Amanda J. Carter: Week 5 (October 1 – October 5) @ Fisk University

William McKissack Papers

I am afraid I do not have much of an update from last week regarding this collection.  I continue to process the correspondence files.  I am nearly finished, but still have a few boxes to purge before I complete the arrangement of that series.

To be honest, the way that I am processing this is new to me.  I am accustomed to lightly arrange the entire collection while making detailed notes and then going through each series in more detail during which time I refine the organization and create the finding aid.  It is a new experience for me to complete one series before I have completed a thorough outline for all of them.  However, I always appreciate learning a new approach so this will be a great experience for me in fully processing one series at a time. 

I will soon have all of the general correspondence in one section.  Correspondence relating directly to various projects will remain in the series with those projects.  So far, I am on schedule and hope to be finished with grouping all of the correspondence together by mid-week.  However, due to Fisk’s fall break at the end of the week, I will not be able to complete the series until early next week.   

Challenges

A few challenges have arisen during this fellowship.  One is the passing of Fisk’s Archivist, Ms. Beth Howse.  She was a wonderful woman with whom I had the pleasure of speaking only twice.  She was a graduate of Fisk University and had worked here in excess of 30 years.  Her absence is strongly felt here at the university.  I only hope to process this collection in a manner that equals her expectations and organizational style so that it, too, can be a reflection of her influence at this library.

Another challenge is the question of new expectations from The HistoryMakers.  We all left our summer immersion program focused on our host repository.  I was very excited to get to be back in Nashville processing collections at the prestigious HBCU that is Fisk University.  However, the week we were scheduled to be moving, we were requested to finish the evaluations that had been halted halfway through our summer training.  Since this project was halted, we were given an extra Special Collections to process over the summer as we were told that it would take the place of the remaining oral history evaluations.  Now, we are expected to also finish the oral history evaluations.    This will be exceedingly difficult since my collection is large and will take most, if not all, of my time here to fully process.  Since Fisk has a few extra holidays, the staff here and myself have agreed that I can work on the evaluations during those extra days rather than making up those days for Fisk at a later date.  This still takes away some time from my processing this collection for Fisk, but I think this is a wonderful compromise since I can make use of those days without having to come in extra during the weekends or extend my fellowship here by a few weeks which I may not have.  All in all, I will be glad to contribute to the evaluations I completed over the summer.

Interesting Finds

As I went through boxes and pulled correspondence, I ran across a pamphlet from the University of Chicago about “The Big Idea”.  It appears to be from the 1950s, but there are no dates on it.  I am fascinated to learn more, but I am currently restricted to email access due to a lack of login identification information (I suppose this would count as another challenge).  To be honest, I am not completely sure how I am able to access my email, but I am glad that I can.  I hope to be able to delve into the research of this collection very soon.

Until next week…
 

Amanda J. Carter
Franklin Library, Fisk University
IMLS HistoryMakers Fellow 2012-2013