I must begin with an apology for my infrequency of posting as of late. My excuse, however valid or invalid, relates to my involvement with the Society of American Archivists Indiana University Student Chapter Conference for Graduate Students and Beginning Professionals, to take place March 5-6 at Herman B Wells Library. The conference will include 16 presentations on various projects and papers related in varying capacities to archives, rare books, and special collections, as well as tours of repositories on campus and attendees' choice of one out of three planned interactive workshops. Presenters and registered attendees include Indiana University Bloomington students, as well as individuals from as far as New York City, Boston, Austin, and Seattle.
Our student group was also approached by the Society of American Archivists national organization in reference to scheduling a pre-conference SAA workshop, so that conference attendees could further broaden their professional development experience over the course of the weekend. We are thus co-sponsoring the workshop entitled "Visual Literacy in Photograph Collections," which I am definitely looking forward to attending. Surely I have come across photographs while processing archival collections, but I have never been formally trained in their treatment or the ideology behind how visual materials are arranged, described, and accessed physically or digitally by potential users.
Anyhow, I do not believe that I fully realized how all-consuming managing the logistics of the abovementioned endeavor could be until I took on the duties of co-organizer for this conference. My organizing counterpart, Angela, graduated with her MLS/MA in December and moved out of town, thus I am the "head honcho" on campus responsible for pulling all the details together. Angela is still working with me from afar--we've taken full advantage of email, Google Doc sharing, skype, etc.--but the details on my end have taken up a large majority of any "free time" I may otherwise have. Things are coming together nicely, and I couldn't be more excited about the conference weekend, but I'm still in the learning stages of how to handle such widespread priorities including conference organization, internship hours, internship readings and blog postings, class, work in the IU Archives, volunteering to develop EAD-compliant finding aids at Wylie House Museum, maintaining healthy social relationships, getting adequate sleep and keeping myself fed. In relation to my internship, I will surely catch up on my article analyses in the coming weeks.
However, I do believe that I am getting great experience in preparation for a busy, multifaceted professional career. My involvement with SAA-SC makes me increasingly resolute to remain active in regional and national professional organizations, which I anticipate will make for a more fulfilling career in additional to general day to day duties as an archivist. I attended and co-presented a poster at the Midwest Archives Conference last spring, and I hope to attend the Society of American Archivists annual meeting in Chicago this August. My experience on the conference planning end will definitely lead to a greater appreciation of these larger annual meetings!
Back to regularly scheduled internship blogging...
Amy
No comments:
Post a Comment