Saturday, May 14, 2022

News from the Felician Archive (straight from the archivist!)

 Hello! I hope all's well for you in your part of the world. I've been pretty busy. You can probably tell, since it's been some time since I posted to this blog. My biggest task (my ministry, really) is the archive. As the archivist for the province, I'm responsible for the newly created Felician Archive in the Welcome Center for Madonna University in Livonia, Michigan. 

I'm not doing this alone, though, and that's the biggest piece of news. With the support of the leadership of my community, and our Human Resources department, I have hired four Archive Assistants. They work a total of 22 hours a week, at an average of 3 hours a week each. Three of them are university students, two of which have taken library and archive classes. The fourth is a retired gentleman. They've been working since the end of March and are continuing until the end of May. I'll be rehiring in the fall.

The Archive Assistants have been helping me with a number of projects that involve processing documents into the archive system. The transition from working the archive to being a manager of workers has been an interesting one. It's my first time being a boss so it's definitely a shift! But I enjoy teaching them about archives and guiding them through the archive process. It's fulfilling to mentor others. It also frees me up to take a more big-picture view of the development of the new archive. 

That's where the rest of the developments are found. I work with our IT manager to develop some technological aspects of the archive. I attend meetings with our IT manager and the MasterTrak company about a bar code scanning system for locating and organizing archive boxes. I'm active in the archive field, attending conferences and being active in archive groups. I also plan which projects each Archive Assistant will work on and buy office products that they need to do those tasks. 

This summer, I'll balance archive tasks with travelling and other activities. I hope the bar code system will be ready before the fall, so those Archive Assistants can help set that up, and I plan on doing what I can to make that happen. Too, I look forward to putting more thought into the  Felician Archive Assistant program. I bought a book about how to have interns in the archive (Who knew such a book existed?!?) and want to get some good ideas from it. 


Until next time! 

S. Grace


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