I can’t believe I just finished my third summer in Special Collections & Archives! Amidst all the new faces and exciting renovations, I’m eternally grateful for my ZSR colleagues and their support.

Part 1: ZSR

As many of you know, I wear a lot of hats as a Collections Specialist. Aside from picking up new donor acquisitions, I manage multiple shifting projects on the 6th floor. Our materials vary in size, shape, and age, so we must carefully preserve them. We also need to maximize every bit of space we have. It’s a full-time endeavor, which is why my job was created in the first place.

When I started working here in January 2022, our rare book collection was split between 5 different storage areas. Many books were stored out of order due to their massive size, and a lot of them needed preservation work. With SCA renovations looming on the horizon, it was time to consolidate.

Shifting projects can take a very long time to complete, but I’ve been lucky to have a dream team of student workers on my side! Shelby Balmer (‘25) and Michael Gourlias (‘27) both work at a blisteringly fast pace, and their dedicated efforts have paid off. After 2.5 years, we have consolidated our rare books into 2 storage areas. And thanks to Craig Fansler and his own team of student workers, our fragile materials are safe in protective enclosures.

The final leg of this project will involve shifting books in the SCA Reading Room (625). When my student dream team returns to work, we will tackle this project together!

Part 2: Offsite Storage

The other half of my job is managing SCA materials at the Offsite Storage facility. Special Collections & Archives did not have a specific offsite employee before I was hired. Now that I’m here, Ty Wilson and the rest of the Public Services team can focus on the ZSR general collection.

Managing our offsite materials could be another full-time job in itself! As I began my training, I focused on fulfilling patron requests first. This involves retrieving SCA materials for visiting researchers, classes, and my SCA colleagues. But during the summer of 2022, I began to discover unsolved mysteries and materials from previous storage facilities. I love a good mystery, so I dug in and figured everything out. I’m so glad I did, because the next summer brought an even greater challenge!

In July of 2023, we upgraded our inventory software from GFA to CaiaSoft. CaiaSoft made circulating offsite items so much easier, but it also required more precise classification of our materials. Our books fit neatly into existing categories, but Special Collections boxes vary in size. I had to examine our entire offsite collection, create new categories from scratch, and reorganize everything according to those categories.

You know how you sometimes have to take all the clothes out of your closet to figure out what you actually own? I did the warehouse version of that.

Solving those earlier offsite mysteries came in handy. Because I was already familiar with a lot of our boxes, I was able to recognize consistent patterns in size, material, etc. It still took a while to reorganize everything, but I’m finally done! At the time of this blog post, I have created 8 standardized storage categories + 1 catchall category for unique exceptions. Now we can plan future SCA storage strategies more efficiently.

There will always be more projects in Special Collections & Archives, but the great part about this team is that we make sure to celebrate our successes! It’s been an exciting 2.5 years here at ZSR, and I look forward to seeing what comes next.