TUSC Inaugurates New Graduate Archival Internship Program
This summer TUSC welcomed three interns to inaugurate our graduate archival internship program. The program continues into the fall with two more interns. While hailing from graduate programs in different parts of the country, they shared a love of archives and a curiosity about how we preserve and provide access to archival material. Each intern participated in an immersive experience learning both about archival repository functions while gaining hands-on experience with organizing archives, surveying collections, and data management.
Ian Wright currently works for a public library branch in Slidell and is a remote MLIS student at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Previously a high school band teacher (and a musician himself), Ian has a “passion for helping others learn about the unique culture and music of New Orleans” and believes that “there is no better place to learn about music archives than Tulane University.” Ian helped process our extensive New Orleans music holdings, including the Louis Prima collection and the Don Ewell collection.
John Jones is a master’s student in Public History at Middle Tennessee State University in the archives track, where he gained experience working with archival collections at the Rutherford County Archives and the Albert Gore Research Center. John piloted our first locations project for the Louisiana Research Collection, where he recorded locations for over three hundred collections. He also participated in the University Archives condition survey, which helps us identify, describe, and preserve the records of the university.
Jawuan Walters, from Poughkeepsie, New York, is a first-year master’s student at University of Michigan School of Information focusing on Digital Archives and Preservation. He previously worked on a research project at Poughkeepsie Public Library to uncover local African American history. Jawuan piloted an accession project for the Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz where he assisted in transferring accession information into electronic files and he worked on the University Archives condition survey.
Matthew Folse, a graduate student at Louisiana State University pursuing his master's in Library and Information Sciences with a focus on Archival studies, found inspiration in TUSC’s Southeast Architectural Archive while completing the undergraduate History program at UNO. Matt will continue the locations project for the Louisiana Research Collection this fall.
Alison Nikitopoulos is pursuing an MLIS with a concentration in Archival Studies from Louisiana State University. She has a background in Musicology and holds an MFA and PhD from Princeton University. This Fall, she will work with Archival Processing Manager, Cate Peebles, and Hogan Archive Curator, Melissa Weber, to process Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz collections.
Image: Matthew Folse conducting a collection survey in the TUSC stacks.
Written by Jennifer Waxman
