As a Simmons student, one of the requirements for the Library & Information Sciences program, regardless of where you fall on the dual-major spectrum, is a minimum 60-hour internship at an archival institution located either in or around Boston, Mass. I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I was assigned a post at the Cambridge Historical Commission: although I’ve been living in the Cambridge area for a little over a year, I have to admit that I don’t necessarily know much about the actual history of it beyond some superficial knowledge. I’m from Western New York! Cambridge, to me, was where Harvard and MIT had their campuses, the backdrop of The Handmaid’s Tale, and literally nothing beyond that. What could Cambridge possibly have in their local history archives that could interest me at all?
This month, we are highlighting our fabulous archives staff here at the CHC. Our part-time archives assistants, interns and volunteers do it all — from processing collections and writing finding aids, to cataloging the research library, taking care of fragile objects and collections materials, and promoting it all on social media.
Our second staff post features Meta Partenheimer, Digitization Assistant.
Hi, my name is Meta, and I work at the Cambridge Historical Commission as a Digitization Assistant. Before beginning my work, I started at the CHC through an internship while taking a course at Simmons, and came back to volunteer over the winter break.
Meta with the survey files!A quick snapshot of the stacks I took last fall during a tour at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
I grew up in a small town in east-central Illinois, and attended college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While attaining my undergraduate degree in art history, I recognized that I loved spending time browsing the stacks and researching, and wanted to facilitate that experience for others.
After school, I moved to Oklahoma City where I worked for The American Pigeon Museum & Library, and the Oklahoma Historical Society. Working at these institutions helped me realize I wanted to become an archivist, and I decided to apply to the Master of Library and Information Science program at Simmons. Currently, I am halfway through my work towards an MLIS with an archives concentration. In addition to working at the CHC, I also intern at the John F. Kennedy Library.
A collection of racing homer photographs from The American Pigeon Museum.
My dream job would be professional beer tester—but I think more realistically I would love to work as an archivist with the Archives of American Art in Washington, DC. When I’m not archiving or catching up on homework, you can probably find me listening to a true-crime podcast, going to the gym, or catching up on my favorite British drama shows.
Fun facts about me:
My first paying job was detasseling corn the summer before I turned thirteen.
I have a cat named Winslow
Winslow at Christmastime on the farm in Illinois.
I am an avid fan of the Oklahoma City Thunder
My first OKC Thunder game vs. the Milwaukee Bucks.
One of the strangest things I’ve discovered during my archival career was with the Manuscripts department at OHS. One summer, we were charged with collecting and preserving items from the State Capitol Publishing Museum, which had been closed for a number of years. While recovering a drawer of documents, I came across a small mummified mouse which my colleagues and I dubbed “Frontier Mouse.”
Each drawer on this wall held a blank book of forms for orders, permits, and other paperwork. I found “Frontier Mouse” in the top row.
So far, my favorite archival find at the CHC is a collection of cyanotypes that were taken during the construction of the subway system in Boston, Cambridge, and surrounding areas.
Cyanotype titled “Kendall Sq. Station” from the Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) Collection, dated 28 March 1910.
Currently, I am working on digitizing our architectural survey files, processing collections, and creating posts on CHC social media.
This month, we are highlighting our fabulous archives staff here at the CHC. Our part-time archives assistants, interns and volunteers do it all — from processing collections and writing finding aids, to cataloging the research library, taking care of fragile objects and collections materials, and promoting it all on social media.
Our first staff post features Emily Magagnosc, Archives Assistant.
Emily grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs. Her mom is a librarian and her grandma volunteered in her local public library, so clearly Emily was destined to go into libraries. She went to undergrad at Smith College in Northampton, MA, and while there she worked in the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Museum and Library, which was the best job she’d ever had and led her to apply to the Graduate School of Library Science at Simmons College. She just finished her first year there and is very excited about all of her classes.
Emily in her library cataloging corner.
Emily lives with three roommates and three cats in Brighton. The most interesting thing she has found on the job is a collection of recorded (written) confessions from the early days of the church in Northampton. When she is not archiving, she is watching Parks and Recreation on repeat, listening to loud punk music, knitting, doing inappropriate embroidery, reading, and petting her cat, Russell.
Sushi Russell.Russell Pt. 2.
Emily is working on cataloging the research library at the CHC. She also recently designed posters for the 2017 Cambridge Open Archives, writes blog and Instagram posts, and gets overly excited about the cool stuff in the archive. Her dream job is working in a women’s history collection like the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith or the Schlesinger Library at Harvard.
A print from the William Galvin Collection, one of many architectural drawings and designs that Emily cataloged and photographed over the past several months.
