Brendan Enright graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2006. After college, he moved to New York City and worked for many years for a housing advocacy group. Although he enjoyed helping many people in that role, he decided he needed to pursue a career with more stable work. Enright had learned about archiving from friends who were involved with it, and he decided to go back to school to pursue a new career.

“They seemed to really enjoy the work. Hearing them talk about making information accessible; it’s all kind of similar to the job I did before with the housing court,” said Enright.

While taking an archiving course at Queens College, he was inspired to apply for the fellowship, which is funded by the Freda S. and J. Chester Johnson Endowment.

“Last semester we talked about archival theory and the role that plays in shaping the narrative,” added Enright. “Community archives are trying to give voices to those different communities that have been left from the record. That really resonated with me. I thought this was the place for me.”

Ellis Ging is in his final semester as a Master of Library Science (MLS) candidate and is pursuing a certificate in archives and preservation of cultural materials. This will be his second master’s degree at QC; he earned an MFA in literary translation in 2020. He aspires to work in an archive or research library position following graduation.

Ging will be responsible for processing the papers of Vincent Giordano, a photographer who documented the Romaniote Greek-Jewish community—one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities—in both New York City and Ioannina, Greece. In 2019, nine years after Giordano’s passing, his family donated his work to Queens College, where it is preserved by the Rosenthal Library and curated by the Hellenic American Project. Ging will process a physical collection of negatives and prints and also a collection of digital scans.

“One of the main things I’m interested in is improving access,” said Ging. “We have a collection that has great historical importance and research value, and it’s just a matter of getting in and making sure it is accessible to researchers.”

Ging previously worked at two other libraries, but this fellowship, which is funded by the Queens College Center for Jewish Studies, is his first experience with archiving.

Melissa Lino earned her bachelor’s degree from Queens College in anthropology in 2018 and returned to QC a couple of years later to pursue a MLS degree. She expects to graduate this spring.

Lino works at the front desk of the Rubin Museum of Art and has volunteered at the Interference Archive and interns at the Center for Fiction. But when she saw the opportunity for the Rare Books and Print History fellow, which is funded by Shirley Klein, she knew it was a great opportunity.

“When I saw the opportunity on campus, I thought it was really cool because it’s really hard to get experience handling rare books and preservation,” explained Lino. “Most institutions don’t have the funding for a dedicated preservationist or conservationist.”

As a fellow, Lino will improve preservation and access of the Queens College Rare Book and Print History Collection through housing delicate items in custom boxes and pamphlet enclosures and conducting outreach to the college community. Several years ago, QC’s collection of rare books was severely damaged due to a flood in the storage room where the collection was housed. ​Thanks to Shirley Klein's generous donation, the books were recently cleaned by trained technicians and returned to the library.

The rare books collection includes a number of juvenile literature titles. Lino will work with Tummino and Leila Walker, QC’s digital scholarship librarian, on creating a digital exhibit to showcase some of the materials.

Each fellow will be at the library one to two days a week, doing a combination of remote and in-person projects throughout the Spring 2022 semester. We wish all of them well this semester!