Diving into history : LIS in-service experience at the Black Archives of Mid-America

Abstract

"'Archives in Context' was a one-credit hour course offered over Spring Break 2017, running from Sunday, March 26 to Friday, March 31, which provided six LIS graduate students with archival field experience at the Black Archives of Mid-America (BAMA). Following a five-hour “Intro to Archives” lecture on Sunday in Columbia by Dr. Sarah Buchanan, we began our work the next day at the BAMA facility, located in the historic 18th and Vine District of Kansas City, and continued throughout the course of the week. Working under the supervision of BAMA's archivist Geri Sanders, her associate Bridget Haney, and Dr. Denice Adkins, we were able to employ archival practices in sorting out those collections which remained unprocessed and thus unavailable to the public. This entailed handling the materials and creating descriptive metadata which would then be converted into a finding aid to provide access. Overall, the goal was to develop a more complete understanding of the archival profession and the responsibilities that come with it."--Introduction.