Posts tagged ‘archives’

October 13th, 2011

A Day in the Life [Of me!!]

This morning I had the honor of returning to my alma matter to be on a panel as part of the SAA student chapter’s “A Day in the Life” series that lets students learn what Real Archives Professionals actually do. As a fairly recent grad, I was slightly intimidated, but very excited, to speak alongside Jennifer Schaffner, an OCLC program manger, and Lisa Schmitt, the Electronic Records Archivist at MSU.

I’m not a huge fan of PowerPoints [both watching & delivering], so I made picture-heavy Prezi presentation. You won’t have the pleasure of hearing me explain everything, but if you’re interested in the many different things I do, it’s worth clicking around.

AANM Archives Collaboration on Prezi

Also, COME INTERN WITH US! Do it!

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September 20th, 2011

SAA11 Notes & Reflections

I’ve had these typed up for a while now, but life gave me a few other things to do besides post them.
But here they are, my messy/un-cohesive notes from SAA11, lovingly typed & hyperlinked for my [& possibly your] reference pleasure.

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August 17th, 2011

Reflections on MAA 2011

This summer is flying by and it’s almost time for the SAA annual conference next week in Chicago. I’m looking forward to it & thought I should write about my time at the MAA before I go.

In early June I spent two days attending the 2011 Michigan Archival Association annual conference on Beaver Island. Not only was this my first professional conference but it was my first time visiting the “Emerald Isle” – both of these were well worth the 5 hour drive & 2 hour ferry ride.

Here are some of the highlights, quotes & resources:

“Do it once, do it right (consistent schemas, controlled vocabularies), and you can re-purpose metadata in a wide variety of ways.” Murtha Baca

“Sharable metadata is metadata which can be understood and used outside of its local environment by aggregators to provide more advanced services.” Shreeves, Riley, Milewicz

Free book online: Linked Data: Evolving the Web into a Global Data Space

I also met a few gracious archivists that sent me their organizations’ processing manuals, which is a HUGE help in terms of content and detail as we start to think of writing our own manual.

The trip home also involved a short detour to Short’s Brewery which, of the 11 breweries we’ve visited in Michigan, is now tied for my favorite with Dark Horse.

Photos were also taken:

 

 

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July 11th, 2011

On archives and identity, a quote

Archival work is critical in shaping history. Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, we are major players in the business of identity construction and identity politics.

Kaplan, E. (2000). We are what we collect, we collect what we are: Archives and the construction of identity. American Archivist , 63 (1), 126-151.

Working from Ann Arbor today, finishing the grant that has consumed my work life these past months. It’s storming right now & I’m tucked away in a wingback chair in the reading room of the grad library – it’s deliciously dark & quiet, perfect for authoring EAD. [Although, I think it might be time for a BTB break - wrestling with this alone is exhausting.]

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June 20th, 2011

So You Want to Work in LAMs or How to Take My Job

You know what makes having a great husband, great house & great friends even better?
A great job.

For those of you that don’t know, I’m a museum curator and registrar. This means lot of things. For example, today I: arranged the donation of artifacts, researched & created exhibit content, loaded some photos onto our Flickr account, learned how to create a small humidity chamber to flatten old photographs, coordinated with a contact on a small photography exhibit, reviewed a policy document I helped write, started preparing a final report for a grant we got 2 years ago, edited a grant proposal for a different project, and read about the Encoded Archival Context: Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families XML schema.

I’m asked fairly often what degree I have, what classes I took and generally how I got to where I am, so I’m putting it all down in one place. Below are my 5 best pieces of advice for those interested in LAMs [libraries, archives & museums].

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