Huzzah to my student workers

Things have been hopping in Archives due to a class assignment.  I agreed to stay two hours later today to accomadate student researchers.  At about noon I realized I would not have any student workers to help me out.  They need to accompany students to the copier, pull files, etc.  I sent an e-mail to my workers with the subject “Help!”  Tiffany and Nick showed up.  Nick said “it was like the bat signal.” The call went out and in they came. 

First success

I finished my first record with the Archivists Toolkit yesterday.  I’m pretty happy with the way it works, though I am still finding my way around.  There are many layers.

I started with something simple, then tried both the  Export EAD and Export MARC, to see how it turned out. I went back and changed where I put the description when I saw the MARC output.

I checked with Tech Services to see if I could load a MARC .xml directly into Voyager. No luck, but it was easy to cut and paste into the MARC record.

Based on my first success, I’m ready to charge ahead.

Finding Aids

Joan from SMU just sent me a link to their Finding Aids. Check it out. I really like the “Contact Us” button and the “Accessing Materials Described Here” link at the top.

Archivists’ Toolkit

I found out about the Archivists’ Toolkit from reading other blog. It is awesome!!!

The installation instructions were very clear. It’s important to read them all, because it requires loading MySQL as well.

I got as far as importing my already created EAD finding aids, and started working through a new accession. There is a lot to it, but is looks like it will make a lot of description easier.

I’ll keep you up-to-date on my progress.

Happy New Year!

I can’t believe it been almost a month since I’ve posted anything. All those holidays, I guess. And then I got sick.

I’ve rearranged all the furtiture (not the collections) in the archive. Everyone commits on how much bigger it seems. Spike is now guarding my back, instead of the door. Before, my desk was behind a pillar, so I couldn’t see people coming in, and they couldn’t see me until they were all the way in. Now I am “the ruler of all I see.” That is I can see everything that is going on, at a glance. I was able to may this improvement because Buildings and Grounds came over and put in a electric outlet for me. Before this there were only two, one in the wall and one in that piller.

A new arrangement is a good way to start out the year. It required me to go through all those, “I’ll get to it piles.” Now my beloved student workers are back and the new year is humming along.