I Bid Thee Adieu
By: Anna Dinkel (she/her/hers)
As I sit here and ponder my last blog post, I first want to say a huge thank you to the UW Madison Archives for giving me an opportunity to work at such an amazing place. What a great place to be. A special thank you also goes out to Katie, my boss here at the Archives, and Troy, who both took a chance on hiring me! I have learned so much in the past ten months I have been here. If you are wondering where I will be headed, reader, I am going to be starting a new reference position soon at the Verona Public Library, a similar job, with a little different flair. If you are ever in the area please feel free to stop by and say “hi,” or ask me a really puzzling reference question! :)
However, don’t worry, this blog post is not just a list of thank-yous. Mainly I want to talk about some really big projects we have been busy with at the Archives. This has required us to become really familiar with those pesky search terms again within our catalog. And sometimes, when things get really desperate the good ole’ CTRL + F in our own guides, finding aids, and acquisition lists. One of the bigger projects I have been a part of is putting together all of our material on Civil and Environmental Engineering here at UW-Madison. It has been interesting, considering most of our materials ended up having to be hand-searched from finding aids and series guides. For some reason, the UW Libraries catalog search just didn’t bring up as much as I would like-- and it ended up being much easier to look through our personal documentation to find resources. I felt inclined to do this, because with such an established major I figured there had to be more than what the catalog was telling me. In the end it really did come together, and I think the researcher will be pleased with what we found. Of special interest to me at least, were the Special Committee on War History records, 1945-1951, you can take a look at the record here: https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/9949638853602122. If you just read the description, “It contains the reports of the wartime activities of the College of Agriculture, Army Specialist Training Program, the Engineering, Science and Management War Training Program, Medical School, Committee on Occupational Deferment, and Personnel Council and Office of Veterans Affairs,” and “all ROTC members of the Army Specialist Training Program, the Women's Army Corp Physical Therapist Training Program, Medical Students, and the students in the Civil Affairs Training Program.”[1] I found it fascinating how UW-Madison shifted during the tide of WWII to fit the needs of wartime, and how many UW-Madison students contributed as well.
We have also been working away at a project about the Elvehjem Building and the Chazen Art Museum. After pulling materials we realized a plethora of blueprints and maps were also available on the buildings. Now while the map case drawer is not my favorite, I can thoroughly appreciate its contents-- especially when it comes to the maps we have of campus from the 19th and early 20th century. I am excited to see what these two projects yield, and I am glad I could be a part of them as well. As someone who did not complete their undergraduate at UW-Madison, it is fascinating to learn about the campus history, and see it progress through the years.
That’s about all the space I have here folks. It has been a great ten months, and a great eight here on Tumblr! So… as my title says: I bid thee adieu!
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“Karl Paul Link Papers,” UW Madison Libraries Catalog, UW Madison Archives, March 6, 2020, https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/9957650093602122.
