Analog Archives DU Volunteer Project

Below is a description of the project by Maura McGrath, who organized the group of DU library school students. The photos were taken by two students - Maura and Bridget.

This weekend a group of seven students (Sam Schiller, Bethany Fisher, Shannon Smith, Bridget Whittenberg, Regina Avila, Katie Thomas, and Maura McGrath) volunteered to help the National Snow and Ice Data Center with a project that has been on their to-do list for a while. Along with Allaina (their Analog Data Archivist and one of their two Librarians) and Kristin (a work-study student who is going to be a DU library student next year), we worked on the following project.

The library has a collection of large paper ice charts, about 25" x 38" or so, and a bit more than 7,000 of them that were digitized. The paper originals needed to be put in order by date and coverage area and stored in the very top drawers of our flat file cabinets.

We arrived at the library at 10:00, but before starting the project we took a tour of the library and Allaina gave us an overview of the operation. The library is in the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which is a part of the CIRES department at the University of Colorado—Boulder. They have a collection related to glaciers and other cryospheric entities and a very small budget. On our tour we had a chance to look at journals and sketches from H.F. Reid (an explorer in the 1800s) and even some archival pictures.

Most of us worked from approximately 11:00-3:30, carting the maps to the conference room, putting the maps in year order and then (because of time constraints) we each took a year in the 80s and put those in date order.

The dates on the maps ranged from 1953 to 1987 with about 200 maps per year, so we didn’t have time to get to every year. Finally we began carting all of the years back to the analog archives room. The carpooling group that I was a part of had to leave at 3:30, but Sam volunteered to stay for another hour.

Overall the project went without a hitch—we managed to get through the afternoon with only one paper cut! And I think the most trouble we had was with head rushes. I know I enjoyed the opportunity to help a library, learn about this very specialized collection, have a hands-on experience, and work with other students.

I’m so grateful to Allaina Wallace of NSIDC for proposing the idea and all the students that trekked up to Boulder to participate and make this project a success.

NSIDC thanks all of the DU students who came in on a Saturday to work on this project! Your efforts were very much appreciated!!