An Experience of an Archivist

I have found a love for sifting through somebody's (artist, writer, created, etc.) personal files in order to determine their creative process.  This is all due to the a class project involving MSU's digital/physical archive of Ivan Doig.  Here is a link to the our project: Ivan Doig Story Map.  I spent hours sifting through folders in the special collections in the library.  I found it best to physically handle his research as oppsed to digitally searching it.

In terms of archival literary, I would say that the most beneficial part, wasn't using the digital archive and understanding it as the digital archive has some difficult navigation in terms of finding certain information.  However, using the physical archive to then link back to the digital archive to analyze Doig's rhetorical properties of research was the most beneficial.  For me, this is the most valuable part of the project, was actually "seeing" his creative process and understanding the rhetorical properties and thus benefits of his research that creates his work.  By analyzing his research we were able to conclude the connection behind his detailed research and process to his novel The Last Bus to Wisdom.  This allowed us to give the archive meaning.  In creating a story map that connects his research to his creative process to the end product of his book, then there is significance in the archive itself.

What I like the most, is that he completely inspired new methods of writing for me.  For the research of The Last Bus to Wisdom he has papers that cover every little detail of the story, down to the stamps used in the book, moccasins worn, etc.  It seems like a beneficial process, to physically surround a work space with the visual elements of things that are to be written about.

I like the method that our group chose, the story map, because it's a way to digitally access some of his work but in a more interconnected way.  We also used this method to discuss the meanings that we found from the archive into web text.  The platform is user friendly and easily accessible.  During this project we used the help of the librarians extensively, who were always attentive and knew exactly what to do to answer the problems that we were having.  It's quite incredible, the knowledge that those ladies have regarding such a large collection.

Also, Ross nailed the creation of the story map.  We all participated in the research and then Ross created the story map with it!  I enjoy the final product as there was a short time where I feel (all of us maybe) didn't quite know exactly how this idea was going to come together, it rather unravelled throughout the research.