Delving into the Past
Skylar C -
I am so excited to have finished my first official week of the senior project and to share it with everyone! This week, I started doing the project that I will be mainly working on at the Prescott Public Library. I began taking the vertical files the library have stored in a storage cabinet, scanning them, then sending those scans via email. I would then go through the file folder, document by document, and fill out a Word document with all of the important details, like dates, authors, and descriptions of what the document is about. My advisor, Sarah Willadsen, who oversees Adult Services at the library, helped show me the process and helped me whenever I had a question. It was fascinating to see inside the folders and learn more about Prescott history, as I realized I knew very little about the place where I live. The folders I worked on this week were about the history of Acker Park and the Prescott Airport, and they were mainly full of old newspaper articles. I can’t wait to learn more about important places and events in Prescott history.
Besides my internship, I also started my research into my question by watching two videos about libraries and preservation. The first one was a presentation given by a librarian from the University of Oxford entitled “Remember, Remember: Libraries, Archives, and the Social Importance of Preserving Knowledge.” It talked more about preservation and destruction of libraries throughout history and even in the present and how important it is for society to preserve that knowledge. The second one was another presentation given by a public librarian from Oklahoma entitled “Preserving and Sharing Local History Through Digitization,” and it focused more on the importance of digitization in local libraries and local communities. The librarian described a process very similar to what I am doing now at the Prescott library. I knew generally that preserving history is important and can be very helpful, but these videos helped emphasize that importance all the more and illuminate the many ways this knowledge helps communities both in the present and in the future. It is scary to imagine what would happen if all of our history is destroyed and all of the perspectives and stories of people throughout the years are lost forever.
Video sources:
CHOICE Media Channel. “Remember, Remember: Libraries, Archives, and the Social Importance of Preserving Knowledge.” YouTube, YouTube, 2024, www.youtube.com/watch?v=llZyayQQwRE.
Library 2.0. “Preserving and Sharing Local History through Digitization.” YouTube, YouTube, 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u_Bce8iWtY.
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