I have just completed the 5th week of my internship with the PRINT Project and I now fully understand my duties and place. This was my most productive week by far, and certainly my most collaborative. This week I was able to continue my independent skeletal metadata work while also discussing problem-solving issues within Endnote.
The week started for me when I came in for a few hours to finish up the metadata for the batch I had been looking at last week. This batch, the Varia batch, contained predominately letters sent by Pietists from Germany, often Leipzig or Halle. The metadata entry here was pretty straightforward, and there were no major unforeseen problems. I was able to finish this work pretty quickly before transitioning to working on a new batch.
The next batch I started working on, the Mather batch, was very different than the previous one and came with many of its own issues. This collection consisted mostly of letters by New England Puritan minister Cotton Mather. Almost all the letters we look at from the Archives of the Francke Stiftungen come from German pietists, so I had little knowledge of the major players overseas in Boston. These letters were predominately written in Latin, which was different than the German I had become accustomed to. As I sorted through the data, it was fascinating to read and analyze the correspondence between Mather and August Hermann Francke (the namesake of the archive). To get more context on this correspondence, I conducted a bit of research on my own to determine the nature of their relationship, which reportedly did not amount to much outside of donations and correspondence. Later in the week, I encountered an issue with the Mather metadata entry that I had not previously considered: the letters were from the early 18th century. While Germany had converted to the Gregorian calendar far previously to the sending of the letters, the British colonies still used the Julian calendar at the time. This meant that the data pertaining to the dates I had put in was incorrect. After consulting with my team lead and the creator of the PRINT endnote protocols I was able to learn how to convert the dates. This process was fairly simple when I got the hang of it, as our project protocol was to only go in and fix the month data, while leaving the days themselves alone. The most complicated part of date changing was when the letter was dated to the 11th or 12th months (January and February in the Julian calendar) as for these I had to change the year as well as the number of the month.
In addition to my metadata work, I also attended the weekly team meeting and transcription workshops. This week the team meeting was extra enjoyable as we were given a presentation by a volunteer on the family tree of the Pemberton family. After overcoming some technical difficulties, we were able to learn the story of this fascinating family and how essential they were in the New World Quaker movement. The transcription workshops were enjoyable as always, and I continue to become increasingly competent at paleography. To end the week off, I worked independently on a transcription and am eagerly anticipating the feedback I will receive next week!