Internship Overview

Throughout my time at Loyola University's Archive and Special Collections, I have learned a great deal. Prior to this, I had never had experience in archives nor did I have any experience in digitizing. This internship provided me with both. This internship taught me to use the skills I developed throughout my time at Loyola, such as organization and research, and apply them to a practical field. I learned how to survey material and learned to determine what information was important for documentation. I learned how to arrange a collection and how to maintain it. I also learned how to create a finding aid using the information and material provided. This internship also taught me the importance of archive work. Archive work is essential in maintaining collections but also assists others in finding information or artifacts that they have been searching for. By providing an organized platform, the archives department allows for easier research practices for the public. This has been a great learning experience to me and has continued my desire to use my skills as a historian in a practical setting.

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Week 14: Editing Digitized Book

After capturing the images for the book last week, this week, I am editing the pages so that they are legible and properly aligned. In order to do this, I have to use BookDrive Editor which allows me to rearrange, crop, and skew images. This is an important step in the digitizing process. After the pictures are taken, most pictures have to be rotated so that they are facing the proper direction. Then the next step is to skew the images. Since some of the images captured are slightly off or crooked, it is important to de-skew them so that the pages for the digitized book are as straight as possible. This also helps when trying to create a uniform size for the pages, which is done through cropping. While it can be done for the overall collection, it is better to do each individual page since not all the pages are captured exactly the same. Once all these pages are edited, the software will combine the pages into a pdf and this then can be put online and shared. That is the process of digitizing a book.

Week 13: Digitizing books

ith my collection now finished, I have the opportunity to learn how to digitize archive material. Digitizing archive material allows for books, newspaper or other material to be transformed into an online format. This then can be accessed by more people and provides a safe keeping of the books contents for books that are in poor condition. To do this, the archivist selects the type of work they would like to digitize and places it in the capturing center. The capturing center is a stand that holds the book open to the pages you want to digitize. Then using computer software, cameras that are mounted on the top of the machine take the pictures of the book and brings them to a screen where they can be edited and put together. This is a long task, for each individual page has to be digitized and then flipped to the next page and then the process is repeated. This week I am starting to digitize one of Loyola's rare books from 1721, called: "New Opera's, with Comical Stories, and Poems, on Several Occasions, Never Before Printed, Being the Remaining Pieces" and written by Thomas D'Urfey.

Week 12: Storage and Research

After finishing my collection last week, my collection was now ready for storage. Archive collections are stored in a a separate humidity controlled room.This room is also protected by a locked cage so that only authorized personnel may enter. Once a collection is finished, the collection is placed on one of the shelves and organized by call number. That is the final step of archiving a collection.

So with my collection finished, I was given the task to do some research. A man had come in to the Archives department seeking any information about his father. His father had attended Loyola around 1953 and played for the basketball team. With this information, I searched through yearbooks and student newspapers to see if I could find any mention of this man's father. Eventually I was able to find some information in the school newspaper that included a picture of the basketball team he was on. This information was tagged and then provided to him. So while an archivist may be responsible for organizing and maintaining collections, they are also responsible for helping to assist others in research.

Week 11: Finishing the Finding Aid

In order to complete the finding aid, I had to label each individual folder with a folder and box number. For instance, the first folder of box one would be labelled 1-1. This would allow me to keep track of which folder was contained in each box. Once I did this, I had to add these numbers to the finding aid and give the title of the folders and what they contain. This is so that it is organized and easier to find when searching for a file. After completing this step, I went back and gave my collection a quick run-through to make sure that everything was recorded and that my collection was in order. With everything set, I finished creating my finding aid and finished my collection. Next week, I will put my collection in storage.

Week 10: Creating a Finding Aid

Since I completed organizing my collection last week, this week my task was to create a finding aid. A finding aid is a written guide that provides information about the collection, such as a description about the collection, a description about the institution, how the collection is organized, what subjects are found in the collection and provides a location for the items within the collection. All this information provides researchers and archivists with the necessary information to easily locate a particular piece of the collection. This is a very important step in the archives process.

Link to a list of finding guides for current Loyola University Archives material can be found here.

Week 9: Boxing my Collection

This week, I finished up organizing my files from the Extension Society. After putting each file in order and grouping them into folders, I labelled the folders with the appropriate description and date. Once this was completed, I was provided with three hollinger/archives boxes which were used to store the files. These boxes are designed for archive material and provide safe storage for an extended period of time. These boxes are acid-free which helps prevent paper from breaking down and have a metal-edge on their corners that provide protection. They also contain a loop which allows easy access to pulling the boxes off the shelves. For my collection, I labelled the boxes as the Catholic Church Extension Society and provided it with a number in the set. This will be helpful when creating a finding guide.

Week 8: Organizing My Collection

This week I continued to work on sorting through and organizing the Catholic Church Extension Society files. As I mentioned in the previous week, I organized the letters first alphabetically and then when possible, chronologically. After I organized the letters, I placed them into folders and labelled them with a brief, general description of what type of files they were and to what dates they pertain. This allows for others to have easier access to the files and provides important information that can help a researcher save time. 

Week 7

This week I returned back to my working on the Catholic Church Extension Society files. After having completed my survey of the material, I have begun to start sorting and organizing the files. This is an important step in maintaining a collection because it allows the archivist to access the material quickly and accurately by having it sorted into an organized collection. This is also an important step in order to help create finding guides, that assist in locating each individual item. Since most of these files are letters, I have decided to sort them alphabetically by the name of the person or group in which these files are sent to. There are some files that cover the same topic but are addressed to different individuals but since they are part of the same group, they will be categorized together by the name of the group. This way, files pertaining to the same topic will not be separated and harder to access. Next week, I will be continue to sort through and organize the collection.

Week 5 and 6: Surveying and Open House

For week 5 I continued to work on surveying the Catholic Church Extension Society's general correspondence files and I finished my survey. Most of these files contain letters of donations and their corresponding letters. There are also some pictures and applications that people have filed as an appeal for aid. These documents provide an insight into how the society worked and what their purpose was. The next step will be to sort these files in order to create a system in which they can be accessed.

For week 6 I was asked to assist in doing research and help organize for the Archives department's open house. The open house is meant to showcase the Archives department's material and to bring awareness to people about the departments purpose. As part of the research, I was responsible for searching through and selecting pictures that can be used in the showcase and used to highlight the department's collection. 

Below are examples of material I surveyed:

Photo From Native American Missionary

Checking Slips & Account Book

Blueprint Drawing

Newspaper Article

Week 4: St. Benedict's College

Once again I surveyed the Catholic Church Extension Society's letters of correspondence. In these files, I came across a folder dedicated to correspondence with St. Benedictine's College. St. Benedictine's College, now know as Benedictine College, was a Catholic College served to prepare students for a life in priesthood. Because of this, the Catholic Church Extension Society sponsored several various students who showed an interest in joining priesthood to attend the college each year. These documents reveal that the Extension Society was not only responsible for providing funding for the building of churches but also helped to fund education. These documents reveal the history of the society's transactions and provides insight into their purpose and goals.

Below are some examples of the files within the St. Benedict's College file:

List of the Course Curriculum for students at St. Benedict's

Course layout

Catalogue

Course Evaluation Card

Course Grades

Week 3: Extension Magazine

This week I continued to work on surveying the files from the Catholic Church Extension Society. Most of these files contained letters concerning appeals for assistance applications, as well as donations from various individuals. Also included in these files were pictures from churches that had received funding from the society as well as subscription requests to the society's Extension Magazine. The magazine was published in order to raise awareness of the Extension Society's mission by providing stories from Catholics and Churches throughout the U.S. that had received help. Along with these letters, I came across a letter of approval from the Vatican, praising the society for its work and recognizing it as a canonical institution. These files show the importance of archives because it provides information about the Catholic Church Extension Society and its history.

Here are some examples of the files:

Week 2: Catholic Church Extension Society

This week I was provided with a small collection to survey. I was given 3 boxes of files containing the archives of the Catholic Church Extension Society. The Catholic Church Extension Society is an organization founded by Father Francis Clement Kelley, in 1905, that raises money in order to fund the building and maintenance of Catholic churches in isolated regions of the U.S. The society was responsible for raising money and dispersing it to various parishes as well as providing ceremonial decorations and artifacts. The purpose of this was to provide support and funding to develop churches in poorer regions.

Today I started going through the first box of files labelled the "Catholic Church Extension Society Correspondence Letters: 1920-1923". Most of these files contain letters from priests and bishops asking for assistance in funding their churches as well as the corresponding letters either granting or denying funding. As part of my job, I have to sort through each individual letter and find important information, such as who the letters are written to and from, the dates of the letters, and what they are concerning. This information will be helpful in the future when trying to organize the material into a filed system.

To learn more about the Catholic Church Extension Society, including their history and their mission, you can check out their website here.

Loyola University Archives and Special Collections Internship Overview and Week 1

My name is Daniel Quinlan, I am currently a senior, in my final semester at Loyola University and am studying history. This fall, I will be working every Friday at the Archives and Special Collections department of Loyola University. The archive department is responsible for over 8,000 linear feet of archival collections ranging from faculty and alumni papers, university archives, Catholic collections, and Congressional archives. The Archive department is also home to roughly 11,600 rare books as well as audio, visual, and oral history collections.

As part of my job in the Archives department, I will be surveying, sorting, and maintaining a small collection. In surveying the material, I will have to go through various files, providing a description for each item so that they can be sorted and filed in a way that can be accessed by others. I will also be creating a small exhibit with material from the archives as well as learning to digitize material.

This week is my first week of work. I was given a tour of the archive department and was provided with several different packets to read detailing archive work. These packets provided information how to go about archiving material. They provided information on what to look for when surveying the files, such as dates, important names and places, as well as how to summarize the content in order to sort them and organize them.

For more information about the Archives and Special Collections department at Loyola, click here.