Very short-term job in NYC: Go to library, request document box, type up list of names into a spreadsheet
June 18, 2011 10:34 AM

Want to help a genealogist in LA with a very short-term project in NYC? It's not terribly exciting, but your work will eventually go online into a big free database and help people research their ancestors for decades to come. (I mean, *I* think that's exciting, but you're probably somewhat more normal than I am.)

Here's the deal: the YIVO Institute for Jewish research has an enormous library in New York, and one of the things they hold in their archives are the old records of New York City "Landsmanschaften" societies. Those were societies organized by new immigrants to the US, where people from the same "Old Country" hometown (like Kiev, or Lviv, or wherever) would band together to create a burial society, usually with some sort of other member benefits. They were sort of the start-up mini version of modern-day insurance companies. Most landsmanschaften societies are defunct today.

I need someone to go to YIVO's library on two consecutive weekdays (but not on a Friday) with a laptop that has some sort of spreadsheet program on it (Excel, NeoOffice, OpenOffice, whatever). I need them to request the record boxes for a few specific Landsmanschaften societies. I need them to go through whatever records survive for those groups and, if we are lucky, there may be a list of member names in there. The names list might even have other information, like the members' dates of birth, or towns of birth, or spouses' names, or things like that. (As you might imagine, that kind of stuff is like gold to a genealogist.) There might also be a burial list. I then need those documents typed up into spreadsheets, with one column for given name, one column for surname, one column for date, etc. Not terribly difficult, but someone has to be on site to do it there in the library, because YIVO charges a lot for photocopies.

This is probably a two-day job. If by chance there turns out to be a motherlode of information in the records boxes (yay!), I will pay for the extra time needed to type up all the info.

You: can work from about 9 to 5 at YIVO's library in Manhattan, which is located a block and half away from Union Square. Have laptop you can bring with you. Good, relatively fast typist. Can input stuff into a really basic spreadsheet. Okay with having your typed-up list go online as part of a free database some day.

Thanks. :-)

payscale: Negotiable -- I will pay by the day, two-day minimum. Tell me what you think is reasonable for your time and work.
job type: contract
posted by Asparagirl to Admin/Office

This job has been filled.

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