from the archives: reflections on month-the-first

I've been in my new position at the Massachusetts Historical Society for about a month now, and things are still a mix of old and new. In part because I'm still part of the library staff, and the substantial (and most important!) part of my job hasn't changed: I spend my days helping patrons find the stuff that will help meet, in the jargon of the library science world, their "information needs." You can read about some of the folks we've had in this month over at The Beehive (the MHS blog):

Local Researcher Uses MHS to Populate Wikipedia Pages | 2011-01-28

Our Youngest Researcher | 2011-01-14

Alexander Kluger Presents at Brown Bag Lunch | 2011-01-13

Welcome Short-term Fellow Mary Kelley | 2011-01-12

In addition to my regular duties, I am now the coordinator of the image permissions requests that (surprisingly often!) come in from researchers who are seeking to reproduce photographs, artifacts, documents, maps, etc., in their soon-to-be-published books, articles, online websites, and exhibitions. Soon, I'll be taking on the the citation permissions as well (when folks write simply to quote an unpublished document rather than visually reproduce it).

For the month February, we're looking forward to welcoming two new staff members onto the library team, part-time library assistants who will be taking on the responsibilities I held as a part-timer myself. We're looking forward to being fully-staffed again after six weeks of being down two staff members. More to come as the adventure continues!