Hi! I'm Camille Tyndall, and I'm archivist! Here's where I like to share archives news and related tidbits, and sometimes get on my soapbox about the world as it relates to archives and records management. I gladly accept submissions or tips, just shoot me an email at ectyndall@gmail.com

You can also follow me on Twitter @ectyndall, or connect with me on LinkedIn.

If you are looking for my personal blog, it can be found at unseasonedskillet [dot] tumblr [dot] com

Background Illustrations provided by: http://edison.rutgers.edu/
Reblogged from archivingaloud  19 notes
Posted 30, April, 2013

Thoughts on Interns in the Archives

archivingaloud:

Oh, our internship “system.” 

How can I describe my own experience in it without facepalming so hard that I give myself a migraine? Well, there’s very little risk of that because, chances are, if I’m thinking about the internship system, I already have one. 

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You’re not wrong, that’s for sure.

I’m hesitant to really jump into this conversation, because I have had paid and unpaid internships while a student, all with supervisors who treated me with respect and as a colleague.  But I think this idea of “We are only as strong a profession as our greenest members” bears further examination.

There’s is a question of “privilege” in the unpaid internship.  Graduate school costs a lot.  If you can spend time doing an unpaid internship instead of earning money to eat off of, you’re in a fairly fortunate position.  When we require resumes be padded with unpaid internships, we require that our greenest colleagues have a certain amount of privilege.  Even if graduate school isn’t prohibitively expensive, taking time off from a paying job to do an unpaid internship may be the difference between pursuing the desire to be a part of this profession and not.  What kind of potential are we missing out on due to that?

I’m not as familiar with the programs that require internships, so I can’t speak to that.  My program had a field experience elective option where a faculty advisor, site advisor, and the student developed learning objectives and project for the semester.  The field experience could be paid or unpaid.  While it doesn’t fix the problem, it does assure that the internship provides a useful addition to the student’s resume at the end of things, and I heard very few horror stories from that system, so maybe that could be an alternate option?

However, I think, unfortunately, unpaid internships are here to stay.  IT would be great if every talented, driven person out there could get paid for their time.  But budgets are tight, and there is a glut of people eager for experience, with or without pay.  I don’t think our more experienced colleagues should be villanized for taking advantage of free labor.  However, I think they should take better advantage of graduate student work by utilizing their knowledge and skills to get projects done and develop those students’ skills.

Sorry for the ramble, I have a lot of thoughts on this, but organizing them is difficult because it’s quite complicated!

Reblogged from chartophylax  60 notes
Posted 25, April, 2013

phenomenon-intervention:

Excerpt from Henry Rollins’ keynote at the 2013 Association of College and Research Libraries conference. Discusses his introverted childhood and the beginning of his archival tendencies:

So I started collecting the flyers that were on the lightpoles for all these shows. Because they would get torn down with a great bit of vengeance, next to the venues where these punk rock shows would be. They would come out and tear the flyers - they would be like, “this music sucks!” I was like, “No it doesn’t! It’s my soundtrack, it’s allowing my feet to be on the ground, finally. I don’t feel as insane as I usually do because of this music. And I realized that someone is going to have to preserve and maintain and protect this information because there is a huge force at hand wanting to make it disappear into complete nonexistence. And this was 1970-something, and that’s when I became collector archivist boy.

Best story - how, in his early Black Flag days, instead of spending his last dime on booze or drugs, he’d buy page protectors for flyers. 

Storify: Henry Rollins at ACRL 2013

Definitely worth a listen.  Henry Rollins may be my new archives hero.

Reblogged from todaysdocument  124 notes
Posted 22, April, 2013
todaysdocument: Take Action for Earth Day! ROADSIDE LITTER CLEAN-UP. 04/1972 Dick Rowan, photographer.  From the EPA’s DOCUMERICA series. Already did your part for Earth Day?  Celebrate by checking out  “Searching for the Seventies: The DOCUMERICA Photography Project” now on exhibit at the National Archives. How are you taking action for Earth Day? In honor of Earth Day! Around here, I planted a container garden for my balcony (eating local!), and, taking advantage of the mild/cool weather, I’ve got the AC off, and the windows open.  Which also takes care of the lights, come to think of it.  Later, I will be taking the bus instead of driving to work, where I will arrange archival materials that will not be adding to landfill waste.

todaysdocument:

Take Action for Earth Day!

ROADSIDE LITTER CLEAN-UP. 04/1972

Dick Rowan, photographer.  From the EPA’s DOCUMERICA series.

Already did your part for Earth Day?  Celebrate by checking out  “Searching for the Seventies: The DOCUMERICA Photography Project” now on exhibit at the National Archives.

How are you taking action for Earth Day?

In honor of Earth Day!

Around here, I planted a container garden for my balcony (eating local!), and, taking advantage of the mild/cool weather, I’ve got the AC off, and the windows open.  Which also takes care of the lights, come to think of it.  Later, I will be taking the bus instead of driving to work, where I will arrange archival materials that will not be adding to landfill waste.

Reblogged from archivesnerd  253,722 notes
Posted 21, April, 2013

fer1972:

Know were you stand: Modern Day Locations blended with Major Historical Events by Seth Taras 

1. The Hindenberg Disaster of May 6, 1937 

2. Allied soldiers rushing the beach at Normandy in June 1944

3. The Fall of the Berlin wall in 1989

4. Adolf Hitler touring Paris and standing in front of the Eiffel Tower in 1940

This has made the rounds on Tumblr more times than I can count, but it still stays amazing.

Reblogged from thequasiarchivist  3 notes
Posted 16, April, 2013

Community. Reflection. Refuge. Respite. Part of what we do best as museums and libraries. I feel that the museums can serve a role as part of a bridge to understanding to help us all heal. As an ideal, these institutions house what is best about humanity - our creativity, our strong continuing voices, our unity on this earth. As we strive to make sense of senseless tragedy, my beloved museum community reminds us of the good and tries to draw us together in hope. Thank you MFA and ICA. By

ArchivesInfo: Museums as Refuge: Serving as Places for Reflection After Boston Marathon Bombings (via thequasiarchivist)

Thinking of everyone in Boston right now.

Reblogged from thequasiarchivist  22 notes
Posted 16, April, 2013

Article: Why All Archivists Should Take a Library Reference Class

thequasiarchivist:

Why All Archivists Should Take a Library Reference Class http://archivesinfo.blogspot.com/2013/04/why-all-archivists-should-take-library.html

image

No, but really, I’ve been saying this basically since I started library school, and definitely since I decided to take additional user ed classes.

It strikes me as fundamentally wrong that archivists have such a reputation throughout the rest of library-land for being anti-social and disliking people/users.  I shouldn’t be met with a stunned look when I say that I am interested in user services within special collections (generally followed by, “Wow, you are a rarity”).  Perhaps even more so than librarians, archivists have a responsibility to know how to provide good reference services, because the general public doesn’t understand archival theory and practice.  Archival research is a unique experience, even from archive to archive.  Of course archivists should be learning how to provide the best service possible to users.  

I mean, yes, we need to be user oriented in how we arrange collections, how we create finding aids and metadata, and what we choose to collect and digitize.  But paper collections are still here.  We’re saving them for a reason.  And it will be a long while yet before it’s all digitized, so people will still being coming to our reading rooms. It’s a fact.  So yeah.  Reference, user ed, outreach, whatever you want to call it, it should not be a skill set whose necessity is negotiable.