A Spring Internship in Archives
One of the remarkable things about archives and working in this field is discovering something new, something you did not know you wanted to know. Discovering people, places, and events you didn’t know existed until you uncover them through archival collections. The excitement is contagious; you want to be able to share these things with the greater community, the researchers, and the curious-hearted. This is why archivists do what they do—at least that’s what rings true for me.
My name is Jen Leahy, and I was the Archives Intern in the Archives Department at BPL Special Collections from February to May of 2025, funded through the generous support of the Associates of Boston Public Library. I initially wanted a degree in photography, but after some reconsidering, I put off school for a while. I still love photography, and that is my creative outlet. I eventually went back to school to finish my BA, this time in museum studies. I love art in general and wanted to be able to work behind the scenes in a museum. This was during the pandemic so there were not a lot of job opportunities in the museum field. I didn’t want to limit myself to just art, so I decided to go for a Master of Library and Information Sciences degree, with a concentration in Archives Management at Simmons University. Archives opened a whole new world to me— a place to keep fostering my curiosity and never-ending quest to learn.
This is me in action in the stacks and reshelving the new sturdy boxes for the UrbanArts, Inc. records.
During my time as an archives intern at BPL, one of my projects was stabilizing the UrbanArts, Inc. records as part of the BPL Archives Department’s large-scale retrospective accessioning project. The records of the Boston-based non-profit UrbanArts, Inc. provide insight into public art administration, urban planning, and contemporary Boston history. The collection is currently unprocessed and originally consisted of over 112 records boxes. There is a preliminary finding aid online that provides a minimal box-level inventory, so the collection is findable and can be accessed for research; however, the collection still needs additional work before it can be made fully accessible to the world. Because the box contents were not all stable enough to be used in the Special Collections reading room, one of my tasks was to physically stabilize the materials, including putting them into new, sturdy boxes, ensuring that the collection remains safe for future use. I added updated box numbers to the inventory as the materials became organized and consolidated. Each box was also assigned a barcode so they can be tracked in our reference and retrieval system. This information in the inventory will be used to update and improve the online finding aid later this year.
A view of an old box with a folder being surveyed to go in the new box on the right.
Space holders are put in the new cartons to ensure that the folders stay upright as they are filled.
How the project started (boxes on the right) and how it progressed (on the left).
While surveying all the materials in the collection, I discovered a photo project called “Along the Elevated: Photographs of the Orange Line” or “Along the EL” for short. This project documented the people and neighborhoods along the MBTA Orange Line before the elevated portion was taken down and the Orange Line restructured. So much was documented about this project in the UrbanArts, Inc. records. As a photography enthusiast, this piqued my interest. The excitement of going through this section of the UrbanArts collection filled me with curiosity and a desire to know more. Surely, other people would find this just as exciting—people researching public transportation, artists, and community members who have ties to these neighborhoods. Photos from the project, acquired as a separate collection, can be viewed on Digital Commonwealth.
A press release about the “Along the El” exhibit at BPL and its folder.
Another project I contributed to in the Archives Department was the DACS compliance project. DACS—Describing Archives: A Content Standard— is the set of rules used for describing archival collections. Through this project, BPL archivists are updating existing finding aids on archives.bpl.org to align with this standard, bringing consistency to description across the collections. By doing this work, a person can search through various finding aids, which gives context to each collection, and find that the information they seek for each collection is in the same place and the same format. Updating finding aids to comply with DACS also creates transparency about the BPL’s archival collections because each finding aid now has more clear and consistent information. This is why archival work is so important: to share information that has been held behind the scenes for some time. We want to put it out there, make it accessible, make it user-friendly; otherwise, it is of no use. There is something for everyone in archives, and we want to make it available for all.
My archives internship at BPL was a highly rewarding experience. The support, knowledge, and kindness of the staff I worked with gave me the space to ask the questions that did not come up in school. I learn best by doing, and having this opportunity helped to put all the theory into real action with tangible results. It was a perfect complement to my studies. I am incredibly grateful to the Associates of Boston Public Library for this opportunity. I just graduated with my MLIS (Master of Library and Information Sciences). Now I can now go out into the world and feel confident that this is the right field for me.