Archivist and Certified Records Manager

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

The Accessioning Archivist is a newly-formed position that supports the mission of Boston College's John J. Burns Special Collections Library. In this position, I oversee the accessioning process for archives, institutional records, and special collections with a particular focus on creating, documenting, and improving analog and born-digital acquisition and preservation workflows.

I hold primary responsibility for documenting new acquisitions to a minimal viable standard in order to facilitate rapid description, discovery, and publishing.

I ensure that documentation for acquisitions – deeds of gift, IP releases and licenses, purchase agreements, and more – moves through the recordkeeping system until final disposition, in compliance with University and Library policies, and records management requirements.

Reporting to the Head of Archives and Manuscripts, I work closely with interdepartmental colleagues such as the Processing Archivist and the Digital Archives Specialist; interlibrary colleagues such as subject curators, area Associate University Librarians, and Digital Production Services.

In addition, this position assists with other aspects of managing the acquisition and management of materials acquired by the Burns Library, including arranging and receiving shipments and digital transfers, performing backlog audits, assessment and remediation, and conducting donor consultations.

Boston College

Accessioning Archivist

Deliver face-to-face training and consultations with university staffers seeking help in creating effective recordkeeping systems.

Lead revisions to the Records Management website with the overarching goal of providing the University community with “ready reference” information and tools that communicate the value and continued relevance of archives and archivists within the University’s information ecosystem.

Management of Record Center Storage, including the retrieval of requested files, and the identification and disposition of materials fallen out of retention, resulting in destruction, transferal to the permanent Bentley collection, or in their return to the originating unit.

Planned, prepared and managed the transfer of approximately 1,500 linear feet of Record Center Storage records to the NCRC facility from the Annex, the Fire Station, and Bentley. During the course of this work, I mapped out and located the boxes to shelves, assisted Curation with their barcoding efforts, and provided updated record-level description in ArchivesSpace.

Support and maintain a clear account of the University of Michigan as well as the history of people and organizations in the state of Michigan through virtual and on-site appraisal of paper-based and digital record and manuscript materials, including websites.

Create or oversee the creation of initial collection-level description for University Archives holdings, ensuring responsible administrative and physical control and basic intellectual access for all material at the time of accession, providing an infrastructure upon which further archival work will be built.

Collaborate on intradepartmental initiatives and workflows such as the development and documentation of iterative digital appraisal practices, the expansion, and routinization of processes related to the identification and baseline description of removable media content, audiovisual content, and web content capture.

Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

Archivist for Records Management

As a project archivist, I supported the work of acquisitions and appraisal field archivists across both the University Archives and the Michigan Historical Collection.

Collections Development and Management Archivist (project)

Serving as the assistant college archivist during a time of transition, I created and executed a work plan that added 101 new donations to the College Archives and processed 71 linear feet, resulting in 34 new finding aids. I served as a representative of the College Archives to the Library Renovation Planning Committee, actively promoting the considerations of the collection to be represented in the renovation. I regularly provided reference to researchers and provided classroom research and instruction, often serving in an introductory role to Special Collections.

Smith College

Assistant College Archivist (project)

During the allotted time, I completed a unique project surveying, processing, reclassifying, and conserving a recent accession of multilingual post-WWII materials featuring the correspondence between Marie Bonaparte, Heinz Hartmann and Anna Freud and members of the International Psychoanalytic Society. Totaling 12 linear feet, the project required the creation of original metadata for digitized materials generated from institutional records.

After determining manuscript materials in need of conservation treatment and recommending appropriate treatment, I researched potential manuscript content and made recommendations to the BPSI archivist including the identification of restricted records, out-of-scope manuscript materials as well as cases necessitating deaccessioning and transference to associated institutions.

During this assignment, I was encouraged to conduct independent research focused upon special libraries, access and HIPAA compliancy for peer-to-peer instruction.

Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute

Archivist (project)

In addition to staffing the circulation desk, reference desk and computer common areas, I regularly provided reference in-person and via phone. In support of my graduate LIS education, the director actively sought out opportunities for me to stretch my legs and assigned me regular work including senior outreach, formal digital and research instruction, compilation of reader advisory products and displays for children, YA, and adults. I took advantage of several opportunities to learn more about technical backend ILL operations (ie: Virtual Catalog, Evergreen) in addition to basic circulation functions such as the reservation of materials, holds and patron registration. My participation in discussions surrounding UX website design, technical writing for Board documentation, and patron statistical reporting was also encouraged.

Wilbraham Public Library

Reference and Instruction Librarian

As a reference librarian for Springfield City Library, I provided both adult and children's library reference and programming services at the main library and its urban area branches. Urban Libraries Council selected Springfield for an honorable mention in the council's fifth annual Top Innovators Award in recognition for its "Imagine A Peace-Full City" project, which it developed in response to the problem of community violence in 2014.

Springfield City Library

Reference Librarian

The Pompeii Bibliography and Mapping Resource (PBMR) is a mapping of publications about Pompeii onto the space of the ancient city itself, creating a unified, bi-directional interface to both resources.

My role involved the normalization of still image metadata from various international sources. I edited and performed multilingual quality control for nearly 3,000 citations and their metadata, creating well-formed structured and descriptive metadata in conformity to the project's needs.
Created structural and descriptive metadata for digitization.  Performed quality control check of over 3,000 multilingual bibliographic citations and their metadata.

Elizabeth Carron, MS, CRM