Looking at the William J Wilgus Papers really makes me appreciate the “finding aid” tool since it encapsulates the entirety of the collection in a single neat and organized source. The papers are extensive, and if they were not organized, I shudder to think of the intray of the person who would be interested in Wilgus’ life.

As the Wilgus papers are extensive, and one can see the sheer amount of data that is present- the finding aid acts as a type of organizer for the documents, and makes each section (and subsection) easier to access and browse through. To me a finding aid is kind of like tabs in a binder- each tab represents a portion of data that is relevant to that sub heading. Finding aids are also more than just subsections- they also summarize the entire collection (which in Wilgus’ case was very helpful since I found reading his entire bio very daunting), where the collection came from (collection overview), biographical information, the scope and arrangement of the collection (most useful for research since this shows where to go when looking for specific topics or specific years), administrative information (which shows where the collection is located at), key terms (which help in finding this collection for researchers), and using the collection (the physical location of the collection and how to get your hands on it).

Finding aids are metadata on the data that is being researched. It is the information that makes researching easier to understand and easier to browse through in order to find the specific information that you need to write your paper or report, etc. William Wilgus seemed like an extremely interesting person with a lively and demanding architectural career (which I gleaned by browsing just the detailed description of the collection!)