{"id":2178,"date":"2023-05-16T08:23:43","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T12:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/?p=2178"},"modified":"2023-05-15T11:26:19","modified_gmt":"2023-05-15T15:26:19","slug":"graduate-assistant-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/2023\/05\/16\/graduate-assistant-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting on my Graduate Assistant Experience in Rare Books"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Alexis Voisard, MA Student in English, 2022-23 Rare Book Graduate Assistant<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
A stack of rare books with Alexis holding a book titled Story of Ohio<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Athens has been spoiled by beautiful weather, and I\u2019ve taken advantage by going around campus getting photos in some of my favorite spots wearing my graduation robe! It\u2019s starting to feel bittersweet going to classes and working at the library knowing I only have a few weeks left. In this post, I reflect on three things I\u2019m going to miss most from working as the 2022-2023 Rare Book Graduate Assistant.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Curating exhibits<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\"Alexis<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"Alexis<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve used the display case in the Dean\u2019s Suite of Alden\u2019s 5th<\/sup> Floor this year for curating two exhibits. Hours of research go into these exhibits, and I\u2019ve thoroughly enjoyed every part of the process. Sometimes choosing the books to go into the case is one of the hardest decisions\u2014especially with my spring 2023 exhibit<\/a> featuring women in the Edmund Blunden Collection. There were many women authors and even more books that Blunden collected by each of these women authors to choose from.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consistently I\u2019ve focused on curating exhibits that highlight underrepresented authors in special collections, especially Black and women authors. In designing my fall 2022 exhibit<\/a>, it was neat to see the historical and economic impacts that Black community members made on Athens. I had walked by the historical marker on Court Street that remembers the Berry Hotel, and it was great to read more about Mattie and Edward Berry from items in our Ohioana Collection to learn about the legacy they left on Athens.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt like I built a special relationship with the Ohioana Collection and the Blunden Collection with how much time I invested in designing my exhibits to tell a story about these collections and organize books that stand out with a theme in mind. Overall, creating these exhibits helped me build a stronger connection with the collections that I work with every day, and being able to share my explorations and discoveries in the form of an exhibit was truly one of my favorite experiences working as a GA in Rare Books! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Discovering cool finds<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I had the pleasure of pulling many different books for readers with all kinds of research interests. As I roamed the shelves, I would take creative liberty to check out interesting finds close to the books that readers requested, and I was always surprised by what I found. Friends and family were always curious about my job, and I\u2019m always looking to increase visibility of what rare book librarians do. So, whenever I stumbled upon a fun discovery, I would snap a picture and share it with friends and family, calling it a \u201cCool Find of the Day.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
A color illustration of Garden of the Gods in Colorado from The Great Southwest<\/em><\/a>, 1914<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Roaming the Travel Collection led to many fun finds of places I had traveled to. I shared one \u201cCool Find of the Day\u201d with my parents, a picture from The Great Southwest<\/em><\/a> (1914) of Garden of the Gods where we traveled last summer. They were absolutely delighted, and it sparked conversations about the memories we made there.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"A<\/a>
A pop-up green and red Wild Columbine flower from A Pop-Up Field Guide to North American Wildflowers<\/a><\/em> by Shawn Sheehy (2011). <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"An<\/a>
An assorted collection of miniature books.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

I also remember surprising my friends with finds that they didn\u2019t expect, like artists\u2019 books, which especially challenge what we traditionally identify as a book, like miniature books or this artist book by Shawn Sheehy<\/a> with beautiful, color pop ups of different flower species. Historical finds always sparked interesting conversations, especially with my friends in WGSS courses with items like an 1878 copy of What Girls Ought to Know<\/em><\/a>. We had great conversations about how we would \u201ctalk back\u201d to this author and what kind of content we would include in a modern version based on our intersectional knowledge of gendered experiences.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m going to miss sharing these cool finds with my friends and family, especially the dialogue that followed. Getting to share what I encountered everyday made an otherwise standard librarian practice more special, making me feel more connected to my friends and family and connecting with many diverse research interests to support students and faculty using our rare books.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Working with rare books<\/strong> <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"Alexis
Alexis studies a 1799 rare book of Anna Seward\u2019s poetry, Original Sonnets on Various Subjects: and Odes Paraphrased from Horace<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m also going to miss working with so many diverse books on a daily basis. I remember my first day exploring the rare book collection and feeling amazed by the old and modern books around me, and also feeling slightly overwhelmed as to how to take care of them. Besides opening a few rare books passed down in my own family, I had never really worked with rare books before starting my GA experience, so I\u2019m so grateful for Miriam Intrator\u2019s knowledge and patience to teach me all about handling these amazing materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming from an English background, I was eager to learn all the new terminology used by the rare books discourse community, with particular words that I’ve come to appreciate and look for in working with rare books. One word is frontispiece, which is an illustration or photograph found at the front of the book facing a book\u2019s title page. I encountered many frontispieces of women authors I discovered in the Edmund Blunden collection; Mary Augusta Ward\u2019s frontispiece is one of my favorites:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
A black and white frontispiece painted portrait of Mary Augusta Ward from
The Life of Mrs. Humphry Ward<\/a><\/em>, by her daughter, Janet Penrose Trevelyan<\/strong>, 1923<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From exploring the same Blunden collection, I also found many examples of marginalia, recognizable as notes or drawings added to a book by an author or reader. Blunden loved to leave notes in his books, with questions and reactions to poetry or commenting on World War I events that he experienced in real life. Also related to drawings, I had fun drawing manicula on a white board, an interactive element of Miriam Intrator\u2019s Meetings in the Margins exhibit<\/a>. Check out what manicula other visitors drew (below and online<\/a>)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Assorted<\/a>
Assorted manicula drawn on a white board by Alden Library visitors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Working with rare books has been one of my favorite experiences in my graduate program. I\u2019ve learned so much about what Alden\u2019s Special Collections has to offer and how valuable it is for the Ohio University community. After graduation, I\u2019m eager to continue working in higher education, where I can see myself thriving in the classroom and the library. Sharing a big thank you to Miriam Intrator and everyone else in the Special Collections department who has made this experience special! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alexis Voisard, MA Student in English, 2022-23 Rare Book Graduate Assistant  Athens has been spoiled by beautiful weather, and I\u2019ve taken advantage by going around campus getting photos in some of my favorite spots wearing my graduation robe! It\u2019s starting to feel bittersweet going to classes and working at the library knowing I only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"yes","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,26,43,42,29],"tags":[118,63,120,177,119,7,62],"class_list":["post-2178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibits","category-internships","category-rare-books","category-special-collections","category-student-workers","tag-artists-books","tag-athens","tag-edmund-blunden-collection","tag-graduate-students","tag-miniature-books","tag-poetry","tag-student-work"],"modified_by":"Miriam Intrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2178"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5121,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178\/revisions\/5121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ohio.edu\/library-archives-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}