Internship at Skagit Valley College

This week, the inventory process continued. After the lack of inventory progress that I made last week I was concerned that I would not be able to finish taking an inventory of the whole collection and I started to think that I might need to only work on a small portion. Me and the site supervisor had a long discussion of the pros and cons, we decided that I should continue to inventory the whole collection, however, the level of details in my descriptions would be reined in. I was initially describing all the materials within a single folder which ensure it was taking a long time to finish with a single folder. We are now taking note of the folder as a whole, rather than all of it’s parts. My site supervisor made the remark that taking an inventory of each individual item would be the work of several separate projects. Most of the other elements are still being recorded however we did also add an element that describes if the folder is about the Mt Vernon campus, Whidbey Island campus, if it’s a mix or neither of the campuses. We decided that this would be necessary as it would also allow us to catalog or group items together by physical location.

Overall, the inventory process went much smoother than it did the first week. I was able to get through much more material. Last week I was only able to complete 1/2 a drawer. This week, however, I was able to finish the first and second cabinets and the first drawer of the third cabinet. It did help that several of the drawers are empty. Also, the other drawers containing materials, have less folders, and the space is taken up by bigger items. This helped speed along the process immensely.

This week I also gained access to the SVC network and the cataloging software that they use. My site supervisor and I got my accounts started up and went over navigating these different software systems very briefly. The main software that creates digital catalog records, Alma, did take some time. I was given the directions to several training videos and modules that would help show me how to navigate the platform, how to create a new record, and how to edit existing records. These I was able to watch and read remotely, allowing me to devote my time physically in the archive to the inventory process.

I do feel that it would be very helpful to have my site supervisor walk me through how they use the system. I wish for more hands on training in this especially because there are a couple of different call number systems in place and several digital items/records that don’t have a call number at all so I would like some help trying to find those. It is my first time using a software platform like this so I am excited to get this experience and to learn more.