Week 5 Day 9 and 10 (June 10 and 11): The collection continues

This week I really just buckled down on the collection I started last week. I've narrowed the founding families to eight and while there are other very important families that left their mark on Maitland they came at a later time. Thankfully most of the information about these families were already in their own boxes but as expected there was plenty of information in other boxes. There are also a few families that did not have their own box so that means I will have to A) combine them since there isn't an entire box worth of info for each of those families and B) find boxes and space for them. Another problem is rearranging the specific shelves that I want to use. I want to keep the most important boxes and information about Maitland in one specific area but I don't want to move boxes that are in the way to other areas that can still be deemed as important. In a perfect world the more important boxes would be on the back of the bookshelves (aka where the less important info should be designated) and switch them out with the boxes on the main shelves that could be placed in other areas. Most of the time I'm finding and having to switch both important boxes and less important boxes all within the same space, shelf, or bookcase. It all just feels like a puzzle right now and I'm having to slowly rearrange the pieces so that they fit perfectly together.

On another less confusing note, I was able to go with Christine to one of her meetings. I totally felt important like I was on some official work business. But seriously the cool thing about this meeting was that it was put together by the ITPA, a group that I have seen mentioned and on many awards at the Maitland Historical Museum. Also one of the members of the ITPA (and whose family name has an award named after them) was the grandson of Carl Galloway.If I haven't mentioned it before the Galloway family was very important to the city of Maitland (and also part of my Founding Families Collection). I was unaware that the Galloway family name lived on and that I was meeting a descendant. It was all pretty cool.

I also mentioned that I would be including photos of what the research studio looks like in order to give everyone a better idea of what I'm working with.

These are the two bookshelves I'm always talking about. I did an entire inventory of all the boxes on these bookshelves. Christine already had a "system" going and each side of each bookshelf is a "Case" (starting from left to right is Case 1, Case 2, Case 3 and Case 4). 

Case 2 and Case 3 are what Christine and I deemed as the most important sections of the research library. This is where we want to place the most important information/boxes. The less informative boxes will go in Case 1 and Case 4. That little room in the background is simply used as storage but apparently used to be the bathroom to the house. 

Doesn't look super impressive but what you're seeing here is the collection I've started.

Next week I will begin the process of digitizing by photographing some of the information in the museum. Hopefully all goes well. Until next week.

-Ambar the History Student