April 2019

 

Month: April 2019

it’s been 2 wks since my last confession

Amandla! A Luta Continua! 

It’s been a busy two weeks. Making significant headway into the collection I am processing and my boss reminded me much more of it awaits me in the warehouse, so my work is cut out for me. The big boss (Library Director) nominated me to a campus-wide group evaluating priorities in various departments so that should be exciting. After making a cameo appearance in a small meeting which included an old friend, the big boss and I had an exchange about the wealth and richness of material in the collection related to my former profession, for which, of course, by practice and by academic training, I have a unique eye. We’ll see where/how that conversation materializes. A Posse Ad Esse.

I questioned in an e-mail exchange and later on, in a meeting, why we are so fragmented and divided being as small a staff as we are, the big division being between University Archives and Manuscripts/Prints/Photographs. I guess when we were much larger, the division of labor was necessary. But that was then. Now we are 1/5 the size. Territorialism dies hard. Build that wall! 

Two afternoons a week (and the occasional Saturday) I staff the reference desk of the reading room. It’s a great opportunity to interact with researchers and to physically (sometimes very physically) engage with the collections. I am becoming intimately acquainted with the various tripartate divisions of the collection, that is, the manuscripts, the library, and the historic vertical files, and from a cataloging and shelving perspective, those items in the Dewey system, those items in the decolonized Dewey system, and those items in the Library of Congress system. There is a reference assistant who knows the place like the back of his hand, so to speak, and he has been very helpful in my various navigational efforts. As previously mentioned, the “stuff” here, the collections are amazing and it is no small wonder that researchers come here from near and far (and some cases, very far) to examine our resources.

My colleagues are a joy to work with. We hang out in a small break room where we meet for breakfast and lunch and where we compare notes and discuss the latest events on campus and in the archives world. There is also a Keurig coffee machine there, discussed in an earlier post, for which I have a reusable, eco-friendly filter. Coffee is all about the ritual of making it, the actual drinking of it is secondary, as well it should be.

Well, in other, unrelated areas, we are halfway through the August Wilson American Century Cycle and one week into NaPoWriMo. I’m driving home to Greensboro for Easter weekend.

Until the next time, Peace Out!