Arranging the volumes

When I went to Ottawa to pack up the volumes, they were on shelves and not in any order. Most of the volumes have roman numerals on the front cover, though many do not. My job last night was to put the albums in order as best as I could. Here's how I started (picture on the right). 

And the photo below is what it looked like once all the volumes were out of the boxes and stacked in (roman) numerical order. The boxes under the table are volumes that didn't have any number, that I could tell (and some of the busy patterns make it difficult to tell!).

Ugh. These magnetic albums are an archivist's nightmare. I think by now most people recognize that the magenetic (ie. "sticky") albums are not good for whatever you put in them. But if any of you followers are still using them - stop! 

This processing project will involve dismantling each of these albums - page by page - but first taking a photograph of the album - page by page - to preserve original order. Original order is one of the key principles in archival theory afterall. 

And here's the final product (right) - the boxes after they've been arranged in order. Just a few volumes "missing", but I'm sure they'll turn up as I go through the unnumbered volumes more closely.  So here's the thing I'm noticing about the boxes thus far - they're a mess! David Lewis loved to use his scissors. He's got clippings of just about every kind in these albums - images of art, photographs, local interest articles, recipes, newspaper clippings (some of his own, some not), playboy cartoons and just about anything else you can imagine have been clipped out and inserted into these albums. And often, these somewhat worthless items are right next to "the good stuff" ie. personal correspondence and records, like his birth certificate or a deed to property or photographs or letters relating to his publications. Quite frankly, the appraisal of these records is not going to be a fun task.