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Don't Touch the Ink…It's Still Wet!
by Lisa Beitel
Just a few short months ago I finished my first archival job out of school - a year-long contract at the City of Calgary Archives. The move to Calgary was the easy part, the true test was to be how well my MAS degree from UBC (the ink barely dried) had prepared me for work in "the real world of archives". My first couple of weeks were filled with meetings, training, learning new procedures and policies, and getting a feel for the bureaucratic, municipal government environment in which the City of Calgary Archives operates.
I was very excited that I was immediately responsible for so many different things, including
the daily tasks that keep an archives running, assisting researchers, on-going outreach activities, records management assistance, in addition to archival work such as appraisal, arrangement, description, and conservation of The City's records.
For the first couple of months I kept all of my SLAIS notebooks close and my RAD binder
even closer, but everything that I learned in school just seemed to make sense with each
passing week. After a few months and lots of homework reading up on the history of Calgary,
I no longer allowed myself to use the excuse "Well, I'm not sure…I'm from Vancouver…".
My archival colleagues -- Sarah Bleach, Carol Stokes and Glennda Leslie -- were extremely
supportive and I learned a great deal from their experience, expertise, and the professional
standards that they set for themselves and for the Archives in areas such as policies and
procedures, grantsmanship, digitization, web design, reference service and records
conservation.
I was asked to join a number of committees and was valued as a thoughtful representative for the Archives. I also worked on digital task forces working to develop procedures and policies for the preservation of electronic records created at The City. This was a rewarding experience because it allowed me to use experience gained as a graduate academic researcher on the InterPARES Project while at UBC. Moreover, I was able to express my interests and creativity when developing a display based on the history of Calgary's Electric System (part of a fonds I was responsible for arranging and describing) through black and white photographs. The Archives also hosted a number of school tours and it was fun to share in the excitement with the children as they learned about Calgary's social, economic and political history through the photographs and records held at the Archives.
Each and every day was dynamic, as I continued to learn from researchers and from Archivists in different institutions throughout Calgary. Before I knew it, a year had passed and my contract was down to its last couple of weeks. I spent these last weeks completing projects and working on a training schedule for a returning colleague, Regina Landwehr. It was amazing to review all the information, new skills, and hands-on experience that I had acquired in such a short time while working in a self- directed work unit like the City of Calgary Archives. I can now view my degree, ink long-dried, knowing that it represents the solid foundation of my archival knowledge. Resting upon that knowledge are all the 'real world' archival experiences gained during my year at the City of Calgary Archives.
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