The main archive I intend to use for my MRP is the William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections in Mills Library. In addition to this I intend to use the digital archive of Early English books I found online. I am using these archives since in the case of Mills Archive, They have a copy of the Historia Monstrorum as well as a rare Book of wonder that I plan to use for my MRP. the online Early English Books archive contains many books of wonder that potentially contain useful information and monsters for my MRP.

The main issue I foresee with accessing the Archive is 1. figuring out how to actually reserve the books I want at a specified time with 2. being the unique hours that’s Mills Archive is open. number 2 will probably be the bigger issue as the hours Mills archive is open tend to be during the middle of the day when I have classes though that will be resolved once classes are over.

I don’t think that protecting myself from trauma in the archive will be a major issue for me. this is because the area I am working on is Monstrous Births, as such the trauma usually comes from finding out the actual explanation for the monstrous birth (modern medical journals do not spare details or imagery), rather than the actual description of the monstrous births themselves.

I am fortunate in that I have been long acquainted with Mills Archive as I did both a Co-Op in High school as well as my History Practicum with them. the result of this is that I am already on good terms with them, and especially Myron who heads up the Rare book division who’s collection I am mainly using. The main thing I find is to be kind and to let the Archivists share their insights about the book or documents with you. In addition be a good archival citizen and inform the Archivist if there are issues with documents or folders, it surprises people but they do take note of these things and try to fix them later.