Hit 2,000 field IDs in my local museum archives, took 4 years

Been volunteering at the small county museum here in Dayton since 2021. Mostly sorting boxes of old stuff people donate. Last week I crossed 2,000 artifacts I've identified and logged into their system. Weird milestone but it hit me hard. That's 2,000 items that were just sitting in bins with no labels, now they got dates, locations, and context. One of them even turned out to be a Civil War canteen from a local regiment, the curator nearly cried. Made me wonder how many other small museums have piles of unlogged stuff nobody touches. Anyone else do volunteer cataloging and hit a number that surprised them?

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beth87816d ago

Oh wow, that Civil War canteen story is something else. I read a piece last year about how most local museums have way more stuff in storage than they can ever show, and volunteers are the only reason any of it gets sorted. 2,000 is a lot, good for you.