UAM Summer Internship 2017: Exploring the Archives

One of the goals for my internship was to experience as many aspects of museum practice as possible. The diversity of the University of Alberta’s Museums and Collections has provided opportunities to experience not only a variety of museum collections but different sorts of collections including archives. Recently, I spent a couple of days working in the Bohdan Medwidsky Ukrainian Folklore Archives,  which preserves the experiences of Ukrainian Canadians by collecting a variety of materials including books, photos, documents and objects such as clothing. The Ukrainian Folklore Archives are a unique archive in their mission to preserve Ukrainian culture making it a very exciting archive for an introduction to archival skills!

 
I spent much of my time helping to get documents ready for storage. The documents were examples of the fieldwork by students in Ukrainian Folklore classes at the University of Alberta which make up a large part of the archival collection. Examples of fieldwork projects are interviewing Ukrainian Canadians about their involvement in traditions such as Ukrainian dance. Helping to prepare these documents for storage, I learned about the preservation of paper archival materials. I removed any staples or metal paperclips because over time the metal can damage archival materials both mechanically and chemically. Mechanical damage includes wrinkling or distortion of the paper, while chemical damage includes chemical reactions such as rusting. If any papers did need to be kept together I replaced the old staple with a plastic paperclip that would not rust. All of the papers are stored, with any related materials, in individual acid-free folders in a document case, that is also chemically inert and is kept in a dark room to prevent damage from exposure to light.

I also had a chance to learn about the Bohdan Medwidsky Folklore Archives’ collection of books, which can be used by students and researchers. This collection of books features everything from Ukrainian periodicals to children’s books about pysanky (decorated eggs) and books for learning the Ukrainian language. I applied labels to and shelved new books in the collection. I became more familiar with archival classification systems for organizing and shelving books. Not only did I learn some practical archival skills, but I was also able to see firsthand, how archives preserve culture by seeing what materials are collected.