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Hello! I’m Amelia Poovey, intern in the Digitization Lab. For this opportunity I thank first and foremost Chelcie Rowell (Digital Initiatives Librarian) for generously offering her knowledge, guidance, and patience. I also mention with gratitude Tanya Zanish-Belcher (Director of Special Collections & Archives) and Molly Keener (Scholarly Communication Librarian).

In 2008, I graduated from Wake Forest with a B.A. in Classical Studies. Not knowing exactly what I wanted to do or where I wanted to be, I started working part-time at the Reynolda House Museum of American Art. Within a few years, I decided to get my Master of Science in Library and Information Science. I was a distance learner at the University of Kentucky (UK), so my experience as a student there was very different from that of my undergrad and, I imagine, face-to-face graduate studies. It posed a unique set of challenges, to be sure, but it also allowed me to become self-motivated and organized in a way I don’t think we are when it is our sole “job” to be a student. It was as much a two-year study in myself as in Library Science. I finished my degree in December of 2014. You can still find me at the Reynolda House, as well as the Reynolda Manor Library where I’m currently a Library Page.

While I had an interest in archives and special collections when I started at UK, I initially thought I might like to be a children’s librarian. Fortunately for future generations of little ones, I like to think, having to present a single “story time” program at a public library quickly made it clear that youth services is not my calling. Also, the more I started to learn about archives, the more passionate I began to feel about primary source materials.I started to feel the call instead to protection, preservation, and representation. Here at ZSR I’m in the right company to geek out about just how cool archives are.

So, here we are! In the Digitization Lab, I’ll be helping to create the descriptive metadata for the card catalog index of The Student literary magazine that has recently been digitized by the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center. In post-processing, I’ll also assist in generating access copies and thumbnails. This is a really exciting project. I never thought I’d be (capable of) contributing to something on this scale. With each task, I am gaining greater understanding of, and appreciation for, the evolution of libraries and those who work to make access possible. Lately, I’ve started toying with the idea of a doctoral degree, despite the “I’m never going back” proclamation I made as a relatively recent graduate. I’m glad I’ll have this experience at ZSR to contribute to what I hope will be an ever-growing academic portfolio.

See you around the Lab!