Dear Friends,
No need to tell you what a year it's been as we have all faced challenges and insecurities. As we close out this year, I hope that each of you is well and looking forward to the future.
2020 started out as a great year as the project to digitize the course catalogs was progressing smoothly. I had just finished uploading them to DSpace when the library team started to get the feeling that something was coming. The week before Delawareans were given stay-at-home orders the library team dropped everything and hustled to produce a series of YouTube tutorials demonstrating our virtual services and live chat. After a well-deserved weekend we suddenly found ourselves on our couches asking, "what now?" We thought that by the Easter season we'd be back in the office, but that possibility became bleaker. As an archivist without anything to archive a slow month quickly became a slow year. Some of you were able to send reference requests that were able to be fulfilled long-distance, and for that I was grateful. The value of having things digitized became apparently clear during this time.
This past fall we were able to return to the library two-days a week. When I came to my office for the first time in many months, I found everything exactly as I had left it...half finished. Piles of paper were spread out across the room. The stacks were separated into some sort of order that had once made sense to me, but that I was then straining remember. Why didn't I make notes? It took me a few weeks to review it all and reorganize it. During those endless spring and summer days at home I had been looking forward to once again making progress, but now I found myself with the odd sensation of moving backwards. With perseverance I eventually dug out my desk and found the bottom of my conference table.
At the beginning of this month, hope was once again in sight. Digitization projects have resumed! You can expect to see the Hornet newspapers (dating from 1928 to 2015) hitting our DSpace repository in early 2021. It is a relief to once again have a goal and see progress being made. Nothing makes me happier in my work than the manifestation of a new collection or resource. Speaking of "new", next year promises to be a significant milestone as we anticipate the acquisition of Wesley College and all of its records. Exciting adventures into unchartered territories are ahead!
I hope that you too are looking toward a brighter 2021, and I hope that you feel the warmth and peace of the Christmas season. Merry Christmas! I'll see you again next year.
Love,
Joy
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| Me and Busy, my coworker for 2020 |
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