Happy National Archives Month: A glimpse behind the scenes at the Loretto Heritage Center

Happy National Archives Month! The archive for the Loretto Community is housed in the Loretto Heritage Center at the Motherhouse. Heritage Center staff wear many hats in doing archival work. This week’s Facebook posts explain how archival collections are processed, or what staff do in order to move a group of materials from the condition in which it was acquired to being shelved and accessible in the permanent archival collections.

Processing can be lengthy, from initial assessment of a collection to weeding out items that do not need to be kept in the archive to organizing, describing, inventorying, and properly storing all of those materials. With a diverse range of items received at the archive, it can sometimes be tricky to read outdated digital formats or figure out how to best house unusual forms of media!

Other work done on the archives side of the Heritage Center includes digitizing historic photos and documents, answering research requests, assisting in-person researchers, creating blog posts and social media content, and helping with exhibit design and public programming. With all the work to do, there’s rarely a dull moment in the archive!

Digitized materials from the Loretto Heritage Center archive can be viewed here.

To request information from the Loretto Heritage Center, please fill out the contact form here.

To read stories uncovered in Loretto’s archive, check out the LOREtto Blog here.