Archiving Memories

Bunches of boxes full of piles of pictures...

The Charlotte County History Collections needed (and still does) some volunteers to help in the cataloging of thousands of objects, mainly photos, but also slides, postcards, newspaper articles and other items, so that they may be digitally archived and preserved and put on the web to be made available to all.

The Colonel volunteered to help the Charlotte County Historical Center do this and I tagged along and pitched in. We both logged six hours of cataloging in two days of service.

We had been cataloging the pictures of U.S. Cleveland who was a local historian and author. During the two days that The Colonel and I volunteered, we barely scratched the surface of the two boxes of photos we were given to catalog.

The cataloging process went as follows:

1. Select an item from the box (I worked with photos my two days)
2. Measure the item
3. Write down a description of item

Example:

5 x 7 Black and White Photo - Studio shot of young boy and girl sitting on bench.

It was fun cataloging the old photos. It was interesting to see the old pictures of U.S. Cleveland and his family; to get a glimpse of slices of their lives, forever frozen in a still picture; to see what they were doing and what they felt needed to be captured on film.

As I looked at the pictures, some reminded me of the pictures on the cards you can buy, you know, the ones that use old photos and then add funny sayings, making the cards hilarious (I am certain there are some funny ones in my family photo holdings as well).

I love looking through old photos and happy that I could help The Charlotte County History Collections in their mission to get some of U.S. Cleveland's massive holdings cataloged and made available on the web all at the same time.

I am sure The Colonel and I will give more of our volunteer services in this effort, because as I stated above, we barely scratched the surface of the bunches of boxes full of piles of pictures that are left to catalog.