Do your best to get work experience as early and often as possible. Do not worry too much about whether or not your first job is directly related to what you want to do further down the line, especially if you are not even sure what that is yet. A seemingly low-level position can have a lot of room for growth and new experiences.
Jane Kelly ’10
- Current Job
Archivist, Tufts Digital Collections & Archives - At Skidmore
English and History Major | Skidmore Irish Dance Club | Skidmore Wombats Ultimate Frisbee - Internships
Woody Guthrie Archives Summer Intern | Museum of Science, Boston Collections Department Intern - After Skidmore
Digital Archives Specialist, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard | Historical & Special Collections Ass't, Harvard Law School Library - Awards
English Department Senior Capstone honors | History Department Senior Capstone honors | Lee History Prize | Phi Alpha Theta member
About Jane
Over the past 15 months, I have been responsible for web archiving material related to #metoo at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. This work has consisted of identifying websites and hashtags to collect, preserve, and provide access to. I’ve had to consider ethical issues surrounding this type of archival collection, troubleshoot technical issues related to the web captures, and think about how to best contextualize and describe the material in the collection.
I found my way into this job by way of museum and then special collections work at various institutions in the Boston area. It took me a few years after finishing college to figure out what I wanted out of my career and what I enjoyed enough to do full-time. I eventually discovered that I not only love working in archives, but am particularly interested in digital archives. Even though I was very much a humanities student, double majoring in History and English, I’ve discovered that I love the technical side of archives.