Objectives met

Over the course of my internship with the University Archives and Special Collections department at Creighton University, I had the opportunity to gain skills and experience in several areas of real-life archives and special collections operations. Perhaps my overall culminating project was the documentation and exhibition of artifacts from the on-campus parish, St. John’s Church. In working with this collection alone, I helped photograph, document, and research the objects for the creation of an online digital gallery in the Creighton Digital Repository, and then select, arrange, design and implement augmented reality components for, and write exhibition labels for an exhibition, which I created from scratch with the advice of liturgists from the church and my site supervisor, University Archivist Dave Crawford. In this project alone, I fulfilled nearly all of my special collections-related objectives: for hands-on experience using preservation techniques, I co-piloted a controlled humidification system to unfold old, brittle documents relating to the collection so they could be digitized. In furthering my knowledge about safe-handling and safe-storage techniques, I learned more about what material of gloves to use with what material of object and when gloves are more dangerous to the material than clean, freshly-washed hands. In providing access to special collections materials, I created a physical exhibit of artifacts that are rarely, if ever, made available to the public and assisted in the creation of an online gallery of the artifacts.

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In other special collections projects, I implemented collections management techniques with my oral history projects. In one project, I co-piloted a system of recording interviews of a renowned photographer, giving advice on how to insert natural, vocal reference points within the audio for the benefit of a transcript, and then piloting the transcription process so that metadata can be more easily extracted and finding aids can be created. In another oral history project, I interviewed the creator of a special collection related to fables about the inception of the collection and some of the more notable objects and materials in the collection. This system was designed for two reasons: one, to be able to get more information about the objects to be able to extract detailed metadata from, and two, to get sound bytes for use in promoting the collection.

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I also was able to implement some preservation and safe-storage strategies through the creation of phase boxes. Since some of the books in Creighton’s Rare Books Room are deteriorating to the point of fragility, the department has implemented a phase box housing protocol, where the most vulnerable books have been identified through evaluation and a process of creating custom-sized phase boxes has been ongoing. Working with a student worker, I learned about the evaluation process in order to deem which books necessitate protective housing and then observed how to make the custom-sized boxes. After receiving the instructions, I then made some phase boxes for some 18th century texts that are currently protecting the books on the Creighton Rare Books Room shelves.

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As a final component of my special collections experience, I also frequently was able to work with the Rare Books Room’s display of the Heritage Edition of the Saint John’s Bible. As part of their weekly update of displaying a new illumination, I had the opportunity to choose the illumination to be displayed based on seasonal and liturgical themes, and thereby provided and promoted access to the rare book. For example, near Thanksgiving, I selected The Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes. After changing the display, I then set out the coordinating literature for viewers to consult and tours to reference and assisted in updating an online banner image announcing the new display.

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Regarding my experience and objectives with archives, I gained practical skills related to processing and cataloging archival materials through two projects. In one, I created an accession numbering system for a collection of archival papers by a renowned author, which will serve two purposes: one, it will allow the collection to be accessioned, and two, it will serve as the initial finding aid to provide access to the collection. To create the numbering system, I surveyed the extensive collection, identified its likely uses along certain subject lines, and gathered data from notes created when the collection was initially processed. As a collection that is still growing, since the author is still living, writing, and donating papers, the system also needed to have room to grow in unexpected directions without compromising the explanatory integrity of the organization system. Overall, the system should be thorough enough to give a trained staff member a lot of information of what the item is, while remaining simple enough to be readily understood and implemented by high-turnover student workers and interns. In the other project, I assisted in the movement of digital catalog records between repositories in ArchivesSpace, ensuring accuracy and eliminating redundancies in naming conventions of catalog records. Over the course of my internship, I successfully met all of my objectives through a wide variety of different projects.

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Skill areas in need of improvement

I would like to learn more about cataloging archival and special collections materials. While I have experience in a museum and library setting with cataloging objects and books, and I observed some cataloging of archival and special collections cataloging, I think my education would benefit from greater experience putting my observations into practice. I have obtained some texts on some of the cataloging standards that I have resolved to study in the interim.

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Overall assessment

Overall, I found the internship to be very successful: I met all of my objectives and exceeded all of my expectations about what skills I would build and how much I would experience of real-life archives and special collections operations. Beyond the hands-on practical experience, which was incredibly valuable for my own professional development, I think some of the most unexpected and valuable experiences were some informal and often unplanned instruction and advice sessions I would have with Dave about running archives and special collections in this day and age. Some of the discussions were about managing and ordering archival supplies and becoming familiar with archival suppliers, whereas other conversations were about how to prioritize decisions regarding preservation and the allotment of resources, often limited, in an archival or special collections setting where budgets are often lower than need, staffing is less than optimal, and optimal practices are simply not possible for all materials in the collections. I would highly recommend any student in the archives or special collections pathway to consider an internship at an archive or special collection, especially one in a smaller setting like this, to be able to see beyond the theoretical concepts of preservation and storage and learn how to put those concepts into practical application through skills like prioritization through evaluation. No institution, excepting perhaps the Library of Congress, is able to meet optimal conditions for every single object in their collection. Thus, it is vital to learn how to identify critical needs from mid-range to ideal conditions so that newly-graduated students are not overwhelmed by the needs of their collections.

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Connections to coursework

I believe my coursework in LIS 60654: Preservation and Conservation to be the most valuable in my learning experience at the Archives and Special Collections in how I could apply my knowledge of safe-handling and safe-storage principles and evaluate and prioritize needs of collections materials. I also was able to apply information organization principles learned in LIS 60020: Information Organization in my design of the accession numbering system in order to aid in information retrieval.

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Self-reflection

Looking back at my performance in the internship, I was pleased to witness a readiness to put into practice the skills and concepts I had learned in the classroom and a font of knowledge to be drawn upon that I hadn’t fully recognized as being present in myself. Asked about an opinion on a decision facing the archives, I surprised myself with being able to make an informed recommendation with supporting arguments based on what I had observed and learned over the course of my studies and career. Thus, I believe I have found myself ready to not just carry out instructions at a position in the field, but in fact take on responsibility. Most of all, I was pleased to discover excitement and joy in the work itself, illustrating to me that despite a longer track to arrive at this career path, I do believe it is a field I am well-suited for and that I can see myself remaining in for years to come.