Name: Amy Lundell
Organization: Maryville College
My role involves all aspects of archival work from every stage of archival processing (physical and digital) to providing access to our collections. I work closely with students, faculty, and staff of Maryville College as well as alumni, local community organizations, external academic researchers, family historians, and other members of the general public. I also oversee a small, dedicated group of alumni who volunteer weekly in the Archives.
My proudest digital preservation achievements include simply starting! Being a part-time lone arranger with a 200+ year backlog of physical material, simply having the opportunity and means to get started no matter how small is a big step. My first collection was just 6 files: three scanned early 19th century letters written by our first college president and the three corresponding transcriptions.
My top tips for other Preservica Starter users are:
(1) Make a test folder to play around with the system. Drag and drop, move files around, change metadata, test bulk edit, or whatever else you want to do.
(2) Don’t worry about having all the metadata added or perfected immediately. Just get the files into Preservica with basic information and flesh it out as time allows.
(3) Keep a list of controlled vocabulary for subject terms. I use a single spreadsheet with controlled vocabulary subject terms for both Preservica and ArchivesSpace. It allows me to be more consistent with subject terms across the board and gives me something to share in the future if I have others (such as student interns or volunteers) help me with descriptive metadata.
(4) Don’t be afraid to ask questions no matter how simple you think your question is. Someone else undoubtedly has the same question and hasn’t asked!
Something that would surprise people about me is that I have always liked math and almost decided to major in math in college.