Finally, We Started Our Project

While we were waiting for a virtual meeting with the former curator to provide us with some direction, Tim and I finally decided to develop our own project, with the approval of AGFO, of course.

AGFO preserves the library of James Cook, and this collection includes at least 5,000 books and journals or bulletins. It’s an amazing collection. However, we had been warned that the journals and books had not been arranged according to National Park Service (NPS) standards and that curators would walk into the Archives Room, where the collection is stored, look around, and then throw up their hands and close the door. We decided that reorganizing the journals by sequential catalog number would be our main goal. We viewed this goal as a challenge and a doable project that would provide the most benefit to the park.

We determined that we needed to insert paper tags with the catalog number, written at the top, into each journal. Adding these tags to all the journals would serve two purposes. First, the tags would provide an easily-visible catalog number, eliminating the need to remove the journal from the shelf, open the journal, and search for the catalog number. Second, it would make rearranging the journals by catalog number much easier.

We began with the first row and removed all journals from each shelf, one shelf at a time. We inserted the new tabs and rearranged the journals sequentially by catalog number. What a difference that made!

Preparing and Inserting Paper Tags into each Journal

Shelves of Journals - Before and After