A New Home

I haven't had a lot of time to analyze and write about The Ethel Index over the last week because most of my free time has been spent building it a new home. After discussing with my brother Scott the process of creating a bookcase from scratch (which would have been a nice homage to the diy crafting of my grand-mother) we decided it would be much more economical and expedient if we just went to Ikea. There was a perfect space in our extra bedroom which basically measured 8' x 7' x 1'. We found the perfect combination and I went to work building it. Here is a picture of the finished bookcase:



I then began the process of organizing the index. I started by bringing the individual crates out of the garage and into the house. Each crate has eight to fifteen variable sized cartons of cards in it. Here is the first crate that made it into the house:



The ultimate goal is to completely alphabetize the index so that it can be easily searched. For the most part my grand-mother worked to keep the cards in order. However, it is clear that there are overlapping cartons and cards that were never filed. So, at the moment I am just trying to get all of the cartons onto the shelf without worrying too much about the inconsistencies. Conveniently, my grand-mother placed a blank cardboard holder at the front of each carton which offered me a nice space for adding labels. Here is what the labels look like:



Aside from adding a label to each carton, I am also performing minimal preservation work. Following my grand-mother's lead I have employed duct tape as my primary tool. Here is a picture of a carton which was pretty much destroyed and one of my handy work:







Currently I have completed labeling 15 out of the 21 crates. The last couple of days have been tough because both of the kids are sick. I should be able to finish them sometime this week. Then I will have to make a couple of new cartons (should be a fun project which I will document) and start fixing the alphabetizing issues and filing the loose cards. For now here is what the bookcase looks like:



I think that after I finish I will start organizing a family bbq so anyone interested can take a look around it.