While attending the Information School, I participated in a number of practial work experiences that aided my learning process. The first practical experience made the most significant impact though: working in the UW Special Collections during my first year at the Information School.
UW Special Collections
The UW Special Collections were not the first library I had worked in, but it was the first time I was able to do "real work" in a library setting versus shelving books and fixing printers. Originally, I wanted to work in an archives or special collections, and there was an opening on a project working with architectural drawings. Because of my interest and experience with manuscripts, I began working with the rare books curator, Sandra Kroupa, and the manuscripts curator, Nicole Bouchè.
Mentors
As curatorial assistant, the duties of my job included processing manuscript collections, describing and organizing manuscripts, and researching rare books. The real benefit, however, came from being able to work with two curators directly and frequently. Both curators had many years of experience in special collections, and had gone through similar experiences when attending library school. They were a wealth of information, and conversations with them about the future of archiving and what skills would make me employable were invaluable. Often Nicole Bouchè and I spoke at length about the the difficulties in managing the constant influx of manuscripts, which did not allow for time to be given to many new and innovative practices. Because of the lack of technical expertise amongst the curators (as well as a lack of funds and staff), archiving digital documents was not a high priority. Realistically, I was told, it is up to the next generation of archivists to preserve digital documents.
Challenges and accomplishments
While working here I learned how to apply the theory of what I was learning in class to the actual work of being in a library, and the gap betwen theory and practice. LIS 530, a class on information organization, taught me about structuring information in a way that rendered it user-friendly as well as accurate. In practice, archivists need to respect the principle of original order (in which the manuscripts are received), and not always impose their own order on a set of manuscripts.
I also learned that the work of special collections was not what I originally conceived it to be. Much of my time was spent performing repetitive tasks of reboxing and refoldering manuscripts, and the curators acknowledged that there was a real need to progress in terms of implementing new technologies. The archives of today are still focusing on archiving paper-based documents, although there is an increasing need for preservation of digital documents. Although I learned a great deal from my time at the UW Special Collections, it ultimately helped me realize that I would be better able to work in an information organization of the future if I had a strong background in information technologies.
