This past week finally saw an end to the scrapbooks. After weeks of removing photographs and documents from scrapbooks put together with construction paper and string, I was able to move on with the processing. The newspaper articles were not going to last in the folders, so my next step was to photocopy them. Once photocopied, I separated the documents from the photographs. I numbered the folders in the boxes, and was able to move on to my next project.
My next project involves digitizing a collection of slides from John Creasy, a local artist. These photos include pictures of the effort to clean up Southwest Roanoke in the 1970s. There are pictures that show people fixing houses that are in disrepair. The other photos come from various places in the Roanoke Valley. These other pictures include mountains, views of the city, and places like Smith Mountain Lake. The process of scanning these pictures is very time consuming. While scanning the photos, I am also taking an inventory of the pictures. The purpose of this is that when putting the pictures into the database the descriptions in the inventory will match the scanned photograph in the computer. Since I can only scan four slides at a time this will defiantly be a part of a project that will take a while.
Through my time working in the Virginia Room, I have become more aware that archival work may not be the most exciting thing, but it is still an important part of public history. Organizing the documents and photographs, and when appropriate digitizing the material, is important when trying to preserve the history for future people to be able to use.