09/17/13 10:00am-4:00pm 30 hours
More copies to be made awaited me when I entered the archive
this morning. After processing some more of box 1, I went to copy for an hour.
Our collective frustration was growing with the researcher.
He had added even more materials to be copied, and in some cases, it included
entire books. I wasn’t sure if we were breaching copyright at this point, but
he needed it so badly apparently. So off I went.
I groaned as I took out a document from the late 1940s. The
paper was acidic and horribly brittle. It was fastened with a metal fastener at
the top. Consequently, if I wanted to read the next page, I would have to flip
the page over. This presented even worse of a problem when I tried to flip to
the next page to copy. The document was so thick that the paper folder over,
and part of the text would be obscured. And I could not try to copy that
section without doing worse damage to the document than I was already doing
just by copying by it.
I did not have the top of the office copier down, but to get
the text clear near the gutters, I would have to press down. I did slightly,
hearing the phantom screams of my preservation professor in my head. No doubt
she would track me down and cause my messy death if she knew I was doing this.
As I copied, I saw shreds of paper covering the copier and I wanted to weep.
Finally the document was done, and so was my allotted time for copying. I then
met M and explained that the document was not going to be complete, and to
warn the researcher. Then finally, back to my processing area to work on box 1.
I was pleased at least to note that I was getting through materials faster in
processing.
No comments:
Post a Comment