Caitlin is a PhD student at the University of Maryland’s iSchool, where she is affiliated with the Ethics and Values in Design Lab (EViD), Archives Research and Collaboration Lab (ARC), and the Digital Curation Innovation Center (DCIC). She also serves as a Review Editor for dh+lib.
Astute readers may have noticed a new name join Jan (the College Archivist and Records Management Coordinator) and Sharon (the Special Collections Outreach Librarian) here on Around the D – mine, as a matter of fact! I joined the staff of E.H. Little Library as the Associate Archivist back in October, and inspired by my old graduate school colleague Stephanie Bennett‘s recent post on what archival processing is all about, I decided to write about what I do on a day-to-day basis. So, notes and highlights on what each day of the first week of classes for the Spring 2014 semester held for the Associate Archivist of Davidson College:
MONDAY (January 13)
Generally, the first thing I do when I get into the office each morning is make a cup of tea and catch up with my inbox. On Monday mornings, there’s usually several dozen unread emails – in part because I subscribe to an assortment of professional listservs.
Post-email-checking, I updated the Archives & Special Collections Twitter, and then went to a Discovery Systems departmental meeting on student workers (possible projects, how many summer students, etc.). I spent the rest of the morning preparing for a class visit to the archives later in the day (including selecting documents and setting up their display with Jan), and working on the Around the D entry to post on Wednesday morning. Sharon and I nailed down a few details related the illumination live demonstration event (set for January 28th, from 11 AM to 12 PM).
After taking a late lunch (1:30 PM to 2:30 PM is my standard), I drafted a short news blurb related to the blog topic for the library’s homepage and updated the Archives & Special Collections Facebook. Then Jan and I hosted the first archives class visit of the semester, Dr. Anelise Shrout‘s HIS 458: American Environments to 1893.
Astute readers may have noticed a new name join Jan (the College Archivist and Records Management Coordinator) and Sharon (the Special Collections Outreach Librarian) here on Around the D – mine, as a matter of fact! I joined the staff of E.H. Little Library as the Associate Archivist back in October, and inspired by my old graduate school colleague Stephanie Bennett‘s recent post on what archival processing is all about, I decided to write about what I do on a day-to-day basis. So, notes and highlights on what each day of the first week of classes for the Spring 2014 semester held for the Associate Archivist of Davidson College:
MONDAY (January 13)
Generally, the first thing I do when I get into the office each morning is make a cup of tea and catch up with my inbox. On Monday mornings, there’s usually several dozen unread emails – in part because I subscribe to an assortment of professional listservs.
Post-email-checking, I updated the Archives & Special Collections Twitter, and then went to a Discovery Systems departmental meeting on student workers (possible projects, how many summer students, etc.). I spent the rest of the morning preparing for a class visit to the archives later in the day (including selecting documents and setting up their display with Jan), and working on the Around the D entry to post on Wednesday morning. Sharon and I nailed down a few details related the illumination live demonstration event (set for January 28th, from 11 AM to 12 PM).
After taking a late lunch, I drafted a short news blurb related to the blog topic for the library’s homepage and updated the Archives & Special Collections Facebook. Then Jan and I hosted the first archives class visit of the semester, Dr. Anelise Shrout‘s HIS 458: American Environments to 1893.
HIS 458 students checking out campus maps.
After the class ended, Jan, Dr. Shrout, and I discussed ideas for digital exhibits, future projects, and the next archives class visit, then cleaned up and re-filed material from the class. Once back in my office, I Tweeted again, read emails, and pondered a workshop application before heading out for the day.
TUESDAY (January 14)
I started off my day with a walk to the campus coffeehouse, followed by email (both the checking of and the sending of), and reviewing rights usage statements for our institutional repository in preparation for a meeting. I dropped into Jan’s adjacent office (as is my wont) to chat about basketball schedules and how to best tie archival sports material with current events, in order to market the archives to the college community.
Jan and I then headed across the hall to our weekly Discovery Systems departmental meeting. This week’s topic: rights statements. After the shorter-than-expected meeting, I went back to work on the blog entry (editing and resizing images, background research, and transcribing notes from the interview that the blog is based on), followed by the second coffee run of the day.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I cover the Archives & Special Collections desk/ office during lunch, which means that I’m the first line of contact for any users. On this particular Tuesday, there were no visitors to the archives while I was there, so I spent most of that time working on an email reference question.
After lunch, I finished writing the blog post, delivered a draft to the subject of the blog for any factual corrections, and then scheduled the post to be published overnight. I spent the last hour of the day working on a bibliography for potential future research project.
WEDNESDAY (January 15)
This morning followed a similar pattern as Monday and Tuesday – caffeine, emails, listserv reading, preparation for a meeting followed by that meeting. In this case, the meeting was with the Library Director to discuss that potential future research project. I then hightailed it back upstairs to my office, to discuss the project with Jan (and also rehash our Monday conversation by brainstorming possible Southern Conference-related future blog posts, as Davidson is moving to the Atlantic 10 Conference in Fall 2014), and to do a bit of research for several now-ongoing projects.
After lunch, I covered the Archives & Special Collections desk, answered a reference question, and did more research. I finished off the day by beginning to process a small collection of letters from two brothers who briefly attended Davidson in the 1870s.
The “processing corner” of my office.
THURSDAY (January 16)
I began the day by posting an announcement on the internal campus news site (first time ever!), and with my standard email and listserv checking. Since I didn’t have any meetings scheduled until the afternoon, I spent most of the morning alternating between research proposal preparation (including bibliography formatting and some metadata cleanup in Zotero), catching up on professional news, and preparing for that afternoon’s meeting.
After an early lunch, I covered the Archives & Special Collections desk and made a few minor updates to the Archives & Special Collections landing page. I sent a bunch of emails, and then scheduled a phone meeting with a fellow Simmons GSLIS alum. The rest of the afternoon was dedicated to a meeting with the Assistant Director for Discovery Systems, the College Archivist, and the Special Collections Outreach Librarian to discuss goals, followed by some more project research and quick email check before heading out the door at around 5:15 PM.
FRIDAY (January 17)
The morning was occupied by checking email, Twitter, and listservs, followed by an attempt to clean off my desk and a solid hour or so of research project reading. I then decided to (finally) install the driver for my desk scanner (a HP Scanjet 8200), scan the caption for a photo from next month’s Smithsonian Magazine, and then Tweet about it.
Henry Mouzon’s “An Accurate Map of North and South Carolina…” (1775), as featured in February 2014’s issue of Smithsonian Magazine (“Courtesy of the Davidson College Archives,” naturally!)
After lunch, I answered a reference question and sent several emails, before diving back into processing the student letter collection I began to work with on Wednesday.
So, that’s it: a week in the life of this archivist! As you can see from this sample, the majority of my time isn’t taken up with what many consider the heart of the archival profession – processing collections. Rather, I spend quite a bit of time on outreach (both on social media and face-to-face on campus), research, and reference. Some of these foci change from day to day or week to week, and I expect that my processing time will increase (particularly during times when much of the community is off the campus). For now though, if you’d like to know what this archivist is up to, poke your head into my office on the second floor of E.H. Little Library!
The latest display in the Smith Rare Book Room is “The Art of Illumination: Past and Present,” which will be on view from today (January 15) through February 14. The display focuses on illuminations throughout time, illustrated by examples from the library’s special collections and two new pieces by Clara Nguyen, the Collections Assistant for Government Information here at E.H. Little Library. Clara previously served as the Interim Assistant Curator of the Van Every/ Smith Galleries, and holds a B.A. in Art History (with a studio concentration) from East Carolina University and a M.A. in Art History from the George Washington University.
Clara first became interested in illuminations through an internship at the Ellen Frank Illumination Arts Foundation (EFIAF), where she worked on the Book of Judith. Formed in 2004, EFIAF aims to “revitalize passion for and public awareness of the art of illumination, in part through education and training at the unique Illumination Atelier.” Similarly, when I interviewed Clara last week, she emphasized both the ancient and modern aspects of illumination: “I try to use natural materials because I’m trying to keep in the tradition of illumination.” She uses many of the same materials as the older works on display, such as: papyrus (typically used for practice pieces), vellum (reserved exclusively for final pieces), 23 K leaf, egg tempera, Indian ink, fish glue, bole (Armenian red clay and water), rabbit glue, and garlic glue. Don’t expect Clara’s work to look like a medieval manuscript, though – she says that she “likes taking physical images and then making them abstract;” much of her work is inspired by nature, including one of her pieces in the Rare Book Room display, which is based on an outing on the Davidson cross country trail.
Two views of “The Vines” “Amongst the birds they writhe breathing with the clouds but on the ground they lie – forgotten”
Part of what drew Clara to illuminations was how the materials used force the artistic process: “It’s a fickle medium. You can mold it to where you want it to go… to a degree.” When asked about the creative process, she cited an example her mentor, Dr. Anne Collins Goodyear, gave when describing how ideas are developed: “A man (or woman) is walking and thinking. He waits at the bus stop for his bus to come along, still contemplating but not fully focused on his thoughts. The bus arrives and it is when he takes his first step onto the bus that the ‘idea/inspiration’ strikes him. It is in this in-between state of things that all the pieces finally click and solidify. I feel that my initial creative process occurs in this way. In other words, my mind is quietly thinking with all these ideas and one final element usually ties it all together. In my pieces, the tying element is usually based in nature and occasionally, a man-made element.” One idea formed in such a way inspired a piece in our display: “I was driving one day and saw a smokestack and thought, “Huh… I want that in there, I just don’t know how I want it yet.”
The piece inspired by the smokestack: “The wheels spin and like smoke obliterate the -”
After the seed for the idea has been planted, Clara can then turn to implementing and shaping it: “Once I have an idea, I make a few sketches to lay out the general shapes. I transfer these shapes onto the papyrus/vellum using a very light pencil. Thereafter follows the fun part of the process: I begin an additive process of painting, drawing with quill and Indian ink, and leafing. Like most contemporary illuminators, I work using a 5-diopter glass lens which increases the viewed object size to 225%.”
For those interested in seeing Clara’s process in person, she will be giving an informal live demonstration of illumination techniques on January 28th, from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM, in the Library’s Davidsoniana Room (second floor of E.H. Little Library). Feel free to stay for the hour, or stop by for a few minutes. Light refreshments will be served, and questions and comments are welcomed! As Clara said during our interview, “It’s a lot of fun seeing the connections people make and what they see.”
For this Christmas Day edition of Around the D, we offer a play on “The Twelve Days of Christmas” – The Twelve Days of Davidson, collapsed into a single post:
On the first day of Christmas
Davidson College Archives & Special Collections sent to me
11 Seniors Graduating at the First Commencement Exercises (1840)
A young E. Constantine Davidson, one of the those eleven graduates in 1840, and the diploma of Oni Davis McNeely (Class of 1840), currently on display in the Library’s Davidsoniana Room.
10 Wins in the Undefeated 2000 Season for the Football Team
Excited Wildcat fans tear down the goalposts after the last game of the undefeated season; a few fans hang off the posts (from Quips and Cranks 2001).Those goalposts ended up in the senior apartments, as seen in this photo from Quips and Cranks 2001 – shown here with Chris Thawley, Jeff Larrimore, Rob Neuman, and William Childs (all Class of 2004).
Team photograph of the 1990 field hockey team, the first in the run of 6 championships (from Quips and Cranks 1991).1995 field hockey team, the last in the conference title run (from Quips and Cranks 1996; Davidson’s field hockey team currently plays in the NorPac conference, not Deep South)
Posters from the first three years of Ghosts in the Library (2009 – 2011)Posters from Ghosts in the Library, 2012 and 2013.
4 College Library Directors
From top, left to right: Cornelia Rebekah Shaw, 1907 – 1936; Chalmers Gaston Davidson (Class of 1928), 1936 – 1975; Leland M. Park (Class of 1963), 1975 – 2006; and Gillian Gremmels, 2007 – present.
Eben Hardin, Pender Porter, and Osmond L. Barringer snuck into Dr. Henry Louis Smith’s lab to X-Ray: a cadaver finger wearing a ring and stuck with two pins; magnifying glass; a pill box containing two 22 cartridges, one pin, two rings, and six Strychnine pills; and an empty egg with a button inside.
Today is the final day of classes for the Fall 2013 semester, and the sturm und drang of final exams and papers is evident all over campus – E.H. Little Library is more packed with students than ever! Student stress is so apparent this time of year (and in general at Davidson) that Academic Affairs, the SGA and The Davidsonian sponsored yesterday’s “Balancing Academics and Co-Curriculars: A forum hosted by Dean Wendy Raymond.” Last week, in a presumably student-led charge to relieve finals-related stress, several anonymous, encouraging messages appeared on the brick walkways closest to the library:
Chalk messages surrounding the E.H. Little Library, 3 December 2013
Previous generations of Davidson students felt similarly tried by the academic rigors of the college, and expressed some of their concerns through their letters home. Henry Elias Fries (class of 1878) wrote his mother in December on 1874, saying that:
… the semiannual judgement day as Col. Martin calls it, is now at hand, & we look upon it with dread. I am reconciled to my fate; many of us are about on a par, & we feel rather feeble in the knees…
Fries’ apprehension over his exams didn’t end with the semester – he again wrote to his mother on January 3, 1875, requesting that she send his exam results as soon as possible (reports were sent to students’ parents or guardians rather than to the student himself):
The reports were sent off last night, & judging from those which were sent around here I feel rather scared, lest the remaining returns which Dr. P spoke of will be below 60… If I get through without failing I will be very glad indeed but the reports are gone & my fate is sealed. If I get through without failing please send my report as soon as possible…
Fries during his college days, and the first page of his 13 December 1874 letter to his mother
Hopefully most of our modern students are not as dread-filled as young Fries, but if they are, numerous departments and organizations have put together several events to help students de-stress as they prepare for their exams. Tomorrow is Reading Day, which will include a Puppy Extravaganza in the Smith 900 Room during the common hour, a Theatre and Dance party in the Scene Shop in the Cunningham Theatre Center (RM 120) with free food from 12 PM to 1 PM, the Curry Club’s Finals Feast in the Multicultural House’s Upstairs Lounge from 5 PM to 6 PM, a Reading Day Study Break at the Black Student Coalition House from 8:30 PM to 9:30 PM, the Student Government Association’s Finals Fest in the Baxter Davidson Room (Chambers) from 9 PM to 10:30 PM, and the traditional DCPC Cookie Break from 10 PM to 11 PM. The following day (Friday the 13th) there will be an Ice Cream Study Break in the Smith 900 Room beginning at 10 PM (yours truly is a backup scooper this year, so say hello if you see me there!). Additionally, Davis Cafe (in the Union) is discounting coffee to 0.99¢ until December 20th, in order to keep the Davidson community well-caffeinated throughout this trying time.
Here in the library, the staff supplies some quick, mindless study breaks starting on Reading Day, in the form of puzzles, Legos, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Heads, and games of Twister, Battleship, and Connect Four.
Tents in the 24 hours study room, Potato Heads, and various Lego creations from previous semesters
If you’re feeling stressed, stop by the library or one of the events mentioned above to give your brain a bit of a rest. As the chalked encouragements remind us all, you studied – don’t worry!
Davidson recently unveiled a new makerspace, Studio M, which will provide a wealth of opportunities for students and the college community to experiment with new technologies. After attending the open house two weeks ago, we began to think about archival collaborations with the makerspace – how can we leverage these new resources with those already existing in the library?
The cuneiform collection has already been scanned and added to the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI), but what if the college’s oldest objects were 3D scanned and printed in a more durable, lend-able form? The Archives & Special Collections team rolled up our sleeves and began to brainstorm about items from the college’s collections that could use a good scanning, for either preservation or use (or both). The Smithsonian Institution’s 3D digitization work provides inspiration what the affordances of this kind of digital inquiry could be:
One of the first collections we thought of was that of Gordon Clift Horton (class of 1942) – Horton was the engine behind the first Annual Student Exhibition, and he went on to study interior design at Parsons School of Design (now Parsons the New School for Design). When his mother, Florence Clift Horton, passed away in 1975, she willed her estate to Davidson College, and several of Gordon Horton’s collections can still be found on campus. Horton’s collection of jade figurines could be an interesting scanning project…
A jade Budai from the Horton collection
Student medals and badges also provide a unique 3D digitization opportunity – these medals were created for the Eumenean and Philanthropic Literary Societies, and each comes imbued with stories of previous generations of Davidson students. A literary society badge could be scanned, and the resulting 3D model could be altered to reflect the name of a current student organization, providing a physical manifestation of the past of Davidson’s student groups for those in the present.
A tray of Eu and Phi medals from the 19th centuryA Eumenean Society badge, which belonged to Joel Mable (class of 1864)
While these are just ideas at the present, we’ll have more news to share in a few months. Watch this space to see which of these visions becomes a reality!
This week is North Carolina Archives Week, and since this year’s theme is “Home Grown: A Celebration of N.C. Food Culture and History,” what better time to delve into the history of farming at Davidson?
Davidson College was founded as a manual labor school, which meant that the earliest students “perfom[ed] manual Labor either agricultural or mechanical in the manner and to the extent determined by the Board of Trustees,” as mandated by March 1839 Constitution of Davidson College. Manual labor was seen as a way of reducing the cost of education and thereby making college affordable to more than the sons of the upper classes, and as a benefit to both the physical and mental heath of students. President Robert Hall Morrison spelled out the societal benefits that manual labor education could bring about in his August 2, 1838 close of term address, stating that:
The efforts of all enlightened men should be combined to improve the moral condition of society by rendering manual labor more reputable and inviting. This is not to be done solely by pronouncing eulogies, but, as time and circumstances will permit, by holding the spade, the axe, the plow, and the plane. Educated men should prove that they are not above doing as well as praising the labor by which society lives.
But while President Morrison waxed poetic on the possibilities of labor, the students had very different feelings. Alexander Bogle (class of 1843), wrote to a friend that “now comes the work which is not so pleasant… We have to work very hard three hours which is the time allotted and you know that it is pretty hard to work that long.”
Page 2 of Bogle’s letter, November 22, 1839
Similarly, Pinckney B. Chambers (class of 1840) recalled for the Charlotte Daily Observer in 1903 that “The farm work was greatly hampered by the tendency of the mischievous and shiftless to misplace the tools and outwit the overseer.” He was more colorful in his distaste for manual labor in a letter to John M. Sample in 1837, after he had transferred to Caldwell Institute:
There is no labor attached to it. (which is one of God’s blessings) All you have to do is to pay your money and go to school… It is I think a much better school than Davidson College. For several reasons but I will give you but two at present as I am in a great hurry, they are very particular reasons with me, the first is we do not have to work, and the second is we get plenty to eat and that, that is good.
First page of Chambers’ letter to Sample, December 9, 1837
By 1841, it was clear that the manual labor system wasn’t achieving its aims – rather than lowering costs and making education more accessible, Davidson was losing money on the endeavor. The Board of Trustees voted to abolish the system, and the college farm experiment came to a close.
More than 170 years later, Davidson students are back on the farm – this time on a voluntary basis, rather than a mandatory one. The Farm at Davidson, purchased in 2008, became a working farm again last fall. The College farm provides sustainable produce for Vail Commons, Davis Cafe, and Much Ado Catering, as well as a space for students and members of the Davidson community to learn about where their food comes from.
As Farm Manager Theresa Allen explains, there’s a great deal of student interest in the farm: some students help work the farm, some conduct soil experiments, and some even take naps – a far cry from the manual labor farm days! The farm’s office hours/ work days for this semester are Fridays from 1 to 4 PM, so head over to 1603 Grey Road to check out the veggies you’ll be eating later!
When I moved to Boston three years ago, I instantly hated it – every bad day or negative emotion I had, I blamed squarely on the Hub of the Universe. It didn’t help matters that I had just spent the summer in Austin, TX (a city I was madly in love with), or that I had recently been on two amazing cross-country road trips, or that I had grown up in the shadow of NYC (Boston’s natural enemy, as I was repeatedly reminded), or that I was about to suffer through one of the worst/ snowiest winters Boston had had in years. Boston was cold, foreign, and unfriendly, and I spent the little free time that grad school and work allowed making trips down to see my Providence friends.
The Fenway Victory Gardens in winter.
Over time though, I grew to love Boston. The shift was gradual – from outright hatred to ambivalence, and then slowly to a weird sort of love. I knew I had officially crossed over when a friend of a friend asked me where I was from, and I responded “Boston” rather than “New York” (our mutual friend overheard this, and immediately shouted, “NO SHE’S NOT! She’s a New Yorker!” But then so was he).
Front steps of Harvard’s Widener Library.
Two months ago, I left Boston, but I didn’t really leave it – I moved home to NY but split my week between the two cities, usually taking the train east early in the morning on Tuesdays and then the bus or train back to NY on Thursday or Friday evenings. The commute was designed to save me money, not time or convenience – I could crash at my mom’s in NY, and with friends in Boston during my abbreviated work week. The commute was tiring and being technically “homeless” was an annoyance, but I didn’t mind – I love riding the train, and I liked feeling like I was traveling, even when it was only between two cities that I am intimately familiar with. I was able to hang out with my friends from college and eat delicious pizza, bagels, and potato cones, while still keeping my amazing job and getting to see all my Boston friends. I began taking long walks around Cambridge, trekking from Harvard Square to Central nearly every day, hoarding Mike’s Donuts from Roxbury in my bag while I hunted down the best lattes within a two mile radius of Widener Library (FYI, I’m pretty sure Simon’s Too is God’s Gift to Central). I wandered through the North End for no reason other than that I could. I stayed late at my office every night, met new people, read YA novels on the train, and had more fun than I’d had in months, maybe years. I was finished with graduate school, but occupying that post-grad liminal space where you’re not entirely sure what your future is going to be.
View of the Charles River (and Boston and Cambridge) from the Mass Ave Bridge.
It turns out that my future includes leaving both of these cities that I have a complicated love-hate relationship with – after a lot of thought, I accepted a job in North Carolina. I’m moving to a whole new region in a little over a week, and it feels both exciting and incredibly sad to be leaving behind both the place that I’m from and the place that I’ve grown to love over these last three years.
Two Henry Moore sculptures spotted in two days – on the left, “Four Piece Reclining Figure” (1972-73) at Harvard, my current place of employment; and on the right, “Two Large Forms” (1966-69) at SUNY Purchase, my dearly loved alma mater. On Monday, I decided to swing by the ol’ college while I was in Westchester county so that I could finally touch the sculpture – frankly, it’s surprising I didn’t do it when I was at school there since everyone seemed to have climbed all over it, but I was always a white-gloves-while-touching-art kind of person (probably comes with the whole archivist/ librarian thing). In fact, our student ID’s featured a background of the Henry Moore being clambered on by several students:
I finished graduate school two months ago, and sometimes it’s still hard to remember that I’m not going back in the fall – to be honest, I already miss going to classes and writing papers! Some commencement-grams, including silly-sleeved gown, and brag-y photo of the thesis award I won:
Can you tell that my Dad made me pose immediately after leaving commencement?Silly as it is, getting nominated for and then receiving this award is probably my most proud moment thus far in my life. My advisor and readers are amazing women who really pushed me to do better.
But now that graduate school is well and truly over, I’ve set some summer/ fall goals – some things I wanted to do during school but never had the time, things I want to accomplish in general, and some things that I just think would improve the quality of my life. In no particular order:
Re-read all of the books I was assigned in class and thought were really interesting, but had to skim a bit. The top of this list is Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, followed closely by Ross Harvey’s Digital Curation: A How-to-do-it Manual.
Learn to play that ukulele I bought 2 years ago and promptly put away in a closet.
Update this blog more regularly!
Learn to ride a bike, finally.
Present at a conference.
Publish – in professional organizations newsletters, journals, on my work’s blog, wherever!
Pare down closet and bookcase to essentials – I own way too much stuff…
Make sure to keep in touch with everyone who’s moved away and I miss, with my favorite old professors, with my cousins, with former coworkers and bosses. It’s so easy for me to get busy and forget to do this.
