During my time as an undergraduate at UNC-Chapel Hill, I took a class titled: "Studying the South through Manuscripts." Taught by Laura Clark Brown of the Southern Historical Collection and Dr. Connie Eble of the English Department, the class was an introduction to the American South and manuscript and special collections research. For me, this class was a game changer. The following summer, I began working as an student assistant in the Southern Historical Collection. It was through my experiences at this job that I came to love and appreciate archival work. While I had entered college intending to become a teacher, I graduated knowing that I wanted to continue working in archives.
After graduating in 2012, I continued at the Southern Historical Collection as a graduate student and entered my first semester of graduate school in UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science. In September of that year, I began work as a Carolina Academic Library Associate with a full scholarship in the department of University Archives and Records Management Services. In this job, I enjoyed working independently on projects as well as working on a team with my supervisors and fellow graduate students. I reached out to undergraduate student organizations to promote the use of the Archives and encourage donations of student materials. One of my favorite projects was conducting a focus group with student organization leaders to determine their interest in contributing to archival holdings. I also wrote regular posts on Archives events and University history on University Archives' blog "For the Record." In addition, I worked with Technical Services staff to organize transfers, rehouse materials, describe collections, and encode finding aids with EAD. |
In May 2014, I graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with an MSLS. Since June 2014, I have been employed with South Carolina's State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) as the Historic Properties Information Coordinator. In this capacity, I serve as the archivist to the SHPO with the purpose of organizing an item-level description finding aid in the form of a database. This database, now called the South Carolina Historic Properties Record (SCHPR - "Skipper"), is powered by CollectiveAccess. CollectiveAccess is a free, open-source content management tool for archives, libraries, and museums. SCHPR is designed to make information on SHPO's unique archival records more accessible to the SHPO and its users. These records include site survey cards of individual historic properties, survey reports, national register listings as well as associated files/photographs, and more. I have worked to design the database and the associated metadata, plan a digitization workflow, and create a web accessible public interface. This work has given me a great deal of experience in metadata, content management, digitization, documentation, public relations, coding, open source technology, and project management. In this position, I am also a general member of the South Carolina Archival Association (SCAA) and the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers (NCSHPO). Additionally, I am currently the treasurer of the Palmetto Archives, Libraries, and Museums Council on Preservation (PALMCOP).