After the series had been created, we organized each one chronologically or alphabetically. This was time consuming, and considering how much re-foldering and physical arrangement we needed to accomplish, it felt at times as if we weren’t really using “More Process, Less Product.” However, we eventually completed our arrangement and began plugging our finding aid information into Archivists’ Toolkit. Despite the early setbacks of dealing with loose papers and a lack of content information, we were still able to meet our timeframe for completing this collection.
One of the lessons learned from the Machteld Mellink papers is that having more information available for a collection helps the “More Product, Less Product” approach exponentially. Neither I, nor my co-worker Leslie, had much knowledge of twentieth-century archeology; therefore it was extremely difficult to identify many of Ms. Mellink’s writings and notes regarding certain topics. In these instances we had to create general labels for the papers. There are some highlights within this collection though, particularly as we learned more about Ms. Mellink and her career. She led an amazing life, and hopefully researchers will be able to shed more light on her papers one day.
This was our final collection at Bryn Mawr, which ends our time at this wonderful institution. The special collections staff including Eric Pumroy, Marianne Hansen, and Lorett Treese were incredibly helpful in their support of our project. We also received processing assistance from the Special Collections student worker, Lee. Her help with the Mellink papers allowed us to finish the project on time.
Thanks for this blog post and your thoughts on applying “More Product, Less Process” to a collection like this. Usually I’d make a comment on the professional issues, but I have a question on content in this case. (Which may be difficult to answer for the reasons you discuss, but just in case…) Did Mellink’s papers have much about Hetty Goldman or any clue as to where the bulk of her personal papers are located? I ask because Goldman was the first female faculty member at the Institute for Advanced Study and our holdings for her are pretty limited, and we’ve had an ongoing back burner search for her papers. A faculty member pointed me to an obituary for Mellink as a possible lead recently. What a thrill to see that your project has already addressed Mellink’s papers, whether or not they have any clues about the elusive Hetty Goldman papers!
Hi Christine, there is quite a bit of information on Hetty Goldman! I just checked out the finding aid, which hopefully will be live soon, and it includes some biographical material, correspondence, her diaries (from 1900 to 1930), and an obituary. I don’t actually see that any information is from the time frame of her tenure at the Institute for Advanced Study, but MPLP in 2 hours does not guarantee that there is not more in the collection! I believe that Eric Pumroy, at Bryn Mawr, is also wondering where the remainder of Ms. Goldman’s papers are! If I hear anything about other papers, I will let you know!