Week 27 was Spring Break for Fisk University, so Franklin Library was closed.
William McKissack Papers
Last week, I completed processing all but one box for the Memphis projects. These projects are now divided into eight sections: Combined or Other Memphis projects, Lauderdale Church of Christ, Metropolitan Baptist Church, Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, New Bloomfield Baptist Church, Riverside/Riverview Christian Church, Rock of Ages C.M.E. Church, and Universal Life Insurance Company. The projects are divided into eleven boxes, two of which are oversized. I will finish processing the final box in the next couple of days and then finalize this portion of the finding aid. I have sixteen more boxes and approximately twenty sets of blueprints to process for this collection.
Challenges
Since the challenges I discusses in my last blog have been virtually resolved, last week’s processing was not as complicated. I discovered a few more projects in Memphis, so all I had to do in that case was set up an outline for each project and place it in its own box. There are still a few folders in the Combined or Other Memphis projects section that may present a challenge simply because they do not readily identify a project.
Blueprints
Last Wednesday, volunteer Evelyn Jones spent her morning helping me to sort out the pile of rolled blueprints that contain many sets of McKissack blueprints. As mentioned in my last blog, also included were some sets of blueprints that did not belong with the McKissack collection. We found approximately eight sets of blueprints that appear to be part of the Rosenwald collection and approximately six sets of blueprints of unknown origin. My collection supervisor suggested that I include the unknown blueprints in the McKissack collection since they were found together. While it appears that some of the unknown sets of blueprints may indeed belong with McKissack, I am not convinced that they all belong and am therefore hesitant to include them when they may belong to another collection. However, further evaluation is necessary and will be completed as we flatten, clean, and record the metadata of the blueprints. With Evelyn’s help on Monday and Wednesday mornings, I estimate that we should have these blueprints recorded and flattened by the end of March.
Challenges
The primary challenge with the blueprints is their fragility. They have been rolled up and stored in a box for an unknown amount of time. The edges are frayed and sometimes there are rips through them. This is why I have asked Evelyn to help me. It will not only be more expedient, but it will also be more precautionary to have two people working together to carefully unroll documents that are so fragile. This will be the only way we can ensure that they are researchable. If we leave them rolled, then it would increase the chance of damage to the documents if they were opened for research. There are approximately five sets of blueprints that we will not be unrolling at this point because any attempt to do so appears to cause more damage. I will be meeting with Mr. Michael Powell to determine what steps would be best for those blueprints.
Interesting Finds
Inside the box with the sets of blueprints and on top of a set of blank forms, we found a handwritten list of McKissack projects. This will prove invaluable in verifying the subseries of my Projects series. The document is currently very dusty and difficult to read, but I hope that some moderate cleaning will enable me to read it in full. In the metaphor where processing collections is compared to putting together a puzzle, this document is a corner piece.
Until next time…
Amanda J.
Carter
Franklin
Library, Fisk University IMLS HistoryMakers Fellow 2012-2013
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