Internship - Day 2.0

First Accession - ECOC

It's appropriate that my first UCI Special Collections and Archives (SC&A) accession on the records of the Environmental Coalition of Orange County (ECOC) coincides with the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a foundational document in modern environmentalism. In 1972, ten years after the publication of Silent Spring, the ECOC was formed by environmental activists to bring visibility to issues, concerns, and threats to the region's ecology. The ECOC communicated to its membership and the public by way of its newsletter, Environmental News.

A sister division within the UCI Libraries recently found a box of ECOC materials while cleaning out a long term storage area and passed it along to Special Collections. Because I expressed an interest in regional history (as opposed to University records), the collection was set aside by my supervisor as one of the collections for me to work on.

Documentation

One of the advantages of interning at UCI SC&A is the excellent documentation available on internal archival procedures. The document I'm using today is the Accessioning Manual for Archival and Manuscript Collections (AM). The Accessioning Manual is a 17-page accompaniment to the larger Archival Processing Manual (APM) and provides guidance for the initial handling of materials that come into the custody of  SC&A.

Accession Checklist

My work day started with filling out an online Archival Collection Accession Checklist that captures the output of work guided by the AM. Since I'm already comfortable with Archivists's Toolkit (AT), and my supervisor granted me access, I began inputting data into a new AT accession record while using the checklist to as a road map. As I made a quick pass through the unprocessed folders in the ECOC box, I made processing notes on the following areas to help me gather my thoughts about a processing plan and to ask questions of my supervisor :

• Principal names
• Separation candidates
• Restriction/destruction candidates
• Preservation/handling candidates

Paging from the Stacks

I knew I needed to develop a succinct description of the collection's provenance, which is why I asked my supervisor last week about paging copies of the ECOC's newsletter from a processed collection in the stacks. Even though it would have been easier to have one of the student assistants page the specific container, I asked to be shown how to do it myself. My supervisor cheerfully guided me through the steps of finding the container location in the online stacks database, and then walking me into the stacks to find the row, cabinet, shelf, and box. I filled out a paging flag to take the place of the paged box and hefted the box back to my desk. First retrieval accomplished! Later in the day when I had finished using the paged material, I returned the box to the stacks and put the paging flag in the tray to be tallied for reporting purposes.

Accession Record Review

Towards the end of the day, my supervisor and I got together to review my progress. My previously stated goal of having a processing plan ready for her review was not so much overly aggressive as it was inexperienced. I didn't have a processing plan yet, but I had accomplished inputting the accession record in AT. My supervisor made a suggestion on improving the accession description to make it conform to repository standards. She also provided guidance on filling out the access restrictions note. Other than that, I'm ready to move on to developing the processing plan next week.

Internship - Day 1.6

Notes to self in between Days 1 and 2:

     1) Obtain access from IT to log into Special Collections computers and department programs. (My supervisor has initiated this.) Done.

     2) The proper title for the first collection I'll be processing is;

• Environmental Coalition of Orange County, Inc. (California) records  Done.

     3) Review the following documents;

• Archival Processing Manual In progress.
• Accessioning Manual Finished.
• Guidelines for Efficient Archival Processing in the UC Libraries In progress.
• Archivists' Toolkit user manual (Chapters 9, 11, 12)

     4) Look for original accession ID for ECOC in Archivists' Toolkit. None.

Internship - Day 1.5

Finished How to Manage Processing in Archives and Special Collections by Pam Hackbart-Dean and Elizageth Slomba (Society of American Archivists, 2012). Be sure to refer to my flagged areas throughout the internship for pointers on what to do and when to do it.

There are several forms/templates in the book that should be helpful to use to reinforce the processing experience.

Internship - Day 1.4

Procedural Question and Answer
I began conducting background research on my first collection processing task on the Environmental Coalition of Orange County, Inc. (ECOC). My initial searches returned a few hits in existing UCI Special Collections guides listed on OAC. Most significant to my current need are copies of the ECOC newsletter, Environmental News (1972-1977) located in the “Guide to the The Laguna Greenbelt, Inc. records.” From the newsletters, I figure I'll get a handle on who the principals were in the organization and perhaps find enough info to develop an organizational description.

My question to my internship site supervisor, is one of procedure. Do I need to formally request access to the Laguna Greenbelt records by filling out a call ticket or am I authorized to pull the records directly from the stacks? I can see value in the formal approach because research in our own materials could then be tracked on usage reports.

My supervisor's answer is as follows:

There are a few options. The locations for all of our archival/manuscript collections are listed in our stacks database, at http://staffbeta.lib.uci.edu/apps/locator/index.php. You can log in with your UCInetID and there you can see the location for each box in a specific collection. You can feel free to review material at your desk, either by asking a student to page the boxes for you, or by paging the boxes yourself. We have salmon-colored staff paging flags to mark the space on the shelf when a box is taken from the shelf. I am happy to review this procedure with you in person on Wednesday.

Internship - Day 1.0

My first day at my first internship flew by! It was a great day and I'm fortunate to have an excellent site supervisor. She tweeted my impending arrival here. I spent the morning getting inducted and reviewing various training and policy and procedure manuals. Here's my pleasant work space. Behind me are windows facing northeast with the San Gabriel Mountains in the distance.

UCI Special Collections and Archives intern work space.

Here are more details about my first day:

9:00 AM - Showed up at the Library HR to register as an intern. I signed an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and to relinquish all claims to new patents. No problem on number 1. Number 2 seems highly unlikely it'll be an issue.

9:15 AM - My internship supervisor, showed me my nice workspace, where to find archival supplies, and introduced me to staff members Steve and Alix. Michelle Light stuck her head in to welcome me aboard. There are other folks to still meet, like Andrew and Patricia who works in the Science Library.

My supervisor went over my reading duties for the morning including the online "Student Assistant Handbook," "Archival Processing Manual, Accessioning Manual," and online "Documents for Interns." The also a "Guidelines for Efficient Archival Processing in the UC Libraries" document that my supervisor would like me to test drive while I'm processing the collections assigned to me. She will also involve me in any learning opportunities that come along including attending meetings! I asked about the possibility of getting exposed to acquisition policies and reference room activities.

For lunch, my supervisor introduced me to the various fare at the Student Center. We both settled on Rubio's. She also explained "bobas" to me. Apparently I missed a day of pop culture training as my wife knew all about this drink of milky tea and gummy bears.

After lunch I poked around the UCI installation of Archivists' Toolkit which is currently at Version 2, build 13. At 2:00 PM, my supervisor and I joined four other UCI Library colleagues for a California Digital Library (CDL) webinar. The subject was updates to CDL's digital objects repository, Merritt. It's interesting to see that in addition to the Online Archive of California (OAC), CDL also offers a place for member organizations to store digital objects in a dark archives.

Opening up the box of unprocessed ECOC records for the first time.

From about 3:00 PM to my departure at 5:30 PM, I began reviewing the first of the three collections set aside for me to process as the primary goal of my internship. The first thing a processor is supposed to develop is a preliminary work plan. This preliminary work plan is then reviewed and approved by the archivist before any real work begins.

The preliminary work plan is not typically the time when a processor does the background research on the source of the collection (that's more during development of the Processing Work Plan or Work Sheet), but I wanted to get a quick understanding of the nature of the Environmental Coalition of Orange County (ECOC). Neither a review of the box contents nor a Google search turned up an organization description. So I turned to the OAC and found a decent hit in UCI's own Special Collections -- copies of Environmental News, the ECOC's newsletter.

Thus ended the first day on the job at the internship.

7 Things To Do Before Your Internship Ends

This was tweeted by JobLIST Library Jobs ‏@ALA_JobLIST this morning...

7 Things To Do Before Your Internship Ends

Summer internships are wrapping up and you’re probably either heading back to school or preparing to enter the “real world” and start a full-time career. For new grads with little work experience in their field, internships can be a huge advantage to helping land your first entry-level job. But just because you completed your internship doesn’t mean you should just say your goodbyes and write the company off. Here are seven things you need to do before exiting your internship.

1. Say thank you. As soon as you can, send personalized emails or notes to everyone you had the chance to work with over the course of your internship to emphasize your gratitude for the opportunity and experience gained. Failing to properly say your thank you’s before exiting your internship will make you seem ungrateful.

2. Get feedback. Ask those you worked closely with for constructive criticism on your internship performance. This will help know what skills you need to improve upon for future jobs.

3. Update your resume and portfolio. Add your internships to your resume and include what your responsibilities were. Also, if you have any projects you worked on that you can include in your portfolio, ask for some copies of those documents before exiting your internship.

4. Stay in touch. Connect with people you worked with on LinkedIn and keep in touch with them! Having strong connections within your field can help you land a job. Also, you can ask if they would be willing to serve as references during your job search and/or provide you a recommendation. Don’t wait too long after exiting your internship to get back in touch.

5. Leave the door open for future work. If the company doesn’t have full-time openings right now or if you are heading back to school and aren’t available to work, still express your interest in having a future with the company. You never know when they’ll have an opening, and if you’re still in school, you’ll be on the job market before you know it.

6. Don’t burn bridges. Even if you don’t have any interest in working for the company in the future, still be courteous and professional when making your exit. You never know when your paths may cross with your internship co-workers again, so don’t leave a bad impression. Whether you want to work for the company or not, take advantage of all the new contacts you’ve made within your field.

7. Reflect on the experience. Internships teach you a lot about what you like and what you don’t like when it comes to your career. If you didn’t like the internship, was it the company culture that turned you off or the job tasks? What have you learned about your field and what would you still like to learn? Has this internship changed your ultimate career goals? Keep in mind that some internships are not always a true reflection of what you would actually be doing in your career. If you spent most of your time fetching coffee and making copies, look for another internship opportunity that will give you a better idea of what a job in your field really looks like.

An Archivist Apprentice Begins

Halfway through How to Manage Processing in Archives and Special Collections by Pam Hackbart-Dean and Elizageth Slomba (Society of American Archivists, 2012).

In Chapter 6, "Training and Managing Processing Staff," the authors discuss how students, interns, and volunteers can form a large portion of the processing staff in university and college special collections. As it turns out, I fit all three descriptions! I'm an MLIS student volunteering my services as an intern at UCI. 

Audra Eagle Yun

Interns are encouraged to keep a blog of their archival experience. I'm to post at least once a week to describe what I've accomplished and how I feel about the work. Right now I'm experiencing high anticipation, not unlike starting a new job where there are a lot of unknowns.

This coming Wednesday I begin interning for UC Irvine's Special Collections and Archives. I'll have the pleasure of working under the guidance of archivists Audra Eagle Yun and Michelle Light.

The internship course I'm taking is LIBR 294 in the MLIS program at San Jose State University. My faculty supervisor is the inexhaustible Lori Lindberg. Lori was also my instructor last year for an EAD course.

Lori Lindberg

I must put in 135 hours over the course of the semester. I've made arrangements with my employer, Smile Brands, to take the next sixteen Wednesdays as paid time off (PTO) so I can spend the day at UCI.

Everything is lined up. I'm to show up at the UCI Library Human Resources at 9:00 AM. Following my induction I'll be reporting to Audra in Special Collections. I've also had my planned learning outcomes approved by Lori.

My internship learning outcomes are:

• At the end of my internship I will be able to develop archival processing plans.
• At the end of my internship I will be able to recommend archival appraisal actions.
• At the end of my internship I will be able to organize and house archival materials in multiple formats.
• At the end of my internship I will be able to describe archival collections using Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS).
• At the end of my internship I will be able to implement some aspects of Greene and Meissner's, "More Product, Less Process."
• At the end of my internship I will be able to input accessions and resources using Archivists' Toolkit.
• At the end of my internship I will be able to create EAD-encoded finding aids for the Online Archive of California (OAC).