Hi! My name is Daniel Donahue and I’m a senior studying History and Information Science. I’m working as an intern in Special Collections this semester to cap off my history degree. I’m still not set on what I want to do after college, so I want to explore the process of managing an Archive to have a better understanding of Library Sciences. Additionally, I wanted a more hand-on experience of jobs within the History field that weren’t specifically research based. I’m very passionate about history, but I probably am not looking to be a professor. As such, I wanted to explore some other areas related to History. Archival work caught my eye because of my interest in data management. I’ve been enjoying my work so far and can’t wait to learn more!
I’ve been working on a few different things, but the main tasks so far have been processing a new collection from the Alpha Chapter of DKG and converting a cassette collection of oral histories for digital preservation.
As you can see, the process of processing has been a bit messier than I expected. However, I’ve been making good progress and I’m almost done. I’ve heard people say that processing is very polarizing, however I don’t think I have a strong opinion yet. I found all the materials a bit overwhelming at first, but once I got an organization scheme in mind (and understood what I was doing) things we much more smoothly. I still need to write finding aids, so maybe that will drastically change my opinion one way or another.
The digital conversions have been interesting. Working with more analog media has been fun (except when cassettes unspool which happens with too much frequency — though not today so maybe I’m getting better). I still have not finished the metadata, but I’ve enjoyed the actual conversion process even though it can be tedious at times. Again, something I need to do more of before I set an opinion in stone.
I’ll report back once I have more to report on.
Archivist Apprenticeship 