DLSC Intern Ariana Pedigo.
My internship in the Kentucky Building was my first ever, so I was incredibly excited to work in the Kentucky Library Research Collections, as well as the Manuscript and Folklife Archives. I love how everyone in the building works together mutually to help one another out. After my nervousness wore off, I felt like I was part of a special group of friends whom all had the same goal to preserve, protect, and catalogue the items for future research, and to ensure that nothing happens to wipe these items from our history! The work that is completed by everyone in the Department of Library Special Collections (DLSC) is the work of guardian angels, who work to keep the lives of past individuals alive throughout time!
A miniature book from DLSC collections.
In the Kentucky Library, I got to handle many beautiful and old books, some that were written entirely in Latin, some that were incredibly small, and others that had breathtaking illustrations on their title pages! Some of the Latin titles, I would write down and go home to translate since I had taken an online Latin course in fall 2017! I learned how to Colibri books and catalogue them into an online system, ALMA. I also got better at reading Roman numerals that went higher than 12 (I was used to reading clocks with Roman numerals), as many of the books had their publication year listed in Roman numerals. Some of my favorite books that I got to work with were the miniature books, and some were on the topic of my archaeology concentration, like a book which covered the mound builders!
Working in Manuscripts was vastly different. When I started working with the George Twyman Wood collection, I knew it was fascinating, but I was still new to handling such old documents and I was terrified the entire time. I did not want to harm any of the important records! By the time I was sorting the William P. Hatcher collection, I was more comfortable with the old paper, and took more time looking at the documents and enjoyed the process of that collection more. If I could say anything about the William P. Hatcher collection, it would be that there is nothing quite like a mother’s love for her child. William P. Hatcher’s mother wrote him a letter almost every day of the year! It was very sweet, and she would almost always write some sort of variation of greeting, “My Darling One”, “My Dearest”, etc., it is beautiful to know, that although our individual lives may be short, our love may live on forever and touch someone we don’t even know!
I enjoyed my internship in DLSC. Everyone that I worked with there is an absolute darling, but I especially want to thank Jonathan Jeffrey for inviting me to intern in DLSC and teaching me about manuscripts. I also want to thank Joseph Shankweiler as well for teaching me about the rare books! On top of this, I found out that this internship carries a scholarship with it that is named for former DLSC librarian Connie Mills. It allows students to experience more than one area with DLSC during an internship. The scholarship is given once a year. If you are interested, or know someone who is, in the Connie Mills Special Collections Internship have them contact Jonathan Jeffrey at 270-745-5265 or jonathan.jeffrey@wku.edu