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Career Path



Hi Molly and welcome to the List,

I think many of us have stumbled into archives from many different careers.
I am no different.

My BA was in Public Administration-Personnel Management. During my time at
college I realized that I was more interested in working in academia and
went back for a Masters in College Student Personnel Services and worked in
a crisis counseling center and also as a graduate assistant for a tutoring
program. From there I worked as a residence hall director and then as a
counselor in a program to assist students who needed additional assistance
in college. During my years as a counselor I realized that I was not happy,
was severely burned out, and wanted something new. I thought about what l
liked about my job and it was the sharing of information and having the
skill to access information. I eventually ended up in library school at
Long Island University. During my time in library school I decided that I
should get a library related job and ended up working in the Special
Collections and Archives Department at SUNY Stony Brook. There the head of
Special Collections, Evert Volkersz, took me under his wing and introduced
me to archives. I started out processing collections, doing basic
preservation work and answering patron reference questions. Eventually
after I graduated I became Assistant Head of the Department.

Eventually I left Stony Brook to head back to my hometown, Baltimore. I
worked as the Librarian-Archivist at the NAACP and eventually decided to go
back and try being a reference librarian. I did that for a while and
decided that I missed archives. I went to the Catholic University of
America as a post-Masters student to pick up some of the academic
background in archives that I didn't have and eventually returned to
archives. I am now at the Library of Congress with the strange title of
Digital Reference Specialist. It means that I answer people's reference
questions about how to use the American Memory collections, do workshops
and training for teachers and other educators to encourage them to use the
primary sources found in American Memory, do press releases about the new
collections in American Memory (I'll be sending out an announcement about
two new collections shortly) and am now training the new e-reference staff
members. I find that my current job is a blend of archives (though I
haven't processed a collection in several years), reference and teaching,
all things that I enjoy. I also keep my toe in the archival waters through
involvement in MARAC (one of the regional archives organizations) and SAA.

I am sure that for every member of this list you will find some unique
stories and unique people. Welcome aboard.

Danna Bell-Russel
Digital Reference Specialist
Library of Congress



-----Original Message-----
From: Molly Odwyer [mailto:maidean@MAIL.MC.MARICOPA.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 4:10 PM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: New Member


Hello,

I am new to the list and thought I'd see if I could get some feedback
from all of you. I am not a professional but I am in school and wanted
to go into archiving. What I am wanting to get from this list is an
idea of the various majors that all of you have, perhaps the graduate
schools attended and maybe how you first got into archiving and museums
and the such.

<snip>

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A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

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     In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
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Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
    http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>