LIS 648: Week One

I started my summer practicum at the Knox County Archives, a strictly governmental repository for the county, June 1st. The archives house Knox County records going all the way back to 1792 when Knox County was still a part of North Carolina until Tennessee became a state in 1796. The archives are part of the Knox County Public Library System and are housed within the East Tennessee History Center along with the Museum of East Tennessee History and the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection with the museum on the first floor, archives on the second, and special collections on the third.

Doris Martinson, MLS, CA, is my mentor, and she's a wonderful person to learn from. She has been an archivist longer than I've even been alive, so she has a lifetime of wisdom to pass on to me. I've already completed an archival project at the archives, so a tour was not necessary my first day.

When I arrived at the archive, I was taken to Doris's practicum room, a small room off the main stacks that has a table and a shelf full of resources Doris has collected for her practicum students. Our first order of business was for me to be given the new employee manual Doris has put together for her actual employees. It has basic information about archival arrangement, of course, but the bulk of the staggering 300 or so pages is focused on the workings of the local courts as well as the histories of the city and county.

I went through archival organization, and sorted some documents from the 1930s--three boxes full! They were covered in soot and I had to wear a smock and gloves to handle them. I did a rough sort and then started sorting them more carefully. Government documents are pretty easy to organize because they all just go by a docket number. There doesn't have to be a ton of thought because the organization is basically done for you once you sort the documents.