>> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme:
Hi, everybody.
Yes, my name is Jon
Sweitzer-Lamme.
I was the 2018-19 Preservation
librarian in residence.
I was the first librarian in
residence, the first cohort
of us, there were five.
And, yeah, so one of
the really great parts
of being the librarian
in residence
in Preservation was our
ability to really be part
of all the different
parts of Preservation.
There's a lot of
preservation activity happening
at the Library of Congress.
And it was really
interesting to be able to sort
of connect those
dots, as we did --
as I did the various projects.
So the first thing I'll
talk about is, yeah,
the Preservation Reformatting,
as Adrija's division
was once known.
And that was a lot of
work with Brittle Books,
and in various points
of the workflow
for sending brittle books
off to be digitized,
and also to be microfilmed
as appropriate.
So this is just an
example of a brittle book.
This is an immediately
post-World War II
Hungarian item.
Which, obviously, they did not
have the best quality materials,
and it was newsprint
to begin with.
So not a lot of hope for
this item in the long term.
But, really, being able
to digitize this allows us
to make this available
for the long term.
So I was involved in
the prep for that,
as well as in the
receiving end of that.
I did a lot of work with General
Collections Conservation.
So that is the physical
repair and reconstruction
of the collections' items that
need to be available physically.
I mean, obviously, we want
to make everything available
physically if we can.
And so there was a lot of --
so a lot of books need
to be reconstructed,
need to have new
covers put on them,
need to have their original
covers placed back on them.
Lots of books come in
torn or need to be --
need to be reconstructed
in that way.
And so I was able to get a lot
of interesting experiences
working
with the general collections.
And I was actually able to be
trained on about 95 percent
of the workflows that the
General Collections Conservation
Section does.
Which was a really, really
valuable set of skills.
I also worked with
Special Collections items.
So this is the Archival
Collection of Nina Federoff,
who is a plant geneticist,
who focused a lot on corn.
And so a lot of her a lot --
of her Archival Collection
consisted of small samples
of corn with different
genetic characteristics.
So, obviously, we need to store
that corn in a method that --
in a way that is safe
for the corn long term,
that will allow the genetic
information in that corn
to be accessed for
the long term.
So we constructed
these custom boxes.
And a previous intern had
written out these labels,
transcribing into an
Excel document the fairly
incomprehensible notes
of Nina Federoff,
which were on very
small envelopes.
So we saved the envelopes,
which are on the bottom level
of this box, and
put the corn kernels
into an archivally safe
storage situation, to allow them
to be used for the long term.
We, also, did three
targeted improvement plans.
So those were across the parts
of the Preservation directorate.
I was able to -- so
worked with the African --
the African Division,
the Asian Division
and the Science and
Business Library.
So the African Division, we
worked with their collection
of Swahili language pamphlets.
A lot of these are translations
from other languages,
a lot of Soviet and American
materials during the Cold
War era.
These are largely
unique pamphlets.
And so we did rehousing.
We did an assessment of these
pamphlets, and a rehousing.
And then also a cataloguing,
because it's very difficult
to use a pamphlet, if you
weren't aware that it exists.
So making that accessible
to researchers,
both today and in the future.
These items that are
pictured are part
of the Censored Pamphlets
Collection
from the Japanese section
of the Asian Division.
Immediately after World War II,
the American military sent
120,000 public items from Japan
to the Library of Congress.
These are a small
collection of them
that have not been fully
catalogued, even now.
They are a collection of
pamphlets that were sent
through the Japanese censors
in the pre-World War II era.
And they are largely unique.
Some of the censors'
decisions were
that these materials
could not be published.
So they have the original
censor's markings on them.
That's what that
big circled 2 is.
And so these also needed to be
rehoused, and were also treated
by both General Collections and
Special Collections technicians.
So they were preserved
for the long term.
And they were also made
more fully catalogued.
And there was a third
project with the Science
and Business Library, with a set
of early 20th century
aviation-based magazines
and newspapers.
And there was not a
significant amount of necessity
for treatment of these items.
But the decision was made
all that needed to happen was
that the existing microfilm
of these pamphlets --
or of these newspapers be
connected in the record
with the physical item,
so that they can be used,
so that we could redirect
researchers to the microfilm,
rather than the fragile
originals.
And so that is what I spent
a lot of time working on.
I, also, did a lot of
tours, did a lot of --
met a lot of interesting people
who were interested
in preservation.
And, yeah, so on to Zach.
>> Zach Maiorana:
Thank you, Jon.
I'm Zachary Maiorana,
Librarian in Residence
for the '19 and '20 class.
Currently, the Digitization
and Audio-Visual
Production Coordinator
for Ohio State University's
Knowlton School,
which administers
the architecture --
landscape architecture,
and the City
and Regional Planning
departments.
I administer the archives
in the Digital Library
at the Knowlton School.
And I'll be sort of talking
about some of my projects,
as Jon did, and also how those
sort of impact my, you know,
daily life here at Ohio State,
and how this informs what I do
in my current position.
With that, I'll go through
a couple of little sort
of process-oriented workflows,
some of the work that I did
at the LC that involved
[inaudible] keeping the lights
on broadly, and working
on a number of, you know,
tasks that familiarized myself
with the systems that we use,
and the hardware and
software that we use for areas
like digital forensics,
accounting
and quality control, cataloging.
I worked on imaging,
extracting and packaging data
from tangible media, including
anything from floppy disks,
optical media, you know, thumb
drives, anything like that.
This was really helpful,
actually.
Currently, at Ohio State,
I have a large collection
of optical media.
And, previously, the person
who was in this role prior
to me was not an archivist.
And they trained a student
to have like two disk drives,
and drag-and-drop files
from the optical media
onto the shared network files.
And now I sort of have this
training from the Library
of Congress, and from a basic
digital preservation course,
that I can identify how to,
you know, preserve fixity,
and properly kind of like
metadata image disks,
and package material a
little bit more prudently.
I also worked on accounting
and quality control collating
and inspecting materials
from what was previously PRD,
the Preservation Reformatting
Division, [inaudible].
As well as tracking and
curating statistics,
such as shipment data from
our microfilming projects,
and also cataloguing
digital surrogates
after post-processing
during the ETL process.
Here is an image of Fred,
one of the, you know,
pieces of equipment that I
used, the suite of hardware
and software associated
with digital forensics.
I also worked on a number of
sort of larger policy projects,
including a Scalable Space and
Emergency Management Survey.
Shout out to Beatriz Haspo.
I saw you in the attendee list.
It was great working with
you on the project to kind
of plan a pilot for a survey
-- surveying the stacks.
This was an issue where
we had Capitol Hill spaces
that lacked data-driven
space management.
There was a lot of siloed
work happening from, you know,
Conservation and
PRD and other areas
that were tracking
issues in the stacks.
But no real central
data-driven project.
Here, we were able to develop
linkages between, you know,
emergency incidents, space
concerns and condition.
One example of that you can see
in the right image
is a controlled leak.
It's not really dangerous.
But you can see that the leak is
happening quite close to items
that are on the floor
due to overcrowding.
So these issues are
really interrelated.
The overcrowding in the image
on the left, the, you know,
corroded sprinkler in
the image in the center,
all of these problems happen
in a co-occurring space.
And the kind of divisions
who are working on mapping
and managing these issues
should really be sort
of talking to one another.
That's kind of where the idea
generated for this project.
And I worked on another project,
where I wrote a white paper
on patron-driven selection.
This was a really
interesting situation,
kind of a unique
circumstance for an intern.
A student, I believe
from Howard University,
came to us with an
interest in having a couple
of items selected for
digitization there were not
in our workflow already.
These items were part
of a run of serials,
called the "Green-Book."
We had a number of volumes
in our physical collection,
as well as digitized.
And a number of other
institutions, such as NYPL,
had digitized surrogates,
too, of "Green-Book."
And the issue that the
intern had was that he wanted
to have all of the, you
know, items digitized
across multiple institutions.
We had a number of
physical items that had not
yet been scanned, and
items such as this 1946 one
that I have an image of here,
is in pretty poor condition,
and it's probably the last known
copy of this particular volume.
It's a really important
serial, too.
It was sort of a motorists guide
for African-American tourists
in the Jim Crow South.
It ran from the '30s
to the '60s.
And it sort of guided
African-American tourists
to locate, you know,
accommodation and restaurants
that were friendly and
often integrated, too.
So this was a really
interesting project.
And, also, the serial,
I believe,
was made into a movie a couple
of years back that won a bunch
of awards, pretty prominent.
But it wasn't in our
workflow to start with.
And the intern was able to sort
of select that, and
guide us to it.
That sort of inspired this white
paper to kind of philosophically
and practically argue for
a scan-on-demand model
at the Library of Congress,
something that is far advanced,
and likely would not
happen in a number of years.
But I had a real
interest in this.
So I did an environmental
scan of similar models
at other institutions.
University of Michigan's
library does it.
National institutions, such
as the National Archives
of Australia, do it.
In fact, the National Archives
of Australia has done
a scan-on-demand model
for the past 20 years, and
they have a really good system
for integrating patron selection
into their current
selection workflows.
So this white paper explored
sort of the challenges
and benefits of implementing
a scan-on-demand
at the Library of Congress.
And, also, you know,
there's a real interest
in having taxpayer-funded
organizations, like the Library
of Congress, be involved
in this kind of work,
because we do serve, you know,
the entire national
population, theoretically.
As Jake said, we are the
de facto national library.
We have sort of a mission to,
you know, act upon the interests
and the selective decisions
of the patrons that we serve.
So this was really interesting.
I was really glad to
share with the folks
around the preservation
network, and also elsewhere
in other divisions and
directorates at the Library
of Congress, and
get their feedback.
It was a really great project.
One final sort of policy
project that I'll speak
on was a General Collections
Conservation project.
Actually, Jon worked with
me quite closely on this.
And we were able to make
it a better project.
The issue here was that
we were really good
at locating digital
surrogates for monographs.
But serials made it
much more difficult.
This is all sort of to help
the kind of prioritization
and triage of items,
and [inaudible] conservation
[inaudible].
[inaudible] is hugely important
when you have just
a gigantic workflow
of books coming in and out.
We have to, you know, approach
them in a selective way.
Here you can see they do not
[inaudible] labels on volumes
that we're sort of
identifying as, you know,
these already have
digital surrogates.
A preservation action
has been applied to them.
We don't need to
further treat them.
We can send them back to
the shelf with, you know,
a tie around them
or properly boxed,
without any more
rigorous treatment.
With this, we did
a pilot workflow
and a cost benefit analysis.
The real question was, "Is
this project worth the labor?"
The results of that showed
that it has the potential
to lower technician
workload by about 33 percent,
based on the number of
public domain surrogate items
that we have in either,
you know,
the Library of Congress
digital locations,
or third-party locations,
such as HathiTrust
and Internet Archive.
From there, I developed
documentation --
training and reference
documentation,
and trained technicians
on Jon's team.
We were able to work
together very closely to kind
of improve the workflow, see
where there are, you know,
holes in the documentation,
develop a way
for technicians to, you
know, do this as efficiently
as they could, without really
running into roadblocks.
Also, this is a little
bit of showing off,
but I had the luxury of
being the second Librarian
in Residence after, you know,
that sort of pilot phase
in the first year, and the
COVID phase that came after me.
So I was able to
engage in some really,
really great professional
development opportunities,
including, you know,
visiting the NAVCC,
National Audio-Visual
Conservation Center in Virginia.
On the right there, you can
see the nitrogen film vaults
at the NAVCC.
I was able to visit the
Copyright Office, Law Library,
the National Library Service in
Northwest D.C. Many other units
of the Library of Congress' sort
of Library Services Division --
or Library Services area.
And I was able to volunteer
at the National Book
Festival as well.
This was really sort
of great to, you know,
get an in-depth tour
of basically every area
of Library Services, understand,
you know, the journeys
of our materials, and
the work of a number
of different types of experts.
And in addition to
that, we also gave tours
of each residence division.
I was able to give a tour
of what was previously
PRD, and now, PSD.
And my colleagues in the
cohort gave tours of Rare Book,
Manuscript Hispanic Division.
Here you can a Kelmscott Chaucer
rare book, a selection of hair
from Thomas Jefferson in
the Manuscript Division,
which I was oddly enamored by.
It's an interesting
collection item,
and brings up interesting sort
of preservation issues as well.
We gave LiR Reflection Talks
at the end of our terms,
gave those talks
to library leaders,
colleagues in our directorate,
colleagues in our
cohorts' directorates.
We had mentors, including
my mentor, Grant Harris,
who was previously the chief
of the European Division,
now retired.
He's a really, really
great mentor.
Was able to help me on a
lot of sort of personal
and professional issues.
Actually, also, a
previous supervisor of mine
in a former internship.
That was a really
valuable part of it.
And, of course, our
fearless leader, Adrija,
who was a really great
mentor and supervisor,
advocate for me throughout
the process.
Really, really grateful
to have that opportunity.
As you can see, this has sort
of all helped me
in my current role.
And it was a really great
experience to do some kind
of a residency at some kind of
an institution that you would
like to work in in the future.
It's going to help your career
in the future, if you're sort
of interested in that
kind of an approach.
And with that, I'm going
to hand it off to Katie,
who's going to speak
on her experience.
Go for it, Katie.
>> Katie Daughtry:
Thank you, Zach.
So my name is Katie Daughtry.
And I was the Preservation
Directorates Librarian
in Residence from July
2020 up until this month.
My appointment actually just
ended about two weeks ago now.
So I completed my Master's in
Library and Information Science
from the University of
Maryland in May 2020.
And began my position
in July of last year
in the midst of the pandemic.
So for the first few months,
I worked entirely virtually.
And, eventually, I was
able to come on site
for a couple days
out of the week.
So my experience was a bit
different than Zach and Jon.
But, nonetheless, it was
a really great experience.
And one of the opportunities I
was still able to take advantage
of virtually was training.
So the Library Services
group offers a variety
of training courses online.
And I participated in courses
from searching in Voyager ILS,
MARC records, acquisitions,
LibGuides,
Confluence, and story maps.
And even though some of
the topics weren't relevant
to my work that I was doing,
they were still a really
good learning opportunity.
So I definitely took
advantage of them.
And, also, despite much
of my time being virtual,
I was still able to connect with
a lot of the Library employees.
I participated in
weekly Skype meetings
with the Reformatting
Project Section.
And the Librarian in Residence
Program migrated its briefings,
which Zach spoke
about the tours.
So they migrated that to
an online environment,
where we were able
to meet everyone
from different divisions, and
they could kind of take us
on a virtual tour, and
tell us about their work.
And then also the Librarian
in Residence cohort,
there was about nine
of us in my year.
And we organized our own
virtual meetings to stay
in touch with each other.
So it was still really
interactive,
despite the challenges.
And I ended up working
on a variety of projects
across the whole Preservation
Directorate, but virtually.
And once I was able
to come on site.
And I'll speak more in detail
about some of my projects.
But just to give an
overview of what I worked on.
I worked on some projects in the
Reformatting Project Section,
the Preservation Research
and Testing Division,
Collections Management, and then
also the General Collections
Conservation Section.
Which is where Jon now works.
So I was actually
able to meet with him,
and learn about different
conservation treatments.
I won't go into too much detail,
because I think he gave a
good overview of that work.
But from him, I was able
to learn different things
like tip-ins, and mending
tears, and hinge tightening,
pamphlet binding,
things like that.
So it was really great.
And then also, as part of the
Librarian in Residence Program,
like Zach, we were
all assigned mentors.
My mentor was Helena
Zinkham, who's the Chief
of Prints and Photographs.
And we all got the
chance to meet
with our mentor virtually
every two weeks to four weeks,
and just talk about different
parts of the Library,
get any advice that we needed.
And as a result of this, I ended
up getting to work on a project,
creating a story map for
Prints and Photographs.
So I'll talk about
that more later.
So for the Reformatting
Project Section,
I carried out quality review of
digital images that were created
by a vendor for the Newspaper
Digitization Project,
and also for Brittle Books.
So this was something
I could do at home.
And then once I came on site,
I also carried out maintenance
in the Voyager catalog
module, updating item
and holding records, and adding
barcodes, in order to assist
with the Brittle Books workflow.
And then similar to Jon and
Zack, I also got to work
with tangible media, and learn
how to use the rip stations
to create digital images
and files of optical discs,
and how to use Fred
for the floppy disk
and unreadable optical disks.
I, also, had the chance to work
with the Preservation Research
and Testing Division while I
was in a virtual environment.
I carried out historical
research and data collation
for assessing the
physical condition
of the National Collection
Project.
So this is a project that
they're analyzing volumes
of books from 1840 to 1940
to see what factors
affect paper degradation,
and how vulnerable
volumes can be identified.
So I perform batch exports
of MARC records from OCLC,
and gathered data on
individual volumes,
such as the original price,
the format, the binding, genre,
printer and printer location.
So Zach spoke about the Space
in Emergency Management Survey
that he worked on
with Beatriz Haspo.
And I got to carry on this
project after he left.
So I continued his work.
And, actually, carried out a
pilot survey of 100 sections
in the Jefferson
and Adams buildings.
So before programming the
survey, we wanted to work
out any issues and update the
questions, if it's needed.
So I created a paper document
with all the survey questions.
And, actually, went
into the stack spaces,
and recorded it manually,
just to test out any kinks,
anything that needed
to be updated.
For instance, one of
the questions asked
about overflow trucks.
And I realized that most of the
trucks are stored at the end
of the aisles, and aren't
necessarily associated
with sections.
So we updated the
question so that data
on overflow trucks
would be gathered
by aisle, and not by section.
And the survey is really meant
to be a quick look
at the stacks.
It's not item-specific.
So I also timed each of the four
parts of the survey for content,
emergency management, condition
and space, in order to see
where we could cut down on time.
And I found certain areas where
we could cut down the time,
such as only capturing
the barcode
if a barcode was present,
and not also the call number,
since we can get
that from the ILS.
And then I extrapolated the
amount of time it would take
to survey all of the
95,000 sections that are
in the stacks spaces on
the Capitol Hill campus,
in order to plan out
the full scale survey.
So this is actually something
that the future Library
in Residence, that will start
in July, will be able to take
over once it gets programmed.
And then this is the
story map that I mentioned
at the beginning, that I had the
chance to work on for my mentor,
Helena Zinkham, in
Prints and Photographs.
And the story map focuses on
the Liljenquist Collection,
which is a collection of
mostly portrait photographs
of Civil War soldiers,
and some nurses as well.
And for this project,
I collated metadata
for the digitized photographs,
and gathered information
on the portraits, if there
was information on locations
that the people were at.
So mostly battles that the
soldiers fought and died in.
This is an example of --
this is actually Sergeant
Thomas Plunkett.
He lost both of his
arms carrying the flag
at the Battle of Fredericksburg.
And so then I got to take
the photographs that had
that information, and map
them out all across the U.S.
And the user can scroll
through the different locations,
different battles,
and see who was there,
the different soldiers
that fought there,
if they were killed.
There's also nurses that
worked at the field hospitals,
and prisoners that are at the
different prison locations.
So this project was
really fun to work on.
And I think it really speaks to
the opportunity in the Library
of Residence -- Librarian
in Residence Program to work
on projects that might be
outside of your normal scope
of work, and learn about
different areas of the library.
I think, with permanent
positions,
maybe it's more tunnel vision.
There aren't really as
many opportunities to work
across different areas.
So I think this is really one
of the strengths of the program.
I gained a really broad overview
of the Preservation Directorate,
and also the Library as a whole.
So at this time, we'd
like to invite everyone
to enter questions, if
they haven't already.
And Amelia will be
monitoring the chat box.
>> Amelia Parks: Thank you so
much for doing that, all of you.
What a really great
presentation.
And, yes, we are now
open for questions
from anybody who wants to.
So you can enter them
into the Q&A box or chat.
I'll be looking at them both.
Okay, here's a question
from Nikki.
"Can you all speak
on your application
and interview process
when applying?"
Maybe do we want to start
with Jon since he went first?
>> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme:
Yeah, I'm happy to start.
The application process, you
know, it is a federal position.
So the application process
for the I believe it was a June
start date started in November.
There was a month-long
application process.
I imagine that it
has been somewhat --
the job description has
been somewhat clarified.
It was a lot of -- a lot of
things were just beginning
to be figured out
when I started.
But the application process
went through USAJOBS.
Which is the typical
federal employment portal.
And it was classified as a not
to exceed temporary employment
contract with the Library.
>> Zach Maiorana: Basically,
the same process as Jon for me.
I believe I interviewed
in late December, oddly,
during the federal shutdown
and had that conversation.
I believe I was hired
probably around February.
It went fairly quickly for
a federal position actually.
And I had a July start date.
So I ended up being able
to learn about my approval
to the program pretty
easily -- or pretty quickly.
>> Katie Daughtry: Yeah, it
was a similar experience.
I think my posting
closed in December.
And then the start
date was July.
And I might have
interviewed in January.
And then it took a bit to hear
if I had gotten the position.
But it was also the
start of the pandemic.
So that made things
rather interesting to find
out if they were still
going to do the program.
Which luckily they did so.
>> Amelia Parks:
Were you required
to do an on-site interview?
Probably not an answer from
Katie, because pandemic.
But what about Zach and Jon?
>> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme: No, I
was out of state when I applied.
And we did a phone interview.
>> Zach Maiorana: Right.
I went to grad school at
University of Illinois.
So I was still in
Champaign at the time.
And it was just an
hour-long interview,
pretty standard federal
interview process.
And we were able to do it
over Skype, WebEx maybe.
>> Amelia Parks: There's
a question from Lynn
about the story map
that Katie did.
"So will the viewership of
the story maps be monitored?"
And I do think that we
tape website analytics,
but I don't know
specifically for story maps.
So I'll let you speak to that.
>> Katie Daughtry: Yeah.
I know, on the ArcGIS platform,
so there's actually
the actual story map,
and then there is
the CSV file posted.
And it actually will
count the number of views.
So we will get that information.
And I don't believe it's
actually up to the public yet.
It's just for Library
employees right now,
because there's a
lengthy review process.
But once it's up, yes.
>> Amelia Parks: We have
another question from Caitlin.
She was wondering if you had any
advice for small town libraries
that would like to [inaudible]
Preservation Project?
>> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme:
Yeah, can I hop on that one?
>> Amelia Parks: Yeah.
>> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme: So
I have a lot of experience
with small preservation programs
with limited funding and,
you know, enthusiasm,
but, you know, lack of --
but limited resources.
The one thing I would suggest is
that you look at the Institute
of Museum and Library Services.
They do have preservation
grants that are available.
Highly recommend that you
utilize the Preservation Ask a
Librarian feature.
So I probably should have
clarified that I'm now back
at the Library in the
General Collections
Conservation Section.
And part of what I'm doing
in that job is doing a lot
of reference work with Amelia.
So we are a great resource
for figuring out how
to preserve your specific items.
The Northeast Document
Conservation Center also has a
preservation pamphlet.
I believe it is 1.5.
Which is a guide to creating
your own preservation policy.
Which I highly recommend you do
before you start spending money.
>> Amelia Parks: Yeah,
just to add on to that.
Again, use that Ask a
Librarian Preservation link,
because I think both Jon and
I have a ton of resources
for small preservation
projects at small institutions.
So we can help direct you to,
you know, preservation service
or grant opportunities,
that sort of thing.
So use that link, and we can
get you a very detailed answer.
>> Zach Maiorana: And one last
-- in addition to the IMLS,
there's also an NEH
page, National Endowment
for the Humanities
page on the Grants
for Smaller Institutions
as well.
In case you're interested
in that,
there's a specific
grant for preservation.
In addition, you can --
this might be Googleable,
but there's the University
of Illinois,
my previous boss there,
we worked on a project
called the PSAP,
Preservation Self-Assessment
Program, I believe.
Which is a searchable database,
where you can look
at sort of tips.
And, you know, if you're looking
to identify whether
you have a mold issue,
an active mold issue
[inaudible], or you have sort
of similar issues like
that, you can use that tool,
in addition to any DCC Northeast
Document Conservation Center.
They have a lot of
preservation 101 sort of guides
and walkthroughs for
basic preservation issues.
In addition, you can
sort of approach --
maybe not for consultant work,
but if you have questions,
you can approach your
local academic campus.
They might have preservation
people there who are experts
on an issue that you might have.
And people tend to be pretty
active about responding
and being interested
in your issues.
>> Amelia Parks: Thank you.
There's another question
from Nikki.
"What was, or is, one
unexpected challenge
and one unexpected reward
that you experienced
during our time here?"
Do we want to start
with Katie this time?
>> Katie Daughtry: Sure.
So, I mean, for me, the biggest
challenge was just how much
everything was virtual.
Which when I first
applied, I had no idea.
And I think like the
Library did a really good job
of still making us
feel really connected.
Everybody is really friendly.
You could reach out,
send an email,
people were willing
to Skype with me.
So it ended up being
really great.
And then an unexpected reward,
I would say I just didn't know
how broad my experience was
going to be.
So Adrija works with the
Reformatting Project Section.
And I had a lot of
background in digitization.
So I thought that's where
my work would be focused.
But then with the pandemic,
and also just the program,
the idea is to get as much
experience as you want.
So I just ended up
learning a lot of things
that I didn't expect to learn.
Learning about conservation
treatments from Jon,
just learning to
use the Voyager ILS.
My background was more in
archives than libraries.
And then getting to
work on the story map
for Prints and Photographs.
>> Zach Maiorana:
I certainly think
that an unexpected
challenge that I found in sort
of federal work is
the bureaucracy,
and how slow everything moves.
Which is something that
I think a lot of people
on the attendees list can
share that experience.
Erin Engle, the Special
Assistant for Preservation,
said to me that she used
to work in a startup area.
And she said that when
you're a part of a startup,
you can get big things
done very quickly,
but you can't get a
laptop for yourself.
And when you're part of like
a big thing, like the Library
of Congress, you can get
a laptop very easily,
but you can't really enact a
new workflow to create sort
of a new way of doing things.
Things tend to move as
slowly as, you know,
an institution that size can.
Certainly, there are
rewards that you --
an unexpected reward that I
found was that I had a lot
of sort of freedom to, you
know, work on things that sort
of permanent folks can't
really work on quite as easily.
I mentioned the white paper that
I worked on that sort of argued
for a new kind of way to
select for digitization.
That's something that is sort
of a little bit risky to do.
And a lot of folks who
have been there permanently
for 40 years might be, you
know, risking reputations,
or anything like the sort
of risking making a
couple of divisions angry.
But I'm going to be
out in 10 months.
So it gives me the benefit
of being able to argue
for something a little bit bold.
And that's a really
great benefit
of residencies like this.
>> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme: Yeah,
I want to echo what Zach
said about the benefits.
I was sort of more able to --
with some of the projects I was
working on that really broke
down these divisional barriers,
I think it was people were
more willing to engage,
because they thought,
"Oh, he's going to be out.
Like if we don't like this, we
can just stop when he leaves."
Which I think people like to --
to some extent, they
continued afterwards.
Which was nice.
And another real benefit
for me was just building
the relationships
with people across preservation.
Even people I didn't work
directly with, who I just sort
of got introduced
to, people complained
to me about presumably.
You know, whatever -- you know,
whatever interaction we had,
just these sort of like
casual interactions
that really have led to,
now later down the line,
some really, really
positive interactions
and positive work together.
>> Amelia Parks: Thank you.
Can you elaborate on the role of
the mentor on your internship,
and how often did
you meet with them?
Did they oversee your
internship, that kind of thing?
>> Zach Maiorana: I can hop in.
I had Grant Harris again,
the Chief of the European
Division, as my mentor.
Really, really great knowledge
about a huge [inaudible]
of like Library of
Congress history.
His role was really
to kind of, you know,
bring me into the
culture of the Library,
and share with me
his experience,
and kind of share that.
I had the real luxury of
working with him just prior
to his retirement
I think last April.
And he was able to sort
of talk to me about that.
He would tell me, you know,
stories about like bringing the
Russian ambassador, Kislyak,
through like the Tsar Nicholas
Collections that are on display
and say, "You know, we're
taking good care of this
for your country," or
something like that.
He would tell like these
incredible stories about,
you know, work the Preservation
was doing, and Preservation --
the [inaudible] Certification
Program puts little white dots
on every spine of the books
that [inaudible] certify.
And he would bring sort of a --
he worked a lot with
Russian figures.
So he would bring like a Russian
author, whose work was banned
in the Soviet Union, through
the stacks, and show him that,
you know, "This book of
yours that has the white dot
on the spine is the
best preserved copy
in the entire world.
It will last for 500 years.
We're taking good care of it."
And, you know, things like
that, that sort of, you know,
make me see the issues
in reference
that are echoed across, you
know, the preservation spectrum.
I met with him monthly.
And he was a really
great sort of resource,
asking about anything,
he referred me
to the Toastmasters sort of
Club to work on public speaking.
And, you know, he was able to
give advice sort of broadly
on professional issues.
It's a good part of the program.
>> Katie Daughtry: Yeah.
My mentor was Helena Zinkham
in Prints and Photographs.
So a really different
part of the Library.
I think the requirement
of the program was
to meet once a month.
But we ended up meeting
once every two weeks.
And it was over Skype mostly.
Once we were both
coming on site,
I did actually get the chance
to get a tour of the Prints
and Photographs Reading
Room from her.
And then one day we met
in the Great Hall to look
at all the murals
and everything.
Which was a really fun day.
And really fun to see it
without all the tourists.
So we would talk about --
I mean, also, she was really
knowledgeable about the history
of the Library, would talk
about that, just my experiences
with the program, any
kind of career advice.
And then when I ended up
working on a project for her,
it became more focused on that
-- on the specific project.
But Adrija was my supervisor.
So we were also having weekly
meetings about all of my work.
So Adrija was more the
one managing my role.
And then Helena was more advice
and chatting about the Library.
>> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme: And so my
year, we didn't have mentorship.
That was sort of one of the
-- at the end of the program,
we sort of had a larger debrief.
And one of the things we
said was that we would really
like to have sort of a more
formal mentorship process.
And they were very responsive
to a lot of our concerns.
And it was really great.
I'm really happy that they were.
>> Amelia Parks: All right.
Thank you.
We have another question
from Amelia Foster.
"Can you talk about how
much your work intersected
with conservators?"
She's interested
in preservation,
but not always sure
where to draw the line
between conservation
-- and just to clarify.
A conservator has a lot
of training and education,
and a science background,
that you don't usually get
with a library and
information science degree.
So the difference is somebody
with an ILS degree is
probably going to focus more
on preservation, so
collection stabilization,
rather than actually
conserving an object.
I think that that answers the
last part of your question,
but I will [inaudible] --
>> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme:
So can I hop on that?
>> Amelia Parks: Yep.
>> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme:
So conservation is
part of preservation.
Like both in terms of the
organization's library,
as well as in terms of sort of
like in theory in libraries.
So I am doing conservation
with a library science degree.
There are certain -- there are
certain parts of conservation
that can be done with a
library science degree.
There are other parts where
that is very much not the case.
Note people with
conservation background --
you're going to need
a conservation degree
to get your hands on the
Gutenberg Bible, for example.
But your General Collections
Conservation is we are largely
doing processes,
doing treatments
that have been developed
by conservators.
And by doing sort of the
same thing, you know,
we're performing
conservation in a way that is --
that's sort of within our --
within our understanding,
within our scope.
But there are certainly --
I think there are
places for both LIS
and conservation degrees in
the Preservation Directorate.
>> Amelia Parks: Zach or
Katie, did either of you work
with conservators
during your time?
>> Zach Maiorana: I was
able to organize a tour
of the Conservation Division
with my cohort of LIS folks.
That was a really
rewarding process
to be able to meet with them.
Elmer Eusman, [inaudible]
these conservators who are sort
of leaders in the field.
I can't really speak on the role
of, you know, a conservatorship
in the Library of Congress,
because I'm not a conservator.
They might get mad
at me if I do.
But, generally, I think your
question included like the split
between LIS, Library and
Science, sort of conservation
versus art conservation.
In many ways, they're separate,
because LIS conservation
is involved with book
and paper product -- book
and paper publications
and documents.
And our conservation tends to
involve separate materials,
separate pigments,
canvases, et cetera.
Again, not a conservator,
but there is a split there.
>> Katie Daughtry: Yeah.
I didn't get to work with
any of the conservators.
But I also wasn't
on site very often.
But I did work with Jon on
the General Collections.
Which he already spoke about so.
>> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme:
To be clear,
I'm a conservation
technician, not a conservator.
>> Amelia Parks: Okay, we have
one more question from Nikki.
"What led or motivated you
to apply to be an LIR?"
[inaudible] or Katie?
>> Zach Maiorana:
Go ahead, Katie.
>> Katie Daughtry: Okay.
So I am actually from this
area, had worked internships
with other federal institutions.
And going to the
University of Maryland,
some of my professors
actually worked
at the Library of Congress.
Beatriz Haspo, who Zach and
I both worked on the survey,
teaches the course at UMD.
And so I got to go on a tour
of the Library before
I worked there.
So I really was going for
more of a federal position.
And I was also coming out of
school during the pandemic.
So there were very
few places hiring.
But it was somewhere where I
would like to work long term.
And I wanted to stay
in the area.
So that's sort of what
motivated me to apply.
And it was a really,
really great experience just
to get a look at everything
inside the Library.
And I would love
to come back so.
I definitely encourage
everyone to apply to it.
>> Zach Maiorana: Certainly,
yeah, I [inaudible] that.
I think it's a great program,
and something that I could sort
of see myself in
automatically from looking
at the job description.
And, also, during the process,
I found that it was
really rewarding.
Also, to follow up the question
as like "what led you to this,"
I did a previous internship at
the Library of Congress as well
in the European Division.
I know German, so
I was able to work
on the European Division staff.
And I think that a part of this
work involves the issue of like,
you know, the gig economy,
and like short-term positions
in librarianship
and service sectors.
When you're looking for, you
know, a permanent position,
they often look at your
temporary positions
to see what you've
done in the past.
I think I've counted
before, and I'm ashamed
to say I've done something
like 12 short-term positions,
maybe more up to 15 perhaps.
Fellowships, residencies,
internships,
graduate assistantships,
that's just like, you know,
a lot of work goes into
developing your resume in terms
of training the next generation.
Which is a topic of this.
Developing your resume that
includes a huge broad spectrum
of experience in preparation
for a permanent position.
That's kind of an issue
that's viewed as a challenge,
and as a negative
part of the field.
And a lot of work has been
done on this in journals.
And the fact that, you know,
these short-term positions
are rewarding, what leads me
to be involved with them is
the kind of necessary aspect
of gaining experience
with the next step.
An LIS program is
only two years.
You can learn only so much.
And working continuously within
the field, understanding,
you know, practical
concepts is a huge part
of gaining a permanent
position in the field.
And it's hard.
>> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme: I would
say what led me to applying
to this is that basically since
my junior year of college,
I've been back and forth between
getting a conservation degree
and getting a library degree.
And I have this real
passion for both.
And I've been working in --
I've worked in preservation
departments
for smaller institutions.
Zach and I both went to
the University of Illinois.
I think he had the cubicle
next to what was mine.
Yeah, so it was just
really an opportunity to,
at the very least I thought,
see how preservation works
when you have the largest
collection in the world
that you need to preserve,
and sort of get really
hands on in that.
And then it also just, you
know, led to giving me the kind
of skills that I
needed to come back.
Which was a real pleasure.
>> Amelia Parks: Okay, those
are some really good answers.
>> Adrija Henley: [inaudible]
I am sorry, if I may add,
we're talking about Preservation
Librarians in Residence.
And we have so many
areas where we hire
as a library Librarian
in Residence.
So you can -- based
on your skillset,
based on your interests, you
can apply to different areas,
to Acquisitions
and Bibliographic
Access Directorate,
where they catalog,
acquire books.
You can go to I believe the Law
Library already has one now.
So it's across the Library.
So if your interests are not in
preservation per se that much,
you can apply to other
areas of the Library.
So that's all on the
website [inaudible].
>> Amelia Parks: Okay, great.
And, remember, we have
a link to the Librarians
in Residence page, LLC webpage,
at the beginning of the chat.
I believe I put that in, if
you are interested in applying.
And with that, I do not
see any new questions.
And it's 12:00.
So thank you all for joining us.
And we have one more
presentation
for Preservation Week.
That's tomorrow at 11:00.
So hope to see you there.
Have a great day.