Where do you work? What is your favorite part of your job?
I work as the Statewide Digitization Initiatives Coordinator at the Library of Michigan. My favorite part of my job is discovering hidden treasures in public libraries around the state.
What’s a typical day like at your job?
A typical day includes consulting with cultural memory institutions, like libraries, archives, and museums, about digitization. It could be anything from looking for grant funding options to planning an entire digitization project. I create and manage services and programs, like the circulating digitization equipment kits and our digital collections hosting program. I present at conferences and develop training material, like the Digitization Basics webinar series, to teach staff at libraries about how to digitize, provide access to, and digitally preserve their collections.
When and how did you become an archivist or become interested in archives?
I grew up on classic films and always wanted to work with film or television. After several years of working in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, I volunteered at the Turner Classic Movie festival, which sparked an interest in motion picture preservation. It was around that time that I learned about the University of Michigan School of Information’s archival studies program and figured it might be a good fit for my interests. It hadn’t occurred to me that there was a whole world of archival film that had to be preserved outside of studio vaults. I discovered that moving image archiving and preservation was a great way for me to combine my passion for AV with providing access to our collective memory.
What’s your favorite project or collection you’ve worked with in the past year?
My favorite project has been expanding the Library of Michigan’s digital collection platform, LM Digital, to host material from public libraries and cultural memory organizations around the state. It became clear early on in my time at LM that many of the organizations I work with had collections that were worth digitizing, and perhaps already had been, but had no way of providing access. We piloted the LM Digital Collections Hosting program last year to develop workflows, documentation, and training materials with three pilot partners. We now enable access to thousands of records from partners throughout the state!
What made you join PLASC Steering Committee?
Coming from an archives background to now working so closely with public libraries made me want to maintain my connection to archives in this new world. I am actively involved in SAA and consider myself an archivist but have found joining the PLASC Steering Committee to be a great way to bring my archival education to the closely aligned, but distinctive, work of public libraries.
The Finding Aid 