March Adventure

4.11.17

My adventure in March was a trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. No, I didn't visit the battlefield, though I should put that on the list. I went because there was a MARAC MD/PA caucus meet-up at Gettysburg College, followed by a trip to the Seminary Ridge Museum.

MARAC is the "Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference", the regional archives group of which I'm a member. Logically, I am also part of the Maryland caucus of MARAC. This was my first in-person event having to do with MARAC, and it was on a Friday, which is nice because I have that day off and don't have to use vacation time to go.

Thing is, Gettysburg's a bit of a distance, about an hour and a half drive from my apartment. It's certainly the longest distance I've driven since going to Alexandria and certainly the longest distance I've driven since the drive that ended in my crash. And it was raining on my way there. So that was fun. White-knuckled fun for some parts, but fun. It's nice to see that I am gradually getting over the crash, but it sure takes a lot longer than I'd imagine it would (since it's so so fun to physically flinch when a car comes up too fast behind me, as often happens because this is Maryland).

Anyway, I made it on time to the meet-up and thoroughly enjoyed our backstage tour of the Gettysburg College Special Collections and Archives. Their storage room is SO NICE, and they have four full-time staff and eight student workers and three full-time interns! (Says the lone arranger...)

Then we ate at their specialty dining room, and then met up at the Seminary Ridge Museum. The museum has no items of its own (so everything it has, and it has quite a bit, is all on loan). On some better-weather day I'll go back and pay the extra money for the tour of the Cupola.

I'm still sorting through all the in-depth knowledge I gained about the Battle of Gettysburg from the museum, but the main thing that struck me was how a unit that was a month out from being mustered out lost over 75% of itself just behind the seminary building, basically in the same spot where a parking lot now sits. It's the same sort of feeling I got when we visited Antietam during junior history trip in high school. Not ghosts, per se, but memories.

Memories, of course, are what archivists and historians deal in, I suppose.

Anyway, it was an adventure because

1. it was a place I'd never been to before,
2. it was the longest distance I've driven since the whole car fiasco of late summer/early fall 2015,
3. I met a lot of archives/library people I had never met before (networking?),
4. I learned a lot about the Battle of Gettysburg.

It was a good day.

1-26-14

I really like my new job. I enjoy it a lot. I just hope I can be adequately fast enough while processing and doing other work. I'm still the new kid though, can't go in the stacks without supervision until my background check clears. Still, I really like my new job.

Eureka

1-6-14

Today I learned or had affirmed that what I'm learning in graduate school is IMMEDIATELY applicable to the real world.

Today I sat in a history conference at the General Conference (yes, that General Conference, those of you who might be wondering) and listened to great papers and interesting ideas from historians and teachers and theologians, all the while getting ideas on how I could apply what I have already learned in one semester to the current situations and try to improve what already exists.

Today I saw displays and immediately thought about light levels affecting the items and the books, asked questions about the climate around the White family library (it's ambient because they have so many daily tours) and learned about the fire suppression system. I saw the backlog in the archives and learned that the powers-that-were didn't listen to the first appointed archivist who requested a vault twice the size of the one that was built--and I saw the tiny scanners that they're using to digitize material with. I learned that the first Adventist to gain a Phd. in English (in literature, to boot) did so at the University of Michigan, the university at which I'm currently studying.

I had a discussion with a current archivist about the overwhelming fact that born-digital materials (like early emails) are already disappearing because the creators didn't think they were important, and how not many people know what to do to keep and preserves records before they reach an archives.

I'm finally in the right field and it's a great feeling.