Hello! My name is Alyssa Adkins, and I am the Processing Intern for UCF's Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) for the Fall 2025 semester. I am going into my third year at UCF as a History major, and I hope to eventually become a librarian. I am interested in many different areas of history, and I want to learn more about how archives generally work. I hope to gain experience in properly documenting and processing files and collections during my internship. I believe that understanding the process that archivists follow will help me with my goal of becoming a librarian.

My first week with SCUA was a lot of fun! My first day was on Tuesday, and it started with a tour of the archives and the SCUA workspace. My supervisor, Arielle, showed me around the library and the spaces I will be working in. I was also introduced to everyone who works there, and they are all very friendly. My favorite part of my first day was being able to see one of the specialized books, an accordion with the bellows painted and written on. It was really cool, and I never would have thought an accordion could be turned into an art piece like that.

After my tour, I was shown the collection that I will be working with. It’s called the “Bicentennial Junk” collection, or a collection of memorabilia from the 200th Anniversary (Birthday) of America. It was donated by Richard Crepeau, a former UCF History professor, who collected it from his classes. It’s a small collection, only 1 box full of stuff, but all of it is really cool! There was a roll of toilet paper, a necklace, a glass bottle that used to hold maple syrup, and a ton of other things, all with the bicentennial symbol on them.

Throughout my first week at SCUA, I worked on the processing checklist, which starts with pre-processing the collection. I started and finished my first draft of the processing plan, which I will go over with Arielle next week, along with surveying the collection and doing background research on the items. Because the collection is a bunch of items and papers with no real order, I had to figure out how I was going to sort the collection. I plan on talking to Arielle about my processing plan and figuring out the best way to sort the collection next week.

Thank you for taking the time to read my first post! I can't wait to tell you guys about next week!