This is Totally Relevant?

I have to say, week two is off to a good start. One of the things that I love about this internship is that it challenges me, and it lived up to that today. It might have been the lack of sleep, but today was a little rough. Not in a bad way, by any means. There just weren't as clear cut of decisions, and left me at many points wondering if I had made the right decision.

The challenge in the collection that I have is that it is an organization that is extremely involved in other companies. While it is great for this organization, it's hard for me to determine if something is considered historically relevant or not. For example, they are a part of a larger association of charities within Illinois, and have included the agendas for their annual meeting into their collection. The problem with this is that it poses contradictions to deciding if something is relevant or not. On the one hand, these agendas are public record and if someone is looking for them, they would probably look at the records of the larger association. But my organization is deeply involved in the association so it reflects what they believe is important, and has a direct influence on the organization. Because of this, I have generally decided that these notes are important to the collection. But once I made this choice, it raised the other issue of what is considered relevant within that context. Are the financial reports for the association important? Are the emails between member important? Are the different campaigns they were involved in important? It was difficult at times to look at each aspect of the collection and weigh its importance individually. A number of times I would put something in the discard pile and wonder if I had made the right decision immediately afterwards. And then went digging through the pile to get something that I saw as irrelevant 5 minutes before, but now because of a new document, saw as extremely important.

While this is a difficult process at times, I am ok doing it. The different struggles I am having, I choose to look at them as the new ways that I am learning. While I may not be completely confident in all my decisions, I feel as though I am on the right track. And every time I was truly unsure, I was surrounded by intelligent people that were willing to help me make decisions and knew what they were doing. It was great knowing that there was someone there that had experience when I had gotten to the point of just staring at a piece of paper for a minute, and helped me make the right decision.

While it was difficult, it was a good day. I walked away knowing that I was learning, helping contribute to the archives, and being a part of the historical process. That's realistically what I want at the end of the day.