New direction

Over the past couple years, this blog has sort of limped along. It's served as a very scant update of my academic and pre-professional career. Now, as my undergraduate studies (FINALLY) draw to a close, I would like to turn it into something a bit more - a place for me to discuss, dissect, and disseminate some of my ideas about this professional life. I want to shore up my online presence and have an established portfolio of digital work that I can be proud of.

One of the things that helped me get into this mindset in a meaningful way was this post from Jason Heppler on what he's learned as an academic blogger.

Another motivator came to me via Kate Theimer at www.archivesnext.com. It's called
23 Things for Archivists, and its a collaborative challenge from archives professionals to archives professionals to embrace the myriad tools of Web 2.0. I think it will be a great platform for exploring new resources and services, which will hopefully give me a head start for grad school.

The first "Thing" is blogging, so consider this step 1!

Progress update

It has been 9 months since I began working full time here in the archives. Every month, I feel more certain that I made the right decision (even though it has meant a 7 month delay in graduating). My expectations for what I might learn here have certainly been exceeded; I may not be able to participate in or initiate all the projects that I can dream up, but I have been exposed to an enormous spectrum of open source software, library technologies, and collaborative projects. I have also had an opportunity to apply archival theory in processing large raw collections. For an introduction to the world of archives, I really could not have been more fortunate.

Working here has meant limiting my activity in local historical societies; tomorrow, I'll be presenting at the Smith County Historical Society meeting and I applied to present at the Digital Frontiers conference in Denton. I haven't heard back from them yet, so it seems likely that my proposal was not selected.

In any case... I'm going to try to do more with this blog, as I explore Web 2.0 technologies, learn to program, and follow conferences. More to come.

Sarah McClendon's take on Watergate

Thought I'd share this blogpost that went up on the UT Tyler UASC blog today, titled "Sarah McClendon, in her own words: Reflections on Nixon, Watergate, and the Press"

http://uttyleruasc.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/sarah-mcclendon-in-her-own-words-reflections-on-nixon-watergate-and-the-press/

Spring updates

After my last update, I dove headfirst into my new position as archives assistant. Transitioning to a full-time position from a 19.5 hr/week student worker job has really shaped my future outlook in unexpected ways.

Some of the things I have been working on in these last six months:

Copy cataloging
Limited original cataloging (theses)
DACS
Digital preservation standards
Metadata standards for digital content
Institutional Repositories
Exhibit making
Records management
Processing university records

My undergraduate studies are winding down. Before I took this full time position, I was set to graduate by May 2012. Now, I'm limited to 6-9 hours per semester. With the course rotation at my relatively small state school, that means I won't graduate until December 2012. On the plus side, this gives me plenty of time to scope out graduate programs.

I had previously found myself on the "public history" side of archives, but now I am leaning towards records management. I am hoping to set up a few informational interviews in the near future to get some more insight on this.

That's all for now.