From your scouting trip next week, the most useful thing we could have would be a set of images of the handwritten box lists and numerical-filing-system subject information that’s kept in the finding-aids binders. (I’m assuming that you’ve probably already found my basic suggestions for photography of archival materials.) Those lists are all we researchers have for a finding aid right now, and collaboratively creating a better finding aid would be really useful. If you have a Dropbox account, that might be the best way to share those images with me, and then I can put them online more permanently when I have time.

Offhand, I suspect that the best way to do the initial transcription of those lists is in a structured format like a spreadsheet, maybe at Google Docs for collaboration purposes. Once we detail the numerical filing codes in use for each 4-year group of boxes, we can take that spreadsheet and link it to the RG 102 finding aid at the Our Archives Wiki.

For photos of actual items in boxes, the most important thing is that they have a way to track the item locations for citation— either by shooting images of the box label at the beginning of the box, and of the folder label at the beginning of a folder, or by including in each shot a hand-written piece of paper that details the box and folder information. (I’ve been talking with some smart computer-science people about a more efficient way to do this in the long run, but that’s not ready yet.) I should write more about this (in my copious free time.)

I do need to get around to uploading my images in a publicly-accessible way; I’ve been delaying until I’ve figured out how to do so in a way that’ll give them relatively permanent URLs. In the meantime, I can tell you that I’ve got quite a bit of the filing series 4-2, especially 4-2-1-2-1 (birth certificates and birth registration); my most complete image sets are from the boxes covering 1916-1920, 1921-1924, 1925-1928, and 1929-1933. Of course, I was photographing selectively for my own research interests, but some of what I found will probably be useful to you.

Really, what needs to happen here is that I need to take some time and set up Scripto properly so that the transcription process can proceed. I’m guessing that, since I’m teaching 2 new-to-me courses this semester, this will have to wait until sometime in the fall unless I magically acquire a research assistant. I’ll let you know as things progress.

Thanks again for your interest!

I subscribe to alerts for two dozen journals so I get an email when a new issue appears. Then I go to the table of contents, check what’s new and, if I find something that I want to read, I download a copy to my To Be Read folder (which syncs up with my ereader) and, more recently, I’ve added the citation to Zotero as soon as I see them. Between the two, I’m not only finding what I want and keeping track of the scholarship, but I’m getting articles read!

Good luck.