Staff Profile: Cale McCammon

Written by: Cale McCammon

Cale hard at work processing
items from the photographs collection.

My name is Cale McCammon, and I’ve just started as an archival fellow here at the University Archives and Special Collections. I’m fresh out of graduate school, new to Delaware, and I’m ready to get my hands dirty. You can learn a little about my bio on the Contributors page, or you can continue reading and get to know me a little better.

DSU Archives: How did you decide you wanted to be an archivist?

Cale: While a student at UVA, I studied abroad in England and Ireland. We toured different cultural institutions like the British Library, and I suppose I got caught up in the mystique of things. After doing some research, it seemed like the profession would be a logical marriage of the subjects I was studying in college (English and history), and so I decided to dive into graduate school at UNC.

DSU Archives: What excites you the most about working at Delaware State University?

Cale: Everything, really! But the fact that the DSU’s archives is so young and beginning to grow makes it even more exciting for me. In this context, you can really make a difference. You can build ties with the community, you can communicate why it’s important to have an archive, and you can make those first noteworthy collections available to researchers. By the end of my stay here, I expect I’ll be as attached to the project as I am to my cats!

DSU Archives: What are your favorite materials to work with, and why?

Cale: It’s difficult for me to pick a favorite, but I will say that I am excited to start processing our collection of photographs. Because photographs are visual, they can often immediately communicate historic value to audiences, both in-person and online, and identifying people in them sometimes becomes a puzzle of its own. I expect to highlight some interesting finds over the next several months, so be sure to visit our blog again!