{"id":8094,"date":"2018-12-13T09:25:04","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T14:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=8094"},"modified":"2018-12-13T09:25:04","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T14:25:04","slug":"student-reflections-lana-mason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=8094","title":{"rendered":"Student Reflections – Lana Mason"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post was written by Lana Mason, Processing Student Assistant. Lana has an Associate of Arts degree in Fine Arts from Piedmont Virginia Community College. She is currently studying Art History <\/em>at George Mason University. Lana is the recipient of the University Libraries Student Assistant Scholarship for the 2018-19 academic year.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

When I first began working at the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) as a Processing Student Assistant, I knew I was interested in archival work as a field, but didn\u2019t have a clear idea of what it all entailed. Archivists don\u2019t really have much of a pop culture presence or a prominent position in society, so I didn\u2019t have many preconceived notions about the field. I did have a lot of confusion about the few terms I had heard, though, and was hoping to find answers to my questions. And I did\u2014I got all my answers and then some, and really quickly realized the few conceptions I had of things were inaccurate and that, more importantly, I knew absolutely nothing at all.<\/p>\n

One of the few assumptions I had about processing and other archival work was that it would quickly become tedious. I worried that working on the same project for an extended period of time especially would become mind-numbingly dull. Processing can be time-consuming and labor-intensive, and I wondered if leafing through paper after paper day in and day out would get repetitive (and exhausting.) However, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that\u2014at least for me personally\u2014that hasn\u2019t been the case. Why? Because while working I\u2019m also learning, and I absolutely love that. I didn\u2019t anticipate the amount of knowledge and familiarity with topics I\u2019d pick up while reprocessing collections. The processing process (for lack of a better word) forces me to consume the knowledge contained in the collection, and it just naturally sticks with me. After all, for the collections I\u2019ve reprocessed, I essentially have scanned\u2014if not read thoroughly\u2014every single item included in them. This just forces a lot of information I\u2019ve read to not only come to me but to stay with me as well. There\u2019s something interesting in even the blandest collections\u2014I just have to look for it as I go along. The diversity of the projects I\u2019ve worked on has also helped keep things interesting. Although it took me over six months to reprocess the George Mason University Office of University Relations Newsclippings and Press Releases Records (R0004<\/a><\/span>), I\u2019ve also been able to enjoy working with several different, less intense projects. The first collection I worked with here, the Chester McCall Papers (which I wrote about here,) as well as the Medical Slides collection (C0272<\/a><\/span>) I have just finished digitizing have allowed me to work with many different types of materials on differing subject matter. Some are more technical and some are more digestible, which has helped keep it all fresh.<\/p>\n

When I started at SCRC, I had never really considered how technology factored into archival work, and what level of fluency would be required. I was aware (from reading the job posting) that I\u2019d be working with Encoded Archival Description (EAD) to create finding aids. I didn\u2019t know what EAD was, and I didn\u2019t know what a finding aid was. The combination of such unfamiliar terms together suddenly made me feel like a fish out of water\u2014what was I getting myself into? I wasn\u2019t a coder! I had only the barest experience with HTML and CSS and had taken a coding class on Python and Basic years before in high school. Luckily for me, the finding aid is a very straightforward concept\u2014essentially just a description of the contents of a collection\u2014and EAD isn\u2019t terribly complex at all. With the help of a manual and the ability to reference other finding aid codes, putting a finding aid together using EAD is a (relatively) painless process.<\/p>\n

The only technical topic I had really considered was digitization, and I quickly learned how complex a process digitization can be, and why it\u2019s not as ideal for preservation as I once thought. The most outstanding thing I learned about the process is that digitization is tremendously time-consuming. For the Medical Slides collection I just digitized, each set of 1235mm slides took well over 30 minutes simply to scan\u2014the high DPI required for preservation copies of such small items forces the scanner to take an eternity on each. And the Medical Slides collection contains over\u2014or only, depending on how you look at it\u2014400 slides! Because of that time cost alone, it quickly became obvious to me why archivists have to be selective about what they choose to digitize. My experiences thus far with digitization have also called my attention to the fact that file formats and digital technologies become obsolete quickly, and are actually quite fragile. With all these things combined, my vague preexisting expectation that everything could and should be digitized was quickly replaced with the understanding that practicality is the most important consideration.<\/p>\n

Overall, while I didn\u2019t have many preexisting notions of what archives and archival work were like, I quickly learned the truth of the matter. When I first came to SCRC I hoped that I\u2019d simply be able to get a taste of what the field was like, so that I could better understand if I wanted to pursue it as a career path or not. Luckily, I\u2019ve been able to get more than just a taste\u2014I\u2019ve learned so much. Of course, learning all that I have has opened my eyes to how much more I still need to learn to become proficient in this work. However, I\u2019ve discovered I truly do enjoy it, so I look forward to the learning left to come.<\/p>\n

Follow Special Collections Research Center on Social Media\u00a0<\/em>at\u00a0our\u00a0Facebook<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Instagram<\/a>,<\/span> and\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>accounts. To search the collections\u00a0held at Special Collections Research Center, go to our\u00a0website\u00a0and browse the finding aids by subject or title. You may also e-mail\u00a0us or call if you would like to\u00a0schedule an appointment, request materials, or if you have questions. Appointments are not necessary to request and view collections.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post was written by Lana Mason, Processing Student Assistant. Lana has an Associate of Arts degree in Fine Arts from Piedmont Virginia Community College. She is currently studying Art History at George Mason University. Lana is the recipient of the University Libraries Student Assistant Scholarship for the 2018-19 academic year. When I first began […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101014,"featured_media":8098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,121],"tags":[30,422,626,504,214,94],"class_list":["post-8094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-scrc-interest","category-scrc-picks","tag-gmu-students","tag-processing","tag-student-reflections","tag-students","tag-undergraduate-students","tag-university-archives"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/LanaHand.jpg?fit=2048%2C1536&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Ep5i-26y","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9226,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=9226","url_meta":{"origin":8094,"position":0},"title":"One Final Appraisal","author":"Amanda Menjivar","date":"June 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This post was written by Lana Mason, Processing Student Assistant. 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