This is the newest post in our There’s an Archivist for That! series, which features examples of archivists working in places you might not expect.  COPA member Rachel Seale, Outreach Archivist at Iowa State University, brings you an interview with Danielle Nowak, the Digital Assets Librarian at the Morton Arboretum in the Sterling Morton Library in Lisle, Illinois.

Danielle Nowak graduated from Purdue University Calumet with a Bachelor’s Degree in History in 2015, followed by a Master’s of Library Science Degree from Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) in 2017.

After graduating with her MLS, Danielle worked as a Reference/Instruction Librarian at Prairie State College and the University of St. Francis before landing her permanent gig at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois.

You can visit www.daniellenowakmls.org to learn more about Danielle’s past and current work and professional experience.

How did you get your gig?

I began working at The Morton Arboretum in late 2017 as the Access Services Librarian. Before earning my MLS I had interned and worked in various library settings and knew that I ultimately wanted to end up in a position where I would be working with archival collections. However, the challenging job market did not allow me to do that right away. As an undergraduate and graduate student I worked full-time as a manager at Panera Bread, while also picking up library and archival internships and jobs on top of that. Between school and working multiple jobs at the same time, I essentially worked 7 days a week for six years. Despite the trials and tribulations I went through in getting to this point, I never took my eyes off my end goal of getting a full-time archives job.

When I saw the opening for the Access Services Librarian role at The Morton Arboretum it was pretty much love at first sight. As someone that loves the outdoors, nature, history, and libraries, I was super excited to see that a position like this even existed. I applied in July-August, had my first and second interviews in September-October and then was hired in December. My original position as the Access Services Librarian had a term limit of two years. Close to the end of those two years, the Digital Assets Librarian position opened up and I applied for it and accepted the position.

Tell us about your organization.

Founded in 1922 by Joy Morton (founder of the Morton Salt Company), The Morton Arboretum is a 1,700 acre tree museum that is located in Lisle, Illinois. On these 1,700 acres are 222,000 live plants, representing nearly 4,300 taxa from around the world. The Arboretum conducts scientific research on tree and health improvement, collects and displays trees for study and enjoyment, offers educational programming for adults and children, and presents nature-related activities year round for people of all ages and interests.

The grounds are also home to a Visitor Center, Children’s Garden, Maze Garden, miles of hiking trails, a Herbarium, Plant Clinic, and the amazing Sterling Morton Library.

The Sterling Morton Library was opened in 1963 in memory of Sterling Morton, Joy Morton’s son. Interestingly, the library building itself was designed by the Chicago architect, Harry Weese, as an addition to The Arboretum’s Administration Building.

To add to the library’s uniqueness, the May T. Watts Reading Garden is attached to the library. The Reading Garden was constructed as a permanent monument to May Theilgaard Watts, a renowned American naturalist, author, poet, and educator. The Reading Garden makes for an exceptional place for quiet study or work.

Describe your collections.

At the Sterling Morton Library we aim to collect resources that will assist our staff and members in supporting The Arboretum’s mission and work. In addition to our archival collections, we also have circulating, e-book, journal, artwork, nursery catalog, landscape plans, and rare book collections.

My work is primarily focused on our archival collections – both physical and digital.

The Library houses the institutional archives of The Morton Arboretum. These materials include documents and photographs that detail and describe The Arboretum’s development, past, and present; institutional and staff publications; photographs of plants taken on Arboretum grounds; photographs and documents pertaining to ex-situ plant collecting trips; and an assortment of other materials that help document The Arboretum’s existence and impact.

The Library also houses and collects materials related to the Morton Family. With The Arboretum’s centennial approaching in 2022, digitizing the materials from the Collection of Morton Family Materials has become one of our priorities in the library. Right now, myself and a team of dedicated library volunteers are working to digitize and catalog our collection of Morton family correspondence, transcribe handwritten letters from said collection, and ultimately make the collection as accessible as possible.

Our fastest growing collections are our digital photograph collections, the largest being the Arboretum Image Bank, Collection of John Hagstrom Photographs, and the Living Collections Departmental Photographs. The Arboretum Image Bank is a series within The Morton Arboretum Records (our institutional collection) and contains photographs taken primarily by Arboretum staff of events at The Arboretum, work taking place at The Arboretum or off-site, and other Arboretum exhibitions and programming. We have contributors from our marketing, interpretation, and living collections departments transferring images on a regular basis.

Our other two largest digital photograph collections are related to plants and trees. Our Living Collections Departmental Photographs collection contains photographs of plants and trees that have been taken by an Arboretum staff member and an Arboretum volunteer. In these photographs, the two photographers aimed to capture images of woody plants around the Arboretum and Midwest. In addition to photographing just the entire plant, they also focused on taking pictures of specific parts of the plant or tree.

Our other collection of plant and tree photographs is the Collection of John Hagstrom Images. John Hagstrom is a long-time Arboretum volunteer that set out to photograph every type of plant at the Arboretum, each of its part, and in each season. While the project is still in progress, so far, John has donated over 10,000 images that we are actively incorporating into our digital collections.

What are some challenges unique to your collections?

I would say one of the biggest challenges that is unique to our collections is having a good grasp on plant names and naming conventions. Oftentimes, plants will have multiple common names or their name will have changed over time. Since plant photographs make up a huge part of our digital collections and we have searchers with varying plant knowledge, it is imperative that we are able to incorporate multiple names into our plant name’s keyword and also keep our naming convention consistent. Additionally, prior to being hired at the Arboretum, I did not have a strong background in botany. So, there has been a bit of a learning curve when it comes to plant names and parts, but I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about them and seeing myself become more knowledgeable on the topic. 

What is your favorite part of your job?

My favorite part of my job is the people I get to work with and assist. Because our collections encompass so many different topics (local history, botany, institutional records, etc.) I am always getting a variety of questions and tasks that keep me on my toes. I appreciate this because it helps facilitate an environment of learning that really helps me thrive.

Stay tuned for future posts in the “There’s an Archivist for That!” series, featuring stories on archivists working in places you might not expect. If you know of an archivist who fits this description or are yourself an archivist who fits this description, the editors would love to hear from you—share in the comments below or contact archivesaware@archivists.org to be interviewed for ArchivesAWARE!

This is the newest post in our There’s an Archivist for That! series, which features examples of archivists working in places you might not expect.  COPA member Rachel Seale, Outreach Archivist at Iowa State University, brings you an interview with Ilana Short, the Vault Manager for Invenium.

Ilana Short, MA has an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and a master’s degree in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University. Ilana is currently the Vault Manager for Inveniem, a technology and archival company in Los Angeles, California. Ilana has previously held positions as the Manager of Visitor Services and Education with Bellagio Gallery of Fine Arts and the Photography Collections Manager for the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas.

How did you get your gig?

I honestly sort of fell into it, which is of course not what people want to hear, as I know how hard it is to get a position working in archives. But, it really is the truth in this case!

I had spent most of my career working in museums, and I had done everything from education and visitor services to working with collections. Collections was really my favorite and where I focused my career, and I had been working at the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas managing the photography collections and archive. I then became more involved with the Curator of Manuscripts, and worked with her on cataloging and developing taxonomies for the photo collections, in addition to developing and curating exhibits. I discovered I had a knack for cataloging, and really enjoyed the work as well! I had been working closely with the archivist for a sister organization, the Las Vegas News Bureau, when she came across the job posting for Vault Manager at Inveniem on the SAA message board. She forwarded it to me with a note that said “this sounds like you!”

I have a personal passion for music, and many things I enjoyed doing in my free time revolved around music and concerts, and the job posting mentioned working in the music industry. I really went back and forth on applying for a little while, since the job was in Los Angeles, and I live in Las Vegas, but I did apply a couple days later.

From there, things moved fairly quickly, at least for a job in the museum and archives world. I applied in late summer, had a few rounds of interviews, and started in November of 2018. I had expected that my husband, kids, and I would all move to Los Angeles, but it hasn’t actually worked out that way. I am still commuting weekly, but now I am working from home more with the pandemic.

Tell us about your organization.

Inveniem is a small, private technology and archival company and we work primarily with living musicians and the estates of former musicians. Our client list, with rare exceptions, is completely confidential. What we specialize in, though, is helping our clients archive their personal memorabilia and possessions, as well as helping them monetize those assets if they choose to do so. We employ a staff of professional archivists, most of whom have MLIS degrees, and have developed our own schema and taxonomic structures for cataloging our client’s assets. We also choose the best long term storage and preservation options for our client’s assets as well. As Vault Manager, my job is to oversee the archivists, as well as developing strategic methods for cataloging assets and monetization plans, and creating work flow procedures for each of our clients.

Describe your collections.

The collections that we work with vary from client to client, but because our clients are musicians, they tend to contain a lot of the same types of objects. The assets that we work with typically include photographic materials (photos, slides, negatives, and transparencies), tour books, merchandise from tours, stage and video costumes, awards (like gold records and Grammy Awards), instruments, posters, and personal memorabilia. Being a photo archivist by trade, the photographic collections are always my favorites to work with!

One client that we are allowed to talk about is Wiz Khalifa, and most of the objects we worked with in his collection were clothing and shoes. We really excel at receiving a lot of disparate objects and turning them into cohesive collections – we categorize the objects, assign barcodes, photograph or scan each object, create metadata, and ingest the metadata into our database.

What are some challenges unique to your collections?

One of the biggest challenges is our confidentiality. It’s absolutely essential to our business but it does make it more difficult to participate in things that archivists normally would for professional development, like presenting at conferences. It’s also hard on a personal level because you might be a tremendous fan of an artist you are working with and you can’t tell anyone what you are doing! Aside from that, we face the challenges anyone in other archives face, especially how to organize information so that our clients can interact with it in a way that makes sense to them, as they aren’t archivists.

What is your favorite part of your job?

Where do I begin? In a lot of ways I have really found my “dream job.” Yes, I get to meet rock stars from time to time, but honestly my favorite thing is working with objects that I know no one else has ever seen. Some of our clients are artists that I really enjoy listening to, so getting to see lyrics in their handwriting, or photos from their travels are fascinating to me. I also love that the job constantly brings new challenges to solve and that I have to continuously be creative in many ways to bring new initiatives to our clients.

Stay tuned for future posts in the “There’s an Archivist for That!” series, featuring stories on archivists working in places you might not expect. If you know of an archivist who fits this description or are yourself an archivist who fits this description, the editors would love to hear from you—share in the comments below or contact archivesaware@archivists.org to be interviewed for ArchivesAWARE!

Courtesy of Kat Siddle.

This is the newest post in our There’s an Archivist for That! series, which features examples of archivists working in places you might not expect.  COPA member Rachel Seale, Outreach Archivist at Iowa State University, brings you an interview with Kat Siddle, the Sample  Librarian for the Historical Garment Archive at lululemon athletica.

As a self-described “clothes librarian”, Kat Siddle manages the historical garment archive at lululemon athletica’s headquarters in Vancouver, BC. During her 12 year career, Kat has worked in public, academic, and special libraries, with a short stint in copywriting.

How did you get your gig?

It’s a long story!

I’m technically a librarian, not an archivist. And I got this job because I left libraries for copywriting.

After I graduated, my first full-time position was at a public law library. I liked my job, but after a few years, I started feeling like it was time to move on. I didn’t quite know what to do next. Library jobs were scarce and public law libraries are pretty unusual institutions. I didn’t have an obvious next step. I went back to the drawing board and started applying for non-library jobs. I got a job as a junior a copywriter at lululemon athletica, the company that invented yoga pants. I didn’t have any experience, but I was interested in the apparel industry and I was a good writer. I didn’t know if I would ever end up in libraries again. I did copywriting and content management at lululemon for 2.5 years – and then a role in the archives opened up.

Now I’m librarian running an archive. And instead of books or documents, my archive is filled with clothes. It’s a hybrid library-archive space, because employees can check items in and out, and they’re able to self-serve if I’m not available.

Tell us about your organization.

lululemon is company that makes yoga and fitness clothing, plus accessories and clothes for everyday. It’s known for having an intense culture. It’s very outgoing, sporty and goal-driven—which was a big change for me!

Garment racks are absolutely essential. They’re my bookcarts. They’re the best way to organize and transport clothing in a workspace. Courtesy of Kat Siddle.

lululemon is a vertical company, which means that we create everything in-house. We develop our own special fabrics and design our own garments, and sell them in our own stores. This means there’s lots of opportunities for information professionals. Right now, there are three librarians/archivists working here.

Describe your collections.

Right now, my collections all contain clothing and accessories. I have a few other products, like bottles of skincare and cans of lululemon-branded beer that we created for our annual half-marathon.  We keep the lululemon products that come out globally every season, plus products made by our Lab line and our little-sister company, Ivivva. Ivivva made clothing for girls. The Ivivva brand will be closing soon, so right now I’m working on transitioning that collection from a “working collection” that needs to be referenced by merchants and designers to a historical collection. I want to capture the aesthetic character of the brand and really honor all the hard work that went into it.

Some day, I would love to keep designer’s sketches and other artifacts from the design process, because I find that fascinating.

What are some challenges unique to your collections?

One challenge is that our accessions are driven by the company’s productivity. The company has been growing, so the amount of archival garments that I’m keeping is increases every quarter—but my space remains the same. So I’m always on the verge of a space crisis.

Another challenge is defining what makes up a meaningful or useful collection. I don’t always know how or why people are using my collections, which can make planning and weeding a challenge.

Behind the scenes at a clothing company. Piles of mannequins are pretty common, and I almost don’t find them creepy anymore. Courtesy of Kat Siddle.

What is your favorite part of your job?

I love that I have the chance to apply my skills in a design-driven environment. I always wanted to be a special librarian, but many of those positions deal with dry subject matter that doesn’t inspire me the way clothing does. I love working with colours and fabrics. It’s just inherently interesting to me. And I’m always learning — there’s so much I still want to learn from the fields of archives and museum sciences.

I keep collections of all kinds of clothing and accessories. For some reason, the scrunchie collection is one of my favourites. Courtesy of Kat Siddle.

Stay tuned for future posts in the “There’s an Archivist for That!” series, featuring stories on archivists working in places you might not expect. If you know of an archivist who fits this description or are yourself an archivist who fits this description, the editors would love to hear from you—share in the comments below or contact archivesaware@archivists.org to be interviewed for ArchivesAWARE!