05.28.2010

The selection and appraisal I have been doing over the past few days have moved into the next steps, arrangement and description! I arranged the materials according to the the predetermined standards put forth by the former intern. After the arrangement is completely done I will have to make some changes to the finding aid.

05.27.2010

Before beginning the activities of the day Ellie gave me a document that included the daily activities I would be engaging in. The activities can be grouped into two categories archival duties and library duties.

The library duties include:
-Auction Catalogs (research the prices of recent auction materials for the curators)
-Copy Cataloging
-Serials
-Shelving

The Archival duties include:
-Artist Files (accumulated archival materials about artists such as; newspaper clippings, deaths etc)
-Archives (everything from selection to description in the finding aid)
-Acquisitions and database entry
-Research (help staff and researchers find archival material for their projects)

Of the aforementioned activities today I entered books into a database. This is a preliminary step in the creation of a card catalog record for the item. I also continued my appraisal duties and began to arrange some of these resources.

05.26.2010

Today was my first day at the Akron Art Museum's Martha Stecher Reed Library. The first thing Ellie Ward (my practicum adviser) and I did was attend a meeting with the museum curator and assistant curator.

The main role of the librarian in this meeting was to determine what were the best books to purchase. The curators told Ms. Ward what shows were coming up and she would then determine what books were appropriate for purchase.

After the meeting we headed back downstairs to the library. I then began the preliminary appraisal of some new acquisitions into the libraries archival collections. It was good times!