Summary Paper

Below is my summary paper for my 2019 Field Period.

I conducted my Field Period at the Lightner Library here on campus. I love working in the library during the summer and was very pleased when they offered me a Field Period for January. My Field Period was specifically in the archives department of the library, which is my favorite part. I love history, and Keuka College. So naturally, doing a Field Period in the archives of Keuka College was perfect for me. I learned a lot, not only about the college, but also about myself. I am very grateful for the opportunity to spend my Field Period in such an educational, and fun environment.

My Field Period experience was really fun. I was able to dive deep into the history of the college, and learned some things that I never knew about. My main goal was organization. There are tons of boxes of random documents and photos that have never really been gone through or organized. My goal was to go through these documents and photos, organize them by category, and put them in folders. While doing this, I worked with my supervisor to use her current system of inventory to do things correctly. She uses Google Docs, so that it can be reached from any computer. We then are able to search through all of the organized boxes and find specific things we are looking for easily. I did this in between my projects. I learned a lot of interesting things- my favorite being just the situation in 1982-1983 and how dire finances were. I learned of the grievances the faculty had towards the executive leadership at the time and was able to read some of their statements. That helped reiterate to me, as a leader, how important it is to communicate with those you work with to make sure everyone is on the same page of whatever is going on, and also that one cannot lead blindly.

My other big task was preparing the library for the writing center. The provost and the assistant provost informed the library that the writing center will be moving to the basement of the library. However, there are thousands of journals in the basement. Along with this, they want to use a couple of the offices that are currently used for the archives. I had to assist in the weeding of old, unusable journals that were very out of date. I helped toss 7,600 old, decrepit journals. That did not feel god, but knowing that they could not be used and that we were making room for a really good service helped make it easier. It took a long time, but we finished it! When it came to the archives rooms, we did not move anything. Instead I helped throw out things that we really did not need, and then I created an inventory for the very old (120+ years) books and ledgers of the original college. They are in a specific order, and need to stay in that order when they are moved by Facilities. I had to go through every book, find the years, anything specific, and then add it to an inventory. Many of them are made from leather, which with time became very sticky. I did not like doing this part. It was also very dusty. But, I finished that task quickly so that I did not have to spend more time in that room!

Those were the main projects I had while on site for my Field Period experience. I had a couple outside projects as well. The first one was to read the book The Builders of Keuka College by Z. F. Griffin, a trustee in the early days of the college and institute. After reading that, I had to write up a summary on it. I really enjoyed doing this because I love learning about the little things that helped create this wonderful college. Fun fact- I found the handwritten version of this book in the archives. No one knew it existed. It was in a small box for over a hundred years. My next project was added at the end to help me make up hours. It took me about as long as the Z. F. Griffin book. I had to create a finding aid for all of the libraries at Keuka College (Ball Hall Library, Strong Library, and the Lightner Library). A finding aid is a document that indicates the places in our archives that contain any information regarding whatever it is created for. I had to pick and pull all of the locations where “Library”, “Strong”, “Lightner” and “Friends of the Lightner Library” were in our nearly fifty boxes of organized documents and photos. This took a very long time. Finding things is fairly easy, but one has to determine whether or not ehy are important and worth adding to the finding aid. I eventually finished this, and can provide it and my summary paper for the Z. F. Griffin book at request.

My fourth and final Field Period experience at Keuka College was amazing. I am so lucky to have made friends with the workers of the library and gotten the opportunity to learn about the college more. I enjoyed most of what I did. I like to be challenged, and this Field Period definitely challenged me. I had to think very critically and work as a team with many other people. I was given tasks to handle by myself and with other things, I was given free reign to decide how something is done. I really learned how to improve my oral and written communication in a way that is clear, descriptive, and easy to understand. Our college has a very unique history that many do not know about, which is a shame. Hopefully now, with a lot of it organized, it will be illustrated more thoroughly.