Week 1

For the first week of my Capstone, I focused on orienting myself to the collection and the organizational structure employed by the artist/donor referred to in this blog as EP.  EP included some CDs of files that featured records for many items, though the organizational structure differs in what I have identified as 4 different collections.

In the file scheme, EP splits the collection into 4 subcollections:

1. EP Poetry
2. EP Prints
3. EP Artworks (includes some uneditioned prints and proofs)
4. Artworks by other artists

Information about each of these sub-collections is noted differently in the corresponding files and in some cases documentation for certain artworks was not included.  I hope that certain things will begin to make more sense, as I move through more of the collection.  I have already found that duplicates of files on individual prints indicate that 2 separate editioned prints of that work are in the collection.  

After I get a handle of the organization scheme, the next hurdle will be figuring out how much of this organization will need to be tweaked to fit the institutional organization and documentation schema already in place.  Since EP's descriptive files for each sub-collection differ in format and type of entries, I will be necessary to decide on a consistent presentation and configure each item file to match for the inventory and finding aid.  Next week, I hope to begin making those decisions.