Week 3: The Puzzling World of Puzzle Manuscripts

Okay, so they aren't really all that puzzling. But they are fun. As I said in my last post, I got to step outside my normal realm of duties for the week and hang out in processing. I spent the whole week working with boxes from the Jerry Slocum collection. The beginning of the week was the trial box. Thick transcripts, pages of patents, copious correspondence. I also got to look at the Rubik's cube research box with folders of solutions. Folders of them, I say. In English, Russian, and what I think might be Hebrew. Fertile ground for all those Rubik's cube nerds out there (and I know that they exist because I'm related to a few). And because Mr. Slocum was all into puzzles, he kept in contact with other puzzle people. He had manuscripts and puzzle designs from a friend of his. As someone who enjoys puzzles, seeing some design sketches for puzzles that did and didn't work was really cool. Many of the puzzles involved fitting certain sets of wooden pieces in certain shapes, and he would have computer nerds run his puzzles through programs to see if he had the only solution, or if there were others. I had never thought about the use of computers and algorithms in designing puzzles.

I also got to put index cards and big nifty puzzle description cards into super special archival boxes. But what did these super special boxes go into? These:Exciting looking, aren't they? These are the kind of basic archival boxes that we use for folders of materials that don't need to be stored flat. I also recall that LVM kept legal files in some like this... For most of the week, the boxes I worked with were all prepared with materials in them. But when I got to the index cards and other small items that went into their special little boxes, I had to put together my own boxes. Space is a premium in, well, just about every institution these days, but especially in special collections. We worry about having enough space for our full boxes, we don't have enough space for empty boxes. So they get delivered flat, with some assembly required. So I got to learn how to assemble archival boxes. Another useful life skill to add to my list.

What I love about interning at the Lilly is that they don't treat us like we're stupid because we're students. They show us something the first time and then they leave us to do it ourselves. We're welcome to ask questions if we still have problems, and they never seem annoyed like we're wasting their time. I worked pretty independently all week, though I could ask Craig questions any time I needed to. He allowed me to do things as I saw fit, just like a real archival/manuscript processor would. And that's where the real experience comes from. Knowing that someone is going to check what you've done, but that what you've done is still the real work that everyone will be using. It's a nice feeling.

Well, my week in processing is done and tomorrow I go back to my normal routine of, well, I don't really have a normal routine yet. But I'm sure it will involve reference questions. So, catch you on the flip side.