This coming week, the archive employees will be setting up a display in the new university student center.
I have been tentatively tasked with selecting a few interesting items from the collection I am working on, to include in the display.
A word about that...
As a student worker I perform a variety of tasks, often involving manual labor and/or digging staples out of the carpet. My primary project is the Williamson Collection (a series of correspondence, legislative research, bill proposals, and other miscellaneous records, from House Rep. Billy Williamson of Tyler).
Mr. Williamson served from 1965-1975. He was a unique legislator, and the process of preserving his papers has proven surprisingly interesting. He served during a crucial period of Texas legislative history (check out "The House Will Come to Order: How the Texas Speaker Became a Power in State and National Politics", by Patrick L. Cox and Michael Phillips). His correspondence is really fascinating.
From a researcher's perspective, I am fascinated by the methodology of archive work. Whether I orient my career towards archive work or not, I think this experience will significantly impact my future research. Maintaining an archive requires a huge amount of manual labor, and there are so many gray areas. Watching my supervisor make her day to day decisions has given me a new appreciation for those brave individuals who set out to preserve historical documents.
More about Williamson later... there's so much to say.
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