Students of the Stacks

Niah Edwards

Hi, my name is Niah! I’m an undergrad student studying television, radio and film at Newhouse. I’ve worked at the Special Collections Research Center since the first semester of my freshman year. It feels surreal to be leaving a job and a community that has treated me so well these past four years and has been a truly meaningful part of my college experience.

In my role as a Public Services Assistant, I regularly retrieved and re-shelved rare books and manuscripts from the stacks. Whenever materials were requested as a reproduction order, I would scan hundreds of photographs, book pages and documents on the BookEye. I occasionally would sort and organize call slips for materials that were pulled for instruction or researcher use. During my first year at SCRC, I was so spooked by the stacks and was constantly paranoid that something or someone was lurking amongst the shelves. I eventually got over this fear but would still occasionally look over my shoulder whenever things got too quiet. Some of my favorite memories at SCRC involve coming back from the semester breaks and being greeted with a welcome card and gift bag. It was so nice to know that I was thought of and appreciated, and it genuinely made me excited to come into work. I want to especially thank Julia for the kindness, patience and consideration she has shown me over the past four years. She is truly an amazing boss and an amazing person to know!

Jiaying Wang

I worked at SCRC as an undergrad majoring in English and textual studies with a minor in information management technology. I got introduced to this space through two English classes that I just so happened to take in the same semester that both required a large amount of time to be spent at SCRC looking at materials.

Part of my responsibilities as an Undergrad Assistant were to organize the call slips for pulled materials, fulfill reproduction orders, along with any reshelving or retrieval of materials. It was here where I got to use a microfilm reader for the first time! One thing I tell everyone about was the time I stumbled upon a scroll housed in a decommissioned Howitzer shell. I was reshelving something next to this giant wooden box when curiosity got hold of me, and I just had to peek at what was inside. Through similar methods, I have also seen a very rare collection of William Blake plates, some old Syracuse medallions and a very cool map of what New York’s road systems used to look like.

These experiences are actually a large part of what made me want to pursue a career in the libraries! I submitted my graduate school application one hour before the deadline. The very next day, I was accepted into the MLIS program and will continue working here during my graduate years. I am eternally grateful for all the friends I’ve made and the skills I’ve developed during my time here, and I look forward to another year or so at the top floor of Bird Library!

Iman Jamison

For the last two years, I have worked as an Instructional Assistant while completing my master's in library and information science. Many of my day-to-day instructional responsibilities have included pre-session research, material retrievals and reshelving, session set-up and facilitation of student experiences in the classroom. I thoroughly enjoyed the work it took to curate archival materials unique to each class we facilitated at SCRC. I particularly enjoyed roaming the stacks, in search of one material, but being astounded by another; finding the next amazing book or manuscript collection that will spark interest in the students we interact with.

One of my favorite class materials to pull would be chapbooks, and particularly zines! Cheap and easy to produce, chapbooks are small booklets dating back to the 16th century. They were a way to bring literacy, politics and more to the public in an easy and digestible format. As history goes on, chapbooks became an accessible way to self-publish for the literary arts and topic enthusiasts; in comes fanzines! (Fan)zines are homemade booklets that allow for unbounded creative freedom, ranging from sci-fi to poetry to punk. More importantly, they are relatable and allow students to see themselves in the archive. Zines and chapbooks represent what I love about special collections, the ephemeral creations of everyday individuals who make up the historical record.

My graduate degree has been made more impactful by each ephemeral experience I’ve had at SCRC. I am so privileged to have worked with such amazing coworkers, faculty and students and I will cherish these experiences as I move into the field of archival librarianship.

Philomena Kern

For the past two years, I have been pursuing a master’s degree in library and information science. During that time, I was hired to work in SCRC as the Student Archival Processing Assistant. It was very exciting to get this position, as this is what I was interested in pursuing as a career. In my role, I process special collections, which includes arranging materials and describing them, so that researchers can use them. I enjoy being able to learn about the history of the collections.

I enjoyed working on the Charlotte Holstein Papers. Charlotte Holstein advocated for women’s rights and Jewish rights. It was the first large collection that I had ever worked on, and I learned a great deal about how to arrange collections and how to create finding aids. I enjoyed learning about her life and civic work, and I was able to meet her on a couple separate occasions, which was wonderful.

It has been a really great experience working in SCRC and I’m incredibly grateful for the experience. I enjoyed getting to know everyone and will be sad to leave.

Anna Shuff

I worked in the University Archives and the Pan Am Flight 103/Lockerbie Air Disaster Archives while completing my master’s degree in library and information science. My primary (and favorite!) responsibility in my position was processing new collections, which involved surveying, organizing and housing historical materials, and creating finding aids so that researchers could find them in our databases. I also regularly assisted with answering reference questions about Syracuse University’s history and processed additions to pre-existing collections.

The project I was most excited to work on during my time in SCRC was processing the Syracuse University College of Medicine Records, a collection that I had hoped to work with since my first day on the job. The history of medicine has been an area of academic focus for me since I was an undergraduate, and I was thrilled to be able to apply my knowledge of the subject to my archival work.

Another highlight of my time here was conducting research for the exhibition Architectural Origins: Syracuse University Buildings, 1870-1970, which gave me a greater appreciation for the campus buildings that I walked past every day. I also loved learning how to handle and house historic textiles, which gave me the opportunity to work with some incredible items, including Edward Rimkunas’ beautifully preserved drum major uniform from the late 1930s.

Working in the Archives has been one of the most rewarding and valuable parts of my time at Syracuse University, and I am so grateful for the time I have spent here.

Calvin Silver

I worked at the Special Collections Research Center as a Public Services Assistant while completing my master’s degree in library and information science. I spent most of my time working at SCRC interacting with patrons and doing archival research. I cannot adequately share the breadth and depth of the research I have done to assist patrons with their inquiries, as it would take dozens of pages, but I have had some especially memorable research moments. Throughout my time here, I have been able to hold an Oscar, see manuscripts with Langston Hughes’s handwritten edits, read love letters written between Margaret Bourke-White and her husband, and page through previously classified original documentation of a nuclear reactor project in Greenland from the 1950s. I’ve pulled books so tiny that they fit on my index finger and books so large that it takes two people to move them onto tables. I have seen letters from monks complaining to Marcel Breuer how much they disliked the monastery he designed for them (it was apparently quite noisy and very difficult to clean) and become an expert-for-a-day in Syroco corkscrews. My favorite aspect of this job, however, has always been getting to tell patrons that I have found exactly what they are looking for. Often, patrons that visit the reading room have been doing research on their topic for a very long time and the ability to facilitate moments of discovery is second to none.

Prior to this role, I worked in my undergraduate institution’s archives and special collections, so I was thrilled to be able to continue this work with SCRC. I have spent the past two years absorbing as much information as possible to help me enter the field of archives and special collections as a professional. I am so grateful to every member of the SCRC staff who have provided support and mentorship that have set me up for success. Thank you to all of you who have made this experience so wonderful!