By Caitlin Eckard

So a large part of my project is organization. Well, re-organization, that is. And this has made me realize the importance of an organization system that most people will understand. The majority of the previous library directors at ATHS were amateur historians and archivists with little museum or library training. This did not mean their work was bad, but it often led to a lack of consistency and standards between the voluntary librarians who passed through the society. One director assigned his own numbers to a collection, and then another director came in after and assigned different numbers to the same collection. You can see how this can be confusing. Most of the time, I feel like you have to quadruple check to make sure you have the right photo or object. This must be why it is so important to use a system that other people will recognize. I feel like in most organizations this can be a problem. The director or person in charge organizes things to their liking, and typically is the only person who can find things within the collection. Is this a power play?

I have slowly been learning about the LOC catalog, and about their standards. I have been trying to understand a way the we can use this at ATHS, but there are some items that don’t fall into specific categories, so it is up to us to decide where they should go. Should we organize based on Model or Maker? Things like that.  I don’t have much experience with this type of organization, so this has been a huge learning experience for me.