Second Reflection

Summer 2025

In between my first two semesters and my last two semesters, I only took two courses. With half of the MLIS program under my belt at this point in my education, I took my knowledge to practice at the University of Tulsa for an Internship cataloging rare books (ALA 5C). While I have handled rare books in a few environments, I had never experienced rare books at a graduate or career level and was able to reinforce my knowledge of handling best practices for these materials (PLG 2.1). While learning how to feel confident in handling archival and rare materials, I was also able to strengthen my understanding of preservation concerns and how to identify them (PLG 1.1). As the internship had a conservation department, I didn’t have the opportunity to experience the conservation process. However, I did receive insight on how certain concerns were reported, repaired, and stored. This was one of the most meaningful components of the program for me so far. I have been able to make connections from class about metadata, cataloging, description, and access. 

Attending the Internship and Archival Representations and Use course concurrently vastly improved my understanding of the principles and importance of cataloging and classifying resources to make them discoverable and accessible (PLG 2.2, ALA 5A, ALA 5B, ALA 5C). Starting with virtually no knowledge of cataloging, the internship taught me how to catalog rare books, and the Archival Representations and Use course taught me how to classify records to improve access and discoverability of materials in the archival space.