Archival Practicum: Week 1
- jessicaspiker
- Jan 6
- 2 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
For my Archives and Special Collections certificate, I need to complete an Archival Practicum, which involves working with an archive (outside of the archive I currently work at) to apply what I've learned throughout my education in a practical manner and to pick up some hands-on experience along the way.
Since I currently have an amazing job at the local public library district where I get tons of great archive experience, I wanted to work with a different type of archive for some new perspectives. Thankfully a great opportunity came to mind, a local historical landmark that has been processing and preserving their archives from the ground up over the past few years. The Union Printers Home (UPH) was built in 1892 as a tuberculosis and "printer's lung" sanatorium for members of the International Typographical Union. UPH treated roughly 40,000 people until it was sold to a private nursing home in 2014. It was permanently closed in 2020 and local investors purchased the building the following year with plans to redevelop the area while preserving the rich history. As such, the plans include processing a significant amount of documentary material concerning the UPH's history and impact on the community. Needless to say, the UPH was my first archive choice; not only does this opportunity let me be a part of an important time in our community's history, but it will also give me the unique experience of contributing to building an archive (which is pretty different to working in an established public library archive).
The practicum requires at least 150 contact hours, and as a full-time grad student who also works full-time, I am only able to complete about eight hours a week. Thankfully, my professor and my practicum archivist were able to work with me to start early, and I've already hit the ground running!
On the first day of my practicum, we (the archivist, a small group of volunteers, and myself) worked to clear the work table of several stacks of documents. The group had previously been working hard to process administrative documents, identify and separate out any moldy materials, and organize them by month/year (while also trying to match correspondences with multiple pages that had gotten separated throughout the decades). Since the work table was running out of space due to the sheer amount of materials they were processing, we foldered and boxed the documents and needed to rearrange some of the folders already in boxes. We worked like a well-oiled machine and by the end of the day, the entire table was cleared! I haven't thought to take a before and after picture at the time unfortunately, but here is a photo of the boxes:
Overall, it was a great start to my practicum! I was able to get some hands-on experience with the collections and quickly familiarize myself with the types of documents, storage methods, and layout of the archives. I was also honored to meet most of the volunteers on my first day!
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