Week 3: First Field Trip and Reflection

Hello everyone!

 

I'm going to start off with a quote that perfectly describes how this week made me feel. "It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.” - Claude Monet. 

This week was a big one, our fieldtrip today consisted of a visit to the Special Collections and University Archives to talk with David Benjamin and the team there. We also got to dress up this week and go over to the student union to take professional headshots for our linked in profiles and other such professional uses. This was one of the rare occasions I have been on campus and have gotten to see more and more of the school. I was pleasantly surprised by all the available resources to students at the Student Union and that the photo booth was a free option available to all students. It comes with free editing software as well and I think  my photos came  out pretty  well.

Our other portion of the field trip was at the Specials Collections office to talk with David Benjamin who is the head of the archives at UCF. It was very helpful to talk with David, he explained his reasoning behind how they process their documents and why they do it that way. And I learned a very interesting detail about archival, any archivist who handles the storage and care of documents and artifacts are always monitoring the humidity and temperature. While this is not a new concept to me I was a little stunned to see that on top of processing, accessioning, deaccessioning and more, that archivists are in charge of so much more than I thought. We even got to see one of the oldest books in collection at UCF which was a bible dated to be from around the 1500's. Once we finished our talk my peers and I were given the opportunity to ask David any questions we had. It seems like one of my peers shared a similar though to my own and asked David. " What is the schooling process like for Archivist and how do you go about going down that path?". He let us know something that once more has allowed me to reflect on my current path and goals and keep pushing forward knowing that i'm doing the right thing. David did state his words were advice not a perfect plan of what we should do. I learned very valuable information that some archivists don't have the traditional MILS (Masters in Library Science) degrees. But that sometimes experience and in David's words "being able to talk the talk" and knowing how to actually apply your skills to software used in museums is enough to be hired and that some places do not require an MILS for a job. I did learn that all collegiate school systems require their archivists to have MILS Degrees. 

Post our talk David and his team took us into their back room which housed a part of the UCF Archive collection that mainly consisted of older books and fragile materials. The most exciting part of our day was going down to the ARC (Automated Retrieval Center). This place was ginormous, three stories of temperature controlled and in my opinion high end storage for more than just the libraries functions but in the middle of it all was storage housing for the archives.   

This field trip was very meaningful for me. I have continued fighting with myself  over graduate school opportunities and if that was a path I wanted to take. I will never completely cut it out of my options, however I plan on volunteering and doing many more internships before my time at UCF is done. This field trip was one of great reflection or me and was able to clear any of the uncertainty I had  surrounding my future and my options. 

Until Next Time !