| | | | | | Wednesday, September 12, 2007 |
Intern Extraordinaire
| | So, I did my first shift in the Roseville Library. I spent four hours pouring over the microfilm for the Roseville Register. I filled over one hundred index cards. I made it three and a half pages into the first issue.
You see, the thing about old local papers is that they use teensy tiny font have no pictures and also have no NEWS. I read four articles in four pages. I have an index card for each of them. I also recorded a whole bunch of advertisements (mostly for barbershops, doctor's offices and saloons). I have an index card for each of them. I also have something like sixty plus index cards of Local Notes. Also known as the Society Pages, but for Roseville. So, it's Mrs So and So had a party, it was well patronized. Mr So and So is here to visit his aunt. Each time EACH person is mentioned, they get an index card. A HAND WRITTEN index card (because apparently the RHS lives fifty years in the past). I've written Roseville Register December 7th, 1907 over a hundred times today. Also old newspapers are funny, sometimes people get first names but often they only get two initials. In fact only the convicted criminals, government officials and unmarried ladies get first names. Which is a weird group, I mean what else do they have in common? I think this is all the machinations of C.W. Anderson (the owner of the paper), because they have the society pages from OTHER newspapers (yeah that's how strapped for news they are), and people get first names there. Microfilm is unfun, especially the one I was using. It will go forward for a little bit, then only go backwards... meaning every time I'm done with a page I have to reload the whole damn thing. The forward motion and back motion make you queasy. By the two and a half hour mark my head hurt from trying to read the damn tiny font (which is faded out in places) and my stomach hurt from battling the nausea. I feel like going back in time, and telling Mr. C.W. Anderson "Lacking in news, you say? There is this great invention that the kids now a days use. It's called 12 pt font, my friend! USE IT"
So after my first day as a preservationist/archivist/public historian, my mental state can be summed up thusly:
Burn this mother down, say I!
PS I'm sure things will get better. They have to, right? RIGHT?
posted by Amber at 7:40 PM
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