This week’s post is written by Meredith Pintler ’16, a student assistant at Davidson College’s E.H. Little Library.
When I spoke of my summer job at the library to my peers and friends, I often received the “Is the library really that busy during the summer?” question. What most people don’t realize is how much goes on behind the scenes, and I got the chance to experience that during the eight weeks that I worked at the library this summer. The average day involved me working for two hours at the circulation desk, two hours shifting the books in the basement of the library, two hours working in the Information Literacy Department, and two hours assisting in Archives & Special Collections. I would like to share some of the projects that I have worked on during my times in the archives.
Going into the summer, I really didn’t know what to expect from my job in the archives, as the only times that I had been up in the office were to visit the Rare Book Room, a treasure of the Davidson campus. By the end of the summer I had not only been in the Rare Book Room but had also spent a decent amount of time in the archives storage, the archives office, the Digitization Lab, and even the attic of Chambers (now I can check that off of the Davidson bucket list!). I was amazed to learn about all of the material that is kept by the archives and the work that the employees put into maintaining, storing, scanning, digitizing, filing, organizing, and sorting the items. The archives staff (Jan, Sharon, Caitlin, and Craig) know an incredible amount about the history of the college and the items stored in their department. I had many questions and learned a lot about the history of Davidson (from questions about paintings and how the college had acquired them to Davidson campus rules in the early 1900s to information about the first female and international students on campus).
Encyclopedia Articles
During my first few weeks in the archives, I spent time researching the history of different academic departments on campus. Using all of the old catalogs and a book of Davidson’s history, I was able to write a history of the Hispanic Studies, German Studies, French and Francophone Studies, Anthropology, Russian Studies, and Educational Studies departments. As a Hispanic Studies major myself, I was very interested to find out about the history of the department and to see how it has grown and developed since Spanish courses were first offered at Davidson in 1917. These articles, along with many other encyclopedia articles, are on the Davidson Encyclopedia page. The articles are public and available to provide more information on the history of Davidson College, including articles about buildings on campus, clubs and groups, academics, sports, college presidents, and much more.
Davidson students on a study abroad trip to Spain at the Alhambra in 1989.
Course Syllabi
As the semester begins and professors finalize and hand out their syllabi, many also hand in a copy to the Registrar’s office to be filed permanently. Starting in 2009, the Registrar’s office begun to collect these syllabi in digital formats. Syllabi before 2009 have only been saved in print form. This summer, several student staff members in the archives, including me, began to scan these syllabi so that they can be made available to Davidson faculty, students, and staff. After the project is complete, everyone with access to the database (all those with a Davidson login) will be able to view syllabi of courses offered over the past decade.
Student History
I, along with other students and archives staff members, searched through college records from 1920-1950 to find information about the first Jewish students at Davidson. Jan Blodgett, the College Archivist and Records Management Coordinator, was in search of the names of the first Jewish students to attend Davidson, previously unknown (although reflected in college statistics). In the end, we found records of seven Jewish students at Davidson in these years. To read more about these discoveries and Jan’s research, please see her blog.
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