By Valerie Vallejo, Spring 2025
I completed my internship with the Special Collections and University Archives at St. Mary’s University. The archives “collect, organize, preserve, and make accessible materials of enduring value that support the mission of St. Mary’s University and document the history of the University.” In addition to their focus on the history of St. Mary’s University, they also host different collections that have been donated or collected by individuals. Interesting collections included those of the Old Spanish Trail to items from the U.S. Presidential elections since 1908, showing how the archives reflect a range of historical topics. The Special Collections and University Archives are old but new at the same time because the last time it had an official archivist was ten years ago. Alongside the new archivist Cait Burhans, in this internship I worked to help bring the archives up to date to make them more accessible and safely preserved.
With those goals in mind, I have worked on four different projects during my time at the Special Collections and University Archives. The first project I worked on was scanning and entering ten thesis books into the university digital commons. The goal of this project was to see if these ten thesis books can get traction within a certain time period and the amount of download will determine if we want to scan the rest of the thesis books in the collection. The next project I did was the President Peace Commission project which involves the past University Presidents speeches on DVD. The original goal of this project was to look through VHS tapes of the broken DVDs but sadly the VHS tapes were thrown out. The new goal was to look through three different catalogs to see what was missing from the President Peace Commission.
Another project I did was to develop a disaster plan for the archives. This essential document ensures the protection and preservation of archival materials in the event of an emergency. This document helps us to also determine which items will need to be a priority in a situation of a disaster. I also had to make a supplies list with basic necessities and archival material. The disaster plan and the President Peace Commission projects are on temporary hold and we will revisit them in the future.
The last project I worked on was making and updating the finding aids using ArchivesSpace. Once I was done filling out the information on ArchivesSpace I made two documents to verify the subject and format terms in the finding aids.The last task I completed was creating an inventory list based on the finding aids. This list will be used later to verify that all archival items are still in their designated locations and match their descriptions.
During this internship, I did a lot of different tasks that an archivist would use on the job. It was fun doing the research in making a disaster plan and updating and creating new finding aids. I developed skills on how to do data entry, cataloging, and use of different scanners for the thesis books. I also learned how to navigate and apply the Library of Congress Classification System for organizing library collections and received training in ArchivesSpace to create new finding aids. These skills are great to know and understand because my passion is to work in the archive setting. This experience makes it clear that I love doing this type of work. Hoping in the future to be part of this industry in helping persevere history whether it is big or small every part of history is important to someone.
Link of the thesis books from 1937 to 1963: https://commons.stmarytx.edu/theses/
Link to the Archives website: https://lib.stmarytx.edu/scua
