UCLA Information Studies: Fields of Endeavor || Featuring Tammi Kim (University of Delaware)

SAA @ UCLA presents “UCLA Information Studies: Fields of Endeavor.” The Fields of Endeavor series introduces UCLA Library and Information Studies program graduates and current interns who are out in the field taking knowledge learned in the program and putting it to use! We are excited to feature East Coast archivist, Tammi Kim.

Name: Tammi Kim
Graduation Year: 2011
MLIS Focus: Archives
Title and Site: Affiliate Assistant Librarian –
Manuscripts and Archives Department, University of Delaware | Newark, DE |

What do you do all day?
I am one of two project archivists hired to process the senatorial papers of Ted Kaufman and Joe Biden over the next two years. Ted Kaufman was Biden’s long-time chief of staff (1976-1995). He was specially appointed to the Senate when Biden became Vice President in 2009 and the papers from his office came to the University of Delaware after his term ended in 2011. Me and my co-archivist decided to start with his papers mainly because his collection is much, much smaller than Biden’s (pre-processing stats: 38 linear feet vs. around 2000 linear feet – congressional collections tend to get really hefty in terms of linear feet). I’ve been at this job for about two months now (and I previously worked at a political archives and research center in 2012), so most of my time right now is spent surveying every single box on the shelves to verify their contents and playing around with an Excel spreadsheet that lists box inventories for all the accessions that make up the collection. We’re also starting to sort all the data to determine potential subgroups, series, subseries, etc.

Right now we are definitely in the project planning and appraisal stage. At this point we are experimenting with various project management tools and creating lots of Gantt charts, timelines, and WBS (work breakdown structures), and estimating metrics for how long it should take us to complete specific steps of the project. Part of my job also includes working with the IT department in the library to build an electronic records workstation to accession and process the electronic records associated with the two collections. And we also know that we’re going to run into audiovisual materials from days of olde (VHS, audiocassettes, minicassettes, Umatic, etc.), so we’re also writing best practice policies and workflows for how to accession and process these formats.

Eventually someday (hopefully) we will also write the finding aid and maybe even come up with ideas on how the collection will be used for future exhibits and instruction sessions (the collection won’t be open for use until Biden has left public office for two years).  I’m also planning on coming up with a project that a graduate assistant from the Political Science department will work on and supervise him/her. And me and my co-archivist are already talking about future opportunities to potentially collaborate on a session proposal or paper about managing large hybrid collections. Right now I am just thankful that I have another peer archivist to bounce ideas off of and to manage this project. It can be easy to get overwhelmed by the volume of boxes we need to go through!