Information Sharing

On Thursday, July 26, 2012, Cara Sabolcik and Andrew P. Hastings of St. John's College visited the Sylvia Gaither Garrison Library (SGGL). Cara is the Public Services Librarian of the Greenfield Library at St. John's College, and Andrew is her student aide. Michael Janakis, Hodson Intern at the SGGL, has known Cara for a while, and they are both from Pittsburgh. Michael will attend the same Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program at the University of Pittsburgh as Cara, once he begins his studies in the fall.

The purpose of their visit today was to share information between our two institutions regarding photo preservation and organization techniques. Since this is the subject of Michael's internship, he and Cara were able to coordinate to have her come to see the work he has been doing at the SGGL. Our archivist, Lynn Waller, was able to share his knowledge and experience with Cara and Andrew regarding our photo processing and organizational techniques.

While they were here, we were able to share with them some results of research that Michael undertook, with Cara's help in the St. John's College archives, to date and contextualize a photograph of Alex Haley at St. John's College. Michael was able to fill Cara in on the results of his research since they had last spoken, and explain his research process and sources of information for the photograph. Michael spent many hours and followed a few false leads chasing down information about Alex Haley's visit to St. John's College. Unfortunately, this can often be the case when researching photographs, which is why research for collections can be so expensive and time-consuming. Michael was also able to share other research which he has been undertaking for an upcoming presentation.

Lynn was able to dialogue with Cara about various processing techniques and methods of organizing photographs, and was able to share some advice on various aspects of photo archivism. He brought out the SGGL's oldest photographs, found in an 1872 family Bible.

After we had finished our meeting, Lynn led the group on a brief tour of the BDM, highlighting especially our rare books collection and ways in which our manuscripts and rare books are incorporated into our exhibits, particularly our exhibit entitled Flee: Stories of Flight from Maryland in Black and White.

We hope that Cara and Andrew had a wonderful time at the SGGL, as we certainly had a wonderful time hosting them. We look forward very much to seeing them again in the future, and hope for further means of connecting our two institutions.

Pictured left to right: Cara Sabolcik, Andrew P. Hastings, & Michael Janakis