{"id":23724,"date":"2019-10-02T21:10:57","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T21:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/?p=23724"},"modified":"2020-02-25T18:50:06","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T18:50:06","slug":"what-does-the-archive-mean-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/2019\/10\/02\/what-does-the-archive-mean-to-me\/","title":{"rendered":"What does the archive mean to me?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

How can I even begin to answer that question?  My experiences in the Special Collections and Archives Research Center (SCARC) and with SCARC faculty over the past four and a half years have been, in one word, amazing.  But beyond that, there are not enough words to even begin to say what this experience has meant to me.  Every day there is something new to discover and new people to interact with.  But even more importantly, over the past four years I have discovered that my work in special collections and archives has fostered in me a love beyond merely conducting research, but being able to share in others\u2019 work and excitement of discovery in the archives.  Through working at SCARC I get to use my background in history and research to share with researchers (and the world through social media!) what amazing collections we have the honor of working with.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have also\nhad the opportunity to work outreach events, events that I believe are crucial\nto reaching people outside of the academic setting.  I have volunteered to work SCARC open houses\nand exhibit openings, while also traveling farther afield to work events in\nPortland.  This ability to share SCARC\nwith people beyond those who walk into the reading room is one of my favorite\nparts of working here.  And I LOVE\nworking the front desk.  My hours spent\nworking the front desk have been some of the most fulfilling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While\ncompleting my PhD and working at SCARC I also had the opportunity to serve as\nDeschutes Brewery Archiving Intern. \nAside from working full-time while going to school, this was an\neye-opening experience that allowed me another opportunity to share the archive\nexperience with those outside of the traditional academic setting.  It was also the largest collection I had\nprocessed on my own.  This was a great\nlearning experience that truly brought the archives to life for me and gave me\na project I could call my own.  I also\nvalued the opportunity to share the importance of archives for preserving not\nonly company records or artifacts, but the importance of the employees voices\nin that company history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But most importantly, I have decided that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.  Despite having spent seven years working on a Masters and then PhD in History of Science, I want to spend my days working at an archive.  As I look towards the future and think about what I want it to hold, I know my future plans will ideally include working and teaching in an archive.  With the experiences I have gained in my seven years at OSU, four of which I had to honor of spending working in SCARC, I know I don\u2019t want my work in the archives to end.  To me, the archives can serve as a place to bring all these experiences together and allow me to pursue a profession that brings together the best parts of being a historian while having the opportunity to share this knowledge through archives and aiding in each researcher\u2019s own research and project development.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Anna Elizabeth Dvorak is a historian of science focusing on science in early Cold War policy.  She recently completed her PhD dissertation on Leo Szilard\u2019s fact and fiction here at OSU. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How can I even begin to answer that question?  My experiences in the Special Collections and Archives Research Center (SCARC) and with SCARC faculty over the past four and a half years have been, in one word, amazing.  But beyond that, there are not enough words to even begin to say what this experience has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9435,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23724"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23781,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23724\/revisions\/23781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}