroad Historical Society (GTWRRHS) of Durand, Michigan. This is the second of two large "body bags" of drawings. There is also a large storage tub of them. The collection, which totaled approximately 90 cubic feet before processing, includes GTWRR annual reports and public relations publications, circulars, correspondence, administrative materials, manuals, catalogs, clippings, images, objects, and many architectural and engineering drawings. While most of the material covers Durand and Battle Creek sta...

  After 12 years of processing and describing Channel 9&10 News film footage of Michigan events, people, and locations, my students finally finished the last of the 392 reels of the Alpha Chrono series, the majority of the collection. These reels are compilations of the unedited daily footage filmed by the 9&10 crew as they traveled throughout Michigan covering local and state news, and a bit of national news. Here is Max with reel 910-392. See all the archival blue film cannisters? They represent a massive effort by multiple students over the years. Well done everyone! We are excited! Max and Rebekah are now finishing about 10 boxes of the Eye on Michigan series. Some smaller series include "Permanent" film, stock, and miscellaneous. We should be done with all processing and description by May 2027, which will conclude this huge film project that Tressa Graves and I began in 2014. This project was possible due to student labor. Thanks and kudos to all my amazing stud...

  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...

Here is a blog by Hunter who volunteered and interned with me this academic year. He did a very good job and is graduating May 9. I wish him well! Hello, my name is Hunter Loubert ! I am a senior at Central Michigan University , close to graduating as an undergrad with a major in History with minors in Anthropology and Museum Studies. During the 2025 Fall Semester , I volunteered and was involved with working on the CMU Athletics collection. I  a rchivally processed the  archival material and wrote  the box and list for the Athletics collection. The processing of the collection allowed me to gain experience on whether I was interested in the archival and collection process.  During spring term 2026, I worked with Marian in the Clarke Historical Library as an intern . I was involved in inventorying, keeping the inventory updated, processing , archiving ,  and withdrawing parts of the Barbara Madison genealogical collection as well as learning...

  My volunteer student processor Kelsey helped me accomplish a lot this term with several collections, mainly collaboratively processing the Barbara Madison collection with several other students. He will continue collaboratively processing Madison this summer for awhile. I wish him well in his future. My name is Kelsey Kirchner, and I’m graduating with my master’s degree in history in May 2026. Since I have been collecting historical documents myself for many years, I was very excited to get the opportunity to volunteer at the Clarke Historical Library starting in the Fall 2025 semester. In my roughly 6 months of working at the Clarke, I helped process the CMU Athletics collection, the Kathy Wilbur collection, and the Barbara Madison collection, and also did some pre-cataloguing work for periodicals. The Madison collection proved, by far, to be the most challenging, and showed me how important it is to be selective with which materials an archive retains. Not to mention it al...

  Here's a blog from my amazing film processing student Rebekah. My name is Rebekah Harmon, and I am earning my MA in History at CMU. I graduated from CMU in 2023 with a BS in secondary education for social studies and a minor in museum studies. I taught at a middle school for two years, and then I decided to come back to CMU for more! I volunteered and worked at the Clarke Historical Library in undergrad, and I was excited when I got the opportunity to work here again as a graduate student. My work at the Clarke consists of processing our 9&10 Michigan News film collection, and I have experience processing paper items at the archive. My favorite part about working with the film is the visual connection I get to the past. For example, I see people’s facial expressions, fashion, and hand gestures, which provide such a rich connection to the past. I also work at the CMU Museum of Natural and Cultural History on campus, primarily in educational programming. I help lead educational...

  At the end of each term or year that my students work in the archives, I have them blog about their experience. Here is a blog from Max, one of my two excellent film processing students.  I'm Maxwell Maksymowski, and I am a CMU Junior. I'm a Broadcasting and Cinema Arts Major and a Technical Theater Minor. I hope to work behind the camera on a television set, or to be a post-production professional. I have been working at the Clarke as a moving film archivist for three years. I make sure that the film I work with, Channel 9 & 10 News raw film footage, is stable and able to be archived properly. I also watch the stabilized film (film that would not fall apart or degrade) on the film projector and describe what I see so that researchers can search for it and find it in the finding aid. This year we worked and finally processed all of the film from the 1980s, and moved onto 1981. Within the next year, hopefully all of Channel 9 & 10 done, and move onto the Eye on Mich...

  Yesterday, while sorting some CMU Athletics folders, I found this 1958 photograph in a folder labeled Swimming Miscellaneous. The caption glued to the photograph is: Mt. Pl. Michigan, Members of the Mid-Michigan Muskies, a skin-diving group composed of Central Michigan College students, take their skin-diving seriously. Here, some of the divers prepare to go under 7 inches of ice covering the Mount Pleasant Mill Pond. The group boasts 40 members, two of which are women. Last summer, the Muskies found a 200-foot schooner at Lake Charlevoix. United Press Telephoto. 1958 is written in ink on the label.  A few things about this label. First it is interesting to me that both men and women were skin diving at the time. Secondly a press photographer took the photograph because CMU did not have staff photographers until the 1980s, so it is common to find photographs taken by family members, students, members of the public, or the press in CMU Athletics records. The unidentified scho...

  Tuesday was snowy. And in other news you can submit a proposal to MAA! The Michigan Archival Association (MAA) Programming Committee is now seeking session proposals for our 2026 annual meeting, to be held from June 15th - June 16th, 2026! Are you presenting for MAC, SAA, or another conference in a related field? Double dip! Do you need presentation experience and want to wet your feet in a low pressure environment? Present with us! Are you a student? We’re excited to have you sign up for a session! Possible session topics include, but are not limited to: All things digital (access, preservation, new technologies, etc.) Career planning/advice Collections management Donor relations/cultivation Fostering a diverse and inclusive profession Invisible or contingent labor Promoting collections Reference Special projects  Archivists in non-traditional settings (e.g., private archives, consultants, corporate) Cataloging and metadata Conservati...

Fall 2025 has been a busy, satisfying term for me. I again successfully taught HST 583 Archives Administration, a class I created and taught annually  2012-2023. After a two year break, due to the budget, I'm shifting to teaching it every other year. A highlight of the course for me now is when I teach the students how to read penmanship using handwritten CMU postcards. Teaching is, of course, on top of my full-time job as archivist and subject bibliographer for combined History/World Languages & Culture department at CMU. I am very grateful for all my students. This term I had film processors Max and Rebekah, paper processors Natalie, and my two volunteers, Kelsey and Hunter. We've been very productive. Next term I will happily have all those students again, except Hunter will intern with me, and I will have two more interns, Zoe and Maci. Our top priorities will be continuing to process Channel 9&10 film and inventorying a 167 cubic foot collection of Indigenous genea...

  After over a decade of processing and describing Channel 9 & 10 News film we are finally working with raw film footage from 1980. While there was a limited quantity of film up to 1969, there was a vast quantity from the 1970s. There is not much 1980-1982 alpha/chrono film. This was how the 9 & 10 crew organized the daily raw film footage they shot all over Michigan. See A-19-80 above. We hope to complete the alpha/chrono series by May 2026. Then we will have some Eye On Michigan, stock footage,  and miscellaneous film to process. The majority of the collection has now been processed and described. It has been a haul to get to 1980! Many thanks to my two current and awesome film processing students Max M. and Rebekah H. and the many prior film students whose work contributed to the success of this student-powered film project. 

  Michigan State University is accepting applications for a Digital Archivist. Please apply or share with your networks. And please excuse the cross-postings.   You can view the entire job posting here: careers.msu.edu/jobs/...

One more step Mr. Hands, a painting by N.C. Wyeth for the book Treasure Island.(in the public domain) When I lived in West Chester, Pennsylvania, I used to visit the Brandywine Museum of Art at Chadds Ford, where N.C. Wyeth's art is exhibited, so the announcement below is interesting to me and I think for anyone who enjoys art, art in children's literature or access to primary sources.  Hello! My name is Lillian Kinney, librarian and archivist, and Manager of the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Research Center at the Brandywine Museum of Art in Chadds, Ford, PA , managing our libraries, archives, and special collections. I am very pleased to announce the publication of a major finding aid for the N.C. Wyeth Correspondence Collection of Betsy James Wyeth, which can be found digitally on our new instance of ArchivesSpace: brandywinearchives.libraryhost.com/repositories/2/... . Detailing the life of this American artis...

  The Archives of Michigan, located in Lansing, MI, is hiring two full-time archivist positions. Postings are open until October 7, 2025.   Digital Acquisition Archivist (Historian 9-P11) The Digital Acquisition Services Archivist position will communicate with state agencies, local governments, and private donors to identify, appraise, acquire, and accession digital archival/historical records and facilitate public records access.  This position is responsible for writing and running scripts to package digital records for ingest into the Preservica preservation system.  The digital acquisitions archivist also works with the collections services digital archivist to maintain, troubleshoot, and resolve system issues in Preservica.  This position works on a team to implement and migrate to the ArchiveSpace collections management system.  The digital acquisition archivist also participates in fieldwork projects, provide reference services for the public, and s...

Students and 10-month faculty return to campus this week and classes begin next week. So far this week I had to re-add part of my HST 583 course materials to my Ultra Blackboard page. I also have a nasty drip in the processing room radiator which has twice soaked a chunk of carpet despite turning off the water valve and my putting a large plastic bowl beneath the drip. While processing a collection, I found this business advertising card with a weird image for Bicknell's, Clare. So I'm focusing on the positive today-the business advertising card.  Small business advertising cards like this were common in the 19th-early 20th century. They advertised all kinds of businesses and goods. Most sported colorful images of cute children and pretty women so people would want to take and keep the card, increasing the possibilities of product sales.   Bicknell's department store was still operating when we moved to Clare over 25 years ago. That building store is now a successful wedd...