Skip to main content

Almost ready!

Last night I worked from home on the labels for the Justice Freeman exhibit, laying them out with InDesign, and I printed them out to bring with me, also emailing them to Kheir and told him he had the files just in case I got abducted by aliens on my way to campus. I came in today even though it is Tuesday and I usually go in on Thursdays. We decided for this week and next week for me to come on Tuesdays instead.

"I see you did not get abducted by aliens," Kheir said to me when I arrived.

I cut the printouts into their respective sizes and put them in the cases to see how they look. We still went over some changes together and emailed files back and forth as we sat in Kheir's office, noticing things to change. I also decided that one thing I had not made a label for that could have used one for. We need a label to accompany the Justice Freeman on the Brown v. Board of Ed reenactment that happened on campus in 2004. So I made a label for that event to accompany the relevant newspaper clippings and program guide in the glass case. And I had to do a little rearranging in there because Justice Freeman's son Kevin called right before I left this past Thursday and answered some questions about things that helped indicate where to put certain objects in the timeline. This opened up things in such a way that it allowed me to put in a new label with the CSU stuff. I would have cannibalized one of the smaller glass cases up front for the CSU stuff because it shows an obvious relevance to between the topic and the university but the cases were already spotlighting the Harold Washington stuff so nicely I couldn't bear to dissemble them.

Once I cleaned all the glass cases I changed out the newer labels, and I think they look good! Did I think to take a picture? No, I did not! Maybe I will at the event next Tuesday. Which, hilariously, the university waited until yesterday to finally circulate info about the exhibit to the student population. I know this because I received an email through my university email about it. And they gave everybody about 2 days to RSVP. I guess you have to RSVP to come? I can't imagine they would turn anybody away but will people not come because they didn't RSVP and then think they won't be allowed in? But when you wait to promote something until a week before the event, it's harder to get people to come out to things (I know this from all the events we did at the bookstore I used to work at). But then the people that are coming are probably judges and already know about the event. That is, assuming they do know about the event. The info about the event is on the CSU website. It's here. Did they just post this yesterday?

I noticed that there was material that separated the two parts of the Freeman glass cases, and I asked Kheir if it would help to have a sign for that stuff since people might be confused and think it was part of the Justice Freeman exhibit. He told me that it was part of the Hammurabi Robb collection, so I did a little research and we collaborated on a label for that stuff too, since CSU has a bunch of his papers. I also sleuthed around the archive and found a plastic holder that could serve as a stand that would hold the info. It reminded me of all the merchandising I used to do when I worked in retail. I measured the plastic holder and made a sign that would fit in it and emailed it to Kheir. He hit print on it, but hilariously, the printer is up on the fourth floor, so I went up to the printer in the LIS department to pick it up. While I was there I chit chatted with the dean of the department and learned that, among other things, the library used to actually be in a different building.

Next Tuesday I'll go in later in the day and stay for the event in the evening! This is the part of the invite that I thought was the most hilarious:

So no sweatpants?

--

Today's standards fulfilled as per the Society of American Archivists Curriculum:

Society of American Archivists Curriculum: A. CORE ARCHIVAL KNOWLEDGE, 1. Knowledge of Archival Material and Functions, b) Appraisal for Selection and Acquisition, g. Management and Administration (p. 5)

A. CORE ARCHIVAL KNOWLEDGE, 2. Knowledge of the Profession, c) Professional Ethics and Values (p. 7)

A. CORE ARCHIVAL KNOWLEDGE, 3. Contextual knowledge, a) Social and Cultural Context, d) Underserved & Underrepresented Communities (pp. 7-8) 


Comments

  1. GabrielFebruary 27, 2026 at 5:46 AM

    Great work and it's especially noteworthy how you take the initiative. That is key for success as a professional!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Perfect Ending

  Some folks from my workshop showing off their zines! The first day of my practicum in January was a blizzard and my last day today it's 80 degrees. I couldn't have asked for a sunnier mood to conclude my practicum experience. I led a zine workshop in the room next to the archive. I talked about what zines are (self-published or independently published periodicals), their legacy, and my history with them (as a publisher, distributor and former bookstore manager that sold them). And because it was Library Week, we talked about zines in libraries and archives. Then we jumped in! I led everybody into a writing exercise, and I also showed how to fold and cut a piece of paper into 8 pages. Then everybody transferred their content to their zines, and we shared them. People made great stuff as they always do when I do this workshop. It's so fun to see people going from knowing very little about an art form and then straight into being makers. The power of accessible DIY! Then we ...
2 comments
Read more

The Sleuthing Pays Off

Kheir greeted me today with a nice surprise -- 9 or so boxes of material pertaining to the Brown v. Board of Ed 50th Anniversary Commission files, all of which are housed at CSU! I didn't even know there was an entire collection that was specifically about the anniversary (the anniversary being in 2004, when CSU held the reenactment with Charles Freeman playing the role of the judge in the case). So I spent a large part of the day scouring those files to find anything with his name on it to prove a CSU connection, which would be a great addition to the Justice Freeman exhibit. Boy am I glad Kheir had previously told me to scour T he Chicago Defender back issue archive a few weeks back (accessed through CPL) to see if there was anything written about Freeman and CSU. And to think that CSU had the whole collection about that anniversary commission (and that there even was a commission)! In those files I found a physical copy of that Defender article that featured a picture of Just...
2 comments
Read more

Notes and Plans!

Today is one of my last days in the archive, because the semester is ending soon! Today Kheir and I talked about the evaluation letter he has to write, as well as what the next couple weeks will look like for me. Next week I'll be doing the zine workshop as part of Library Week at the archive (info about that here) , and then the week after that Kheir will be out of town. So for all practical purposes, this is my last day to actually actively work on things in the archive, and specifically with the Lerone Bennett Jr. collection I was working on. So what I did was organize all my notes to pass them along to Kheir to help with fleshing out descriptions with the finding aid. He mentioned that it would be helpful to have more description about what the archive holds, so I rewrote the pre-existing bio and added some of the highlights of the things I found. That way there's some good selling points to entice people to come look at the archive. I guess I'm kind of proud of what I ...
2 comments
Read more