Ingesting into Compass (the Five College digital library) has commenced! Ingest includes only the digital assets with their identifiers so the collections are not viewable to the public until their metadata finds them. That process, headed by the wonderful Digital Library Application Manager roughly involves:

• Transfer of microfilm metadata from spreadsheet to ArchivesSpace (ASpace was not implemented when microfilm description was taking place)
• Transfer of microfilm and photograph metadata from ArchivesSpace to Compass and matching that data to its digital asset.
• Transfer of serials metadata from bib records in Aleph to Compass and matching that data to its digital asset.
• Updating metadata records to include a Compass URL.

More to come and hopefully some viewable records to share soon!

It has been a while since an update and you may have been wondering what I have been up to. I have been busily continuing to describe the microfilm series! There has been a lot of great material that I am excited to eventually be available digitally at the end of the project. I have gone through the foreign work files following YWCA USA secretaries as they empower women around the world, World War II files with sometimes harrowing accounts of the affects the war has on people, public affairs files documenting the social and political issues YWCA USA fights for and much much more.

In addition to the ongoing task of metadata creation Continue reading →

Things are moving along with descriptive metadata of the microfilm. I have been busy describing convention minutes and reports and recently Foreign Division files. Creating records for the Foreign Division files has given me a renewed appreciation for the internet and Wikipedia and google translate specifically. The YWCA of the U.S.A. cooperates with or works in many countries throughout the world during times of great political and social change. Even the names of countries and areas change in the sometimes brief years of YWCA activity there. Online tools allow me to do some quick reference in order to understand the context of the political, social and economic situations facing these countries. Archivists who processed and described prior to the internet, I appreciate your hard work and dedication and I’m super thankful to have the internet at my fingertips today.  I’m learning everyday and it is so rewarding!