Not everyone has heard of institutional archives, but they serve a very important function for establishments everywhere. The institutional archives are where an organization puts their important records regarding the institution and its history. For the Log House Museum/Southwest Seattle Historical Society, these archives are where important records and information on the organization’s previous events and activities are held. Unfortunately, because more records are added to institutional archives every year, when these records are not maintained frequently, they can become clogged up with superfluous files, making it difficult to find the files that are important. That’s where I come in.
Institutional archives store information about an Organization’s history and activities.
History museum archives store historical documents from their service area.
My name is Sarah, and I’m a Museology student at the University of Washington. I’ve been interning at the Log House Museum over the last quarter and helping to maintain the institutional archives. Much of this project involved weeding out unnecessary documents and arranging the important documents in such a way that they are easy and intuitive for the institution to access. Over the course of the quarter, 16 drawers of archives files were organized, and three milk-crates worth of redundant files were removed. Now that the project has ended, the institutional archives have been weeded and reorganized, making for more straightforward access to significant documents.
*To learn more about internship and volunteer opportunities, please visit https://www.loghousemuseum.org/get-involved/volunteer/
