The Miracle Theatre Group Archives Project ~ 2 Month Update

Miracle Theatre Group Board Documents

Two months ago, OMA intern Katrina O’Brien began her project to process the archives of the Miracle Theatre Group. In her first blog post, she took photos of the collection and began taking initial steps to get the two rooms filled with materials organized for her to have a workspace and know the overall amount of content within the collection.

Check out her two video tours of the collection: Video 1 and Video 2

Over the course of these past eight weeks, Katrina has been working to create an organization scheme for the collection, diligently rehousing the documents into archival boxes, and weeding out the duplicates for recycling. She has a blog that she updates weekly: Katrina O’Brien’s Blog

Here are a few highlights from the Miracle Theatre Groups Archives Project:

Week 3

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After getting a sense of the overall extent of the physical collection, it was essential to begin to tackle the collection intellectually. Katrina created an Excel doc with an inventory the collection documents (image on left) and then from that a subject list (image on right) to use for the creation of the organizational scheme for the collection.

Week 5

The next step of course was to begin to match the intellectual organization with the physical documents…

Week 7

Along the way there have been some interesting finds including notes of appreciation from audience members, artwork, and special tickets…

  

Week 9

And, as the archival collection begins to take shape, the pile for recycling grows as well…

In total, Katrina has accomplished a lot these past two months including:

  • The preparation for processing of the two rooms of 100+ boxes, 87 binders, and freestanding artwork
  • The labeling of each box and binder with major subjects after doing a basic sift of each
  • The creation of a spreadsheet based on labels to be used to collect subject-specific records from boxes and binder (which commonly include multiple subjects)
  • The development of a possible collection schematic at the series and subseries level
  • The processing of the majority of the administrative records including articles of incorporation, bylaws, board (minutes, committees, lists, retreats, and roles/responsibilities) executive director reports, goals/missions/visions, organizational layout, policies and plans of action, strategic plans, building (assessments, café, lease, Milagro Development Group LLC, renters, etc.)

Of course, there is still more do to in these next few months including a potential mini records management training for the theatre staff, so look for another project update sometime later this Fall!

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