The filing cabinet saga

Have you ever started something which morphs from a ten minute job into one that’ll probably take three weeks? This is something which is an almost daily occurrence for an archivist so I’m not entirely sure why I’m surprised that this happened to me almost immediately.

Three of the boxes which arrived from the Harbour Board were marked ‘filing cabinet’ and, on closer inspection, all came with alphabetical dividers which listed the contents of folders. Amazing! This never happens. Usually you get a load of folders which have no discernible order and are full of papers which don’t relate to what’s written on the front. Of course, this meant that I wanted to catalogue these boxes first to get a decent start.

Never believe anything is that easy. As I started to look through the other boxes labelled only with the location from the Harbour Board, I noticed small numbers in the corner of the files. Yes, they matched up with the filing cabinet lists but had just been taken out of sequence and before my eyes that small job of 3 boxes turned into a slightly larger one of 89. Still, must not complain when I have a list to work off.

As ever, the original sequence had been disrupted which meant that I needed to go back and replicate how it had been. This was a great opportunity to move the files from the cardboard bankers boxes that they were in and transfer them to new acid free archive boxes which will protect the documents for longer. It was also a great opportunity to turn my office into a tip.

 

[Sorting files out to transfer them from cardboard boxes to acid free]

With a collection of this size, it’s useful to split in into smaller sections so you don’t get overwhelmed. The ‘filing cabinet’ section (as it’s known in the office) is a manageable chunk of material and it’s also a really good way for me to understand more about the collection. The files are catalogued alphabetically and each topic has its own file so there’s a box which consists of files called ‘Admiralty-underwater trials’, ‘advertising and publications’, ‘American consul-Dundee’ and ‘Annie W Lewis’. This gives you an idea of how eclectic the themes of the files are. They also vastly vary in size – some contain one sheet of paper whereas others take up an entire box.

Often when archives are deposited, they are packaged in non-archival material. This includes card, paper, staples, rubber bands, paperclips, bulldog clips, etc. These materials, particularly the metal, can be damaging to documents and need to be removed in favour of acid free enclosures and brass paper clips. Sometimes you end up tackling more inventive storage methods. For example, the belt which I nearly impaled myself on. In the defence of whoever wrapped in round the three folders – it had held really well.

The cataloguing of the filing cabinet is going well. This morning I finished the ‘L’ section which contained some great information on leases, lifeboats and lighting. Hopefully I can complete this section in a week or so, then I can move on the ‘war’ boxes.