by Theresa McAvoy – Collections Assistant 2025 (Practicum Student)

Over the summer as a Collections Assistant at the AVRC, through the Young Canada Works in Heritage Organizations program, I had the opportunity to work firsthand with art objects and archival material. The two main collections I worked with were the xDX study collection and the Pierre du Prey 35mm Slide collection.

For both collections, I was tasked with learning the cataloguing process for artifact conservation and access. This encompassed creating catalogue entries, metadata cleanup, and metadata enrichment, among other tasks. This cataloguing system elucidated the meticulous work and minute details that go into catalogue creation.

Aspects that might seem banal to some, like proper punctuation, capitalization, and precise measurements and physical descriptions of objects change how easily accessible entries become to researchers going through this database.

With this attention to detail in mind, I also became familiar with the Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT). The AAT is a vocabulary database dedicated to the Art and Architecture disciplines which is headed by the Getty Research Institute. They consolidate and universalize language and definitions so that organizations who use their parameters can ensure that the language carries over. In this way, we avoid discrepancies across institutions. This reinforced how important precise language is in cataloguing.If multiple institutions are housing works from the same collection—as is the case for the former Design Exchange collection—there needs to be a universal language so that those researching these objects can find everything with ease and so that there is little to no disparity. Our goal is to make these collections publicly and widely accessible, eliminating any barriers that researchers might encounter, as well as making this kind of research more approachable to all.

The Design Exchange collection taught me how to work within those parameters as well as how to take advantage of them to their fullest potential. Industrial design is less commonly referred to in an art historical context, so by giving it a place within these collections as well as within this already solidified language, we are advocating for its legitimacy and also considering where this language needs to be broadened or modified to be more inclusive.

ďťżPierre du Prey’s Slide Collection gave me the opportunity to consider materiality more closely, as I worked within the AAT’s framework to distinguish the vocabulary between a photograph of an architectural structure versus the architectural structure itself. This is where I would need to consider what kind of language would be most accessible to researchers without compromising accuracy in these entries. What would people think to research using our database, and how can we ensure the key terms they use will yield them the results they’re looking for?

My goal with these catalogue entries was to consolidate as much information as possible based on the physical objects at our disposal. This, however, led me to what might have been my favourite part of the task: the research and reading required for metadata enrichment. I got to dig deeper into the stories behind these objects, scouring hidden corners in old books and articles to bring life to these catalogue entries. It made me feel much more connected to the collection here and also made me recognize the wealth of information which we are working to consolidate for public accessibility. It reminded me of the importance of the work of archives and how this resource is indispensable. Not to mention, I got to flex my art historical research muscle further. There is nothing quite as rewarding as the feeling of skimming through an endless array of articles and finally finding a reference to a long-lost city which only one or two scholars have researched and being able to share that resource with others. 

This placement at the AVRC as a Collections Assistant has furthered my love and appreciation for the arts and heritage conservation. I am proud to say that I will be able to take the skills I have learned here with me further into my career in heritage following my studies.

The post Cataloguing the Archives appeared first on Audio-Visual Resource Centre.

by Tyler Doyle-Chenard – Collections Assistant 2024 (Practicum Student)

I came to my two semesters of practicum at the Audio-Visual Resource Center (AVRC) with three years of undergraduate studies in art and architectural history (AAH) and an interest in working in an art library or archival setting. My hands-on experience at the AVRC was primarily in cataloguing and digitizing many 35 mm slides of Versailles and Paris Hotel Particuliers, all part of a collection of 40,000 photographic slides donated by Pierre du Prey, a Canadian researcher and architectural historian. 

Not only did I learn the digitization process, but I also became interested in slides as archival records, vehicles through which we connect the past to the present and future. Slides are images and physical objects that embody a specific social and cultural experience, that of their author, a place, and a time.¹

As an object, the 35 mm slide is a transparent positive film with an image surrounded by a plastic, cardboard, or metal frame that measures 35 mm x 24 mm. Its name comes from its 35 mm width.²  Slide photography was created in the 1940s and gained popularity throughout the 1950s, 60s, 80s and 90s.³  During these years, professors and students in art and architectural history classes used projected slides as pedagogical resources. However, others like researchers, architects, and museum professionals used light tables and small handheld viewers when working with slides. Slide photographs were taken by researchers and other professionals like architects and professors to document their projects or provide the visual content of lectures and conferences. Universities and museums amassed extensive collections of slides that they produced, purchased, or received as donations. With the arrival of digital technology and new media platforms like computers and smartphones, 35 mm slides fell out of use. They were replaced by digital images stored in databases, which are easily downloadable for viewing and incorporated into visual presentation programs like PowerPoint or websites. Sadly, in the early 2000s, slide libraries and their collections were devalued and deaccessioned. Fortunately, that has not been the fate of the AVRC, which still houses a collection of over 250,000 35 mm slides. 

My experience with photographic slides comes from working with the du Prey slides, carefully handling them to transfer their content to digital format. However, with my interest in archiving, I started to think about how 35 mm slides in the du Prey image collection of architecture and built environments carry much history and are valuable documents that retain his visual interpretation of the sites.⁴  The slides are archival documents because of their content’s value, their unique perspective, and their materiality. ⁵  Materiality is the slide photograph as an object that exists in time and space.⁶  For example, a slide of Versailles ‘Petit Trianon’ taken by du Prey in 1987 is both material and intellectual. It is a physical object made of film, chemicals, and a framing mount. However, it also represents content expressed through du Prey’s chosen view and interpretation of the Petit Trianon and its environment on April 8, 1987, at 1 p.m. Du Prey’s motivation and purpose in photographing this eighteenth-century building are his own and remain open to interpretation for the viewer, the researcher, and the student.  

The ability of du Prey to select his views and manipulate his medium at a specific moment influences the architectural and contextual reading of the built environment. How du Prey captures historical context through photography is not simply or quickly snapping a shot with his 35 mm camera; he is not just applying a technical process. As a photographer, he constructs his images and expresses an architectural and historical past through the lens of the present. His decisions regarding lines, angle, light, and distance are likely not random; they correspond to the precise moment he takes the picture and encapsulates his ideas, values, beliefs, and experience as an architectural historian and photographer intuitively.⁷  His research projects for books, exhibitions, or teaching also inform his photographic decisions. His choices are many, but ultimately, as a photographer, he looks to produce objective documentation or aesthetic expression of architecture. 

With time, du Prey’s slide photographs become historical documents that connect the built environment of a past time to ours. For example, du Prey’s slide photographs of the Petit Trianon, dated August 1965 and April 1987, are now studied from the present perspective of 2024. Du Prey’s slide photographs contribute to a re-evaluation of architecture in relation to a vantage point corresponding to a specific moment, the date and time of his slide photograph, that fits into a precise socio-cultural context. The notion of historical consciousness can help us connect past, present, and future representations of architecture.  

His slides’ content and material form also contribute to a trajectory through time and space, making his slide collection an archival document. ⁸  For example, to define the history and usage of du Prey’s Petit Trianon slides, a researcher or archivist asks questions like: Have they been on loan to educational or cultural institutions for teaching or exhibition? Were they discussed in a lecture or text? Have the slides been for conservation treatments because of damage or as per standards of practice? How did they become part of the AVRC’s collection? Visual Resources Librarian Jasmine Burns of Cornell University writes, “Such information can be valuable to researchers in understanding the larger cultural context of the work itself or the artist’s [architect/architectural historian’s] larger body of work.”⁹  In other words, archiving du Prey’s 35 mm slide collection is helpful because it can support our understanding of the evolution of the built environment and its place within his body of work.  

 I enjoyed learning about 35 mm slides and conversations with Nancy Duff, Supervisor of Resources Services at the AVRC, regarding the value of the du Prey slide collections as original archival documents and markers of our understanding of Canadian and world cultural heritage.  

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by Etta Gerrits â€” Collections Assistant 2024 (Young Canada Works Program)

This summer, I had the chance to try something new as a Collections Assistant at the AVRC through the Young Canada Works summer program. Over the course of the summer, I got to sort and deaccession slides, create a new website, and create new records for a collection of images of Syrian architecture. However, possibly the most rewarding accomplishment of the summer was going through and enriching the metadata for the AVRC’s (quite substantial) Indigenous film collection. 

Metadata enrichment is the process of updating and adding more information to records in a library catalogue in order to make them more accurate (i.e. more enriched). In this case, we wanted to make sure all of our films by Indigenous filmmakers had robust records to make them findable to people searching our catalogue. We also wanted to make sure that any films by or about Indigenous people didn’t have any inaccurate or harmful terms in their records. Most of the record information lies in the subject headings – these are essentially like tags that will pull the item from the catalogue when one of these terms is searched.

The hardest (and most fun) part of this project was learning our cataloguing process. The AVRC uses the popular MARC 21 cataloguing system, which is overseen by the Library of Congress and used by many other libraries. The widespread use of the MARC 21 system means that libraries, including ours, can share and copy the records that other librarians made using the MARC 21 language rather than each library having to write all of them from scratch. Of course, this means that our records can be accessed and used by other libraries as well, bringing a certain weight to the quality of my metadata enrichment project. I was highly aware that the accuracy of the records I created would affect whether the material could be found and used in not only our collection, but potentially other libraries’ collections as well.

In the middle of my journey learning about MARC 21, I was introduced to a recent innovation within this system: FAST (Faceted Application of Search Terms) subject headings. After having spent several full days trying to learn the Library of Congress subject heading system (a system which normally requires full-on training to use properly), I discovered the FAST subject heading system, which still works with MARC 21 and with Library of Congress Subject Headings, but which took me less than a day to wrap my head around and learn to use. This blog post is too short to fully explain the excitement of discovering post-coordinate indexing (a term to describe the difference in indexing form that makes FAST so effective), but let me assure you, all my friends and family heard about it when I discovered FAST. Learning about FAST while working on this project meant that it was easier for us to decide to incorporate this system into our new collections database. I am hopeful that future records created at the AVRC will be much easier to write and much more effectively searchable because of our discovery of FAST.

This project, which I got to see through from start to end, was doubly rewarding: the AVRC’s Indigenous film collection’s records got a much needed update, becoming more accurate and accessible; and I got to learn about cataloguing systems from the ground up, discovering a love for the endless acronyms, spreadsheets, and controlled subject heading vocabularies that make up the process!

There was so much to learn at the AVRC this summer, and while this was one of the most exciting projects I took on, I am grateful to have learned new processes and techniques working on many different kinds of tasks! All summer I got to learn completely new skills – like metadata enrichment – which made it a really fun and valuable experience. I had a summer of cataloguing thanks to my placement at the AVRC, and I’m looking forward to keeping up my relationship with this great place and these great people!  

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by Matt Piaskoki – AVRC Assistant 2023/24 (Work-Study Program)

The laserdisc was the first optical disc on the market. Being the first of their kind, laserdiscs were quite large, around the size of vinyl records. It was released in the States in 1978, two years after VHS and  four years before the CD. It would take almost another 20, in 1997, until its more compact successor, the DVD came out. The Laserdisc produced higher quality sound and video than the standard VHS and Betamax at the time. However, even though the format provided far superior media quality than the VHS and had an almost 20-year head start to its successor, the laserdisc failed to find its footing in the West and became a failure, quickly being forgotten about.  

While optical disc technology was invented decades earlier, the laserdisc was the first commercialized use – originally branded as DiscoVision. The first film to ever be printed on these discs was Jaws in late 1978. A few years later the name “Laserdisc” became the standard in North America 

The first discs’ audio tracks were only analog, but later advancements allowed for digital tracks. Audio soon became more complex as discs could have both analog and digital tracks. Some used these pair tracks to add bonuses like scores, commentary, or for making bilingual discs. While early discs were often mono or stereo, later multi-channel ones allowed for surround sound.

Normal Laserdiscs could only play around 60 minutes of video on each side and were called “Extended Play” or CLV. Another type called “Standard Play,” or CAV allowed for more benefits like allowing varied playback or slow-motion speeds, freeze frame, and the ability to call on specific frames. The drawback was only allowing for around 30 minutes of video. 

Due to the high-quality video and sound laserdiscs provided, many films were given a laserdisc release. Film enthusiasts preferred this format over the inferior viewing experience of the VHS. While quality was much higher than VHS, so were the prices. Laserdiscs and their players were much more expensive than other formats at the time in North America. For most people the better quality wasn’t worth the extra price and stayed with VHS. In the East, in countries like Japan and Hong Kong, the Laserdisc was more successful due to cheaper prices of both the disc and players, leading to a higher adoption rate.  

Prices were not the only reason Laserdisc failed. The size, weight, and fragility of laserdiscs turned many away and favored the more reliable and accessible VHS. Each Laserdisc could only handle either around 60 minutes or 30 minutes of video per side depending on the type. For films, this meant flipping or swapping discs during the movie. Larger movies or ones that heavily used CAV came with many discs, making for a more cumbersome movie viewing experience. 

Today Laserdiscs are often forgotten about as they were always overshadowed by their more popular competitors. Once the DVD came to market, it effectively killed off the last of the laserdisc. Today only a small, dedicated fanbase of cinephiles still use and collect this obsolete video format. As functioning high-quality players become harder to find and certain discs have now succumbed to disc rot, it has become much harder to play Laserdiscs. 

The AVRC’s collection of Laserdiscs was acquired largely through donation and contains many films, with both Western and Eastern releases. They also have many ballets, operas, and classical music discs. They acquired some special release films, such as My Fair Lady, Amadeus, and The Sound of Music which include bonuses such as books, soundtrack CDs, and screenplays. Another notable special release is a set of the original Star Wars trilogy, with the rare original theatrical cut. Due to the high-quality Laserdisc provided and being popular with cinephiles and film collectors, many special editions were made for the Laserdisc format.  While it may not have shared the success and popularity of formats like VHS and DVD, Laserdisc still played a key role in the history of media storage. I enjoyed learning about the interesting story of Laserdiscs and hope others take intrigue in it too. 

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The Audio-Visual Resource Centre is looking for a dedicated and reliable upper-level undergraduate or graduate student studying art and architectural history, film studies or music to assist with various projects, including editing and describing digital media assets, the evaluation of legacy analogue collection materials, digitizing audio/visual resources and developing on/off-line mini exhibits. The candidate must be detail-oriented, have excellent command of the English language, and work well individually and as part of a team.

Essential qualifications:

1. Minimum of 8 combined credits in art and architectural history, film studies or music.

2. Eligible for Young Canada Works. Preference given to applicants that are already registered.

For more information about the position: YCW-Summer-Student-Job_2024.pdf

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by Purity Gituma â€” Collections Assistant 2023 (Young Canada Works Program)

This summer, I had a unique opportunity to channel my interests in media and heritage preservation while working as a Collections Assistant at the Audio-Visual Resources Centre (AVRC) under the Young Canada Works (YCW) program.  

Tasked with the vital role of processing and digitizing the newly acquired du Prey 35mm film slide collection, I found myself immersed in the architectural gems captured through these slides. As a fourth-year student in the History and Theory of Architecture (HTA) program, this was a meaningful and inspiring experience. 

At the heart of this collection is Pierre du Prey, Professor Emeritus of Art History at Queen’s University, and architectural historian whose incredible legacy is revealed in each slide.  

Comprising over 40,000 meticulously preserved and organized 35mm film slides, the du Prey collection offers a glimpse into the international architectural landscape of the twentieth century.  

In fact, these slides hold historical significance in their own right, documenting historic buildings and landscapes that have been transformed, or sadly lost to history. 

Thus, the impressive slide collection not only attests to Professor du Prey’s global explorations but embodies his commitment to documenting and preserving the built environment. 

With remarkably stable film slides dating back to as early as the 1960s, the extensive collection holds a hoard of incredible histories waiting to be explored. 

While engaging with the slides, I was particularly drawn to its documentation of early Heritage Conservation initiatives in Canada. 

For instance, the du Prey collection gives rare insight into the evolution of the Frontenac County Jail in Kingston, Ontario, before, during, and after its demolition in 1973. 

Showcased here is a striking photograph of Professor du Prey and his students standing united in protest against the demolition of the 118-year-old jail. 

This image not only offers a glimpse into the past but also shows Professor du Prey’s dedication to fostering? a deep appreciation for architectural heritage beyond the classroom. 

Contemplating on this image, I was transported back to this moment and captivated by their shared spirit of determination to protect the legacy embedded in the historical landmark.  

Evidently, the significance of preserving original slide collections like the du Prey collection goes far beyond pure nostalgia. 

While digital images are prevalent today, the AVRC’s commitment to preserving the historical value embedded in these physical artifacts ensures that the insights and stories they contain will continue to be accessible for future research opportunities. 

I am grateful for the opportunity to explore the du Prey collection and to contribute to its accessibility. 

This experience has broadened my understanding of architectural history and helped me appreciate the contributions of individuals like du Prey in preserving heritage. 

I am hopeful that the AVRC will continue in its mission of safeguarding these historic audiovisual resources. 

The post Preserving Heritage: A Summer at the AVRC appeared first on Audio-Visual Resource Centre.

During the final year of my MA in Film Studies, I had the incredible opportunity to work in the Audio-Visual Resource Center (AVRC) as the Collections Assistant through the Young Canada Works Program. The AVRC holds extensive collections related to Film Studies, Music, and Art History and, while I was aware of such collections through my undergraduate degree completed at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ in Film Studies and History, the ability to work closely with such collections was extremely valuable to me as it granted me the opportunity to combine both my interest in Film Studies and History.

My long-term project throughout the 2022/2023 school year involved working with the AVRC’s collection of 20th/21st century 35mm slides, deaccessioning slides that were either of poor quality, including discoloured images or duplicates of the same image, or readily available online in good quality, either through public domain sites, such as WikiMedia Commons, or through online museum collections, such as, but not limited to, MoMA, Tate, Philadelphia, or ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´â€™s own MDID collection. By doing this, I provided more space in the AVRC’s collection room for new acquisitions, while also ensuring that future students will have access to better quality images for their studies.

When not working through the collection of 20th/21st century 35mm slides, I had the opportunity to digitize and catalog Brian Foss’ collection of 35mm slides of Mary Hiester Reid’s artwork, a celebrated Canadian artist whose work is not readily available online. Removing any dust or debris from the slide, I scanned each individual slide and processed the images using Photoshop. There, I slightly adjusted the image, finding the correct balance between editing out any significant scratches or remaining dust particles while still maintaining the integrity of the original image. After completing this, I cataloged the images in the AVRC’s database, a searchable tool that students and professors can use for their own research or classes. Such a process allowed me to expand my cataloging experience, building on the tools I learned in my undergraduate degree, while also giving me the new experience of digitizing slides.

Overall, though, the most meaningful experience I had during my time with the AVRC was the 16mm film evaluations, which included projecting ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´â€™s vast collection of 16mm films, documenting any visual or audio issues, as well as if the films are available online in better condition. After viewing each film, I then checked, by hand, for any issues with the emulsion, base, cleanliness, warping, perforations, edges, splices, and whether or not the films were suffering from vinegar syndrome. In addition to this, I learned how to splice any breakages that might have occurred during the projection process. Being given the ability to learn how to use Eiki and Kodak projectors, and to spend hours with analog film and equipment, was a pleasure, and a blessing, that I will carry with me for the rest of my life!

The whole AVRC team — Nancy, Jenna, Adam, and Paul — are an absolute delight to work with and have taught me skills that I will value in all my future endeavours. The ability to work in a place surrounded by music, art, and film was an absolute delight and I am truly grateful for this experience! I urge all students to participate in the Young Canada Works program here at the AVRC!

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Over the course of two semesters, I had the opportunity to work in the Audio-Visual Resource Centre (AVRC) as a collections assistant. The AVRC holds an expansive collection of materials pertaining to Art History, Music, and Film Studies.

During my work term, I focused extensively on the organization and the display of the AVRC’s Archive of Canadian Women Artists (ACWA). The ACWA collection holds thousands of materials including exhibition catalogues, art journals, books, and other ephemera on hundreds of Canadian women artists. The collection, originally complied by Dr. Natalie Luckyj, spans approximately the 19th to the 20th centuries, with a focus on Canadian sculpture, folk art, and indigenous art.

To start, I produced a finding aid for the ACWA collection. The finding aid is a comprehensive and searchable document available to students who are interested in exploring the collection. Developing a finding aid provided me with a deepened understanding of the organization of archives, aiding the effectiveness of my own primary-source research.

Throughout my exploration of the archive to produce a finding aid, I noted images and objects of interest to formulate a theme for an exhibition of the archive. While surveying the materials, I gravitated towards images of artists in their studios. My exhibition, In the Studio, provides an intimate view of women who carved out their own spaces to work, with conventional and unconventional rooms of their own dedicated to their artistic practices. The exhibit provides a view of artists engaging directly with their works, putting faces to the names of Canadian women artists whose pivotal contributions of art began in the studio. The curation of In the Studio provided me the opportunity to connect with Canadian galleries, archives, and artists. The process gave me an in-depth understanding of the intricacies and challenges of starting with an archive and ending with its meaningful presentation.

Along with the two major projects of the finding aid and the exhibit, I determined the quality and sources of art images captured on 35mm slides in the AVRC’s 20th/21st century section of the collection. I removed and deaccessioned slides that were of poor quality and readily available elsewhere, providing space for the AVRC’s new acquisitions.

The Young Canada Works Program provided the opportunity to enrich my studies in the Master of Art and Architectural History program, allowing me to gain work experience that compliments my academic career.

Through my time at the AVRC, I learned that when looking for inspiration for academic projects, there is no shortage of exciting material on the fourth floor of the St Patrick’s Building.

I am grateful for this opportunity and for the AVRC team, who from the very start made the AVRC a welcoming place to work and to learn.

The post Olivia – Collections Assistant 2021/22 (Young Canada Works Program) appeared first on Audio-Visual Resource Centre.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­I have been lucky enough to have worked with the AVRC team as the Collections Assistant throughout the 2020/21 school year. Due to COVID-19, the position had been moved from a summer position to a remote part-time position throughout the year. This meant that, like students had in the past, I would not be working with any physical material. That presented a unique and extremely valuable challenge, and I was able to witness the ways in which the AVRC had to pivot to remote work in these unprecedented times. Despite and from that, I have gained so much experience — especially the knowledge that even without physically touching the archive, there is no shortage of work to be done!

I am in my final semester of my MA in Art History, and completing a diploma in Curatorial Studies so I was very eager to work with the AVRC. To this point, I had primarily worked with artist-run centers focusing on emerging artists, so it was incredibly valuable for me to gain experience in an archival setting before leaving ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´. I feel it really helped to fill in the gaps of my knowledge in the keeping of visual history!

I was able to evaluate and edit old slides which had been scanned and digitized, so I had the chance to use my previous experience with Photoshop in the context of restoring visual resources. It was really interesting finding the balance of editing out flaws such as dust or scratches while still preserving the integrity of the image — trying not to adjust the truth of the colours or the photos’ distinctively analog aesthetic quality too much.

In addition to this, for much of the year, I had the pleasure of testing and providing instructional material on Scalar software, which was being used by architectural history students with the support of the AVRC. Being given the opportunity to fully explore this software was an extremely worthwhile experience. Scalar is a tool for online publishing and can be used for projects such as visual essays, online books, and even to present exhibition material. I will now be able to take that experience to my future positions within curating!

Being new to Ottawa, I think one of my favourite parts of this experience was learning about the rich architectural history of Ottawa being kept by and with the AVRC. I’m especially thankful for Nancy Duff taking the time to give me mini-lessons on the subject before each project!

The AVRC team has been such a delight to work with. Even with Zoom fatigue at full force, every week I still looked forward to our Wednesday morning staff meetings that never failed to put a smile on my face! Thank you so much to Nancy, Diane, Adam, Miduran, and Ahmed for such an excellent year full of learning, growth, and many laughs.

The post Rebecca – Collections Assistant 2020/21 (Young Canada Works Program) appeared first on Audio-Visual Resource Centre.

by Landon Arbuckle, MA Film Studies 2017

I would like to share with you a bit about how I spent a large portion of my summer during 2017 working with ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University’s Audio-Visual Resource Centre, and why it was such a unique opportunity to build my portfolio of transferable skills in an area that is of great personal and academic interest to me. I had an array of responsibilities, but one of the main ones was to organize and evaluate a large donation of 16mm films that were commissioned by the National Film Board of Canada. In terms of satisfying my academic interests, access to the collection allowed me to find some hidden gems of Canadian history, films that I would have never previously been exposed to. The process of working with actual film as opposed to the digital mediums that we are so accustomed to also very much fore-fronted the human-based creations of the objects, as I had to determine the quality of the film strips via details such as physical splices or the condition in which they had been stored.

When I discuss how this workplace opportunity was able to develop transferable skills, I am mainly talking about how I was able to autonomously choose my own projects and determine for myself what areas of the department needed the most attention. The route that I chose in determining which films to actually pull and evaluate changed throughout the job, as I grew more accustomed to this concept of autonomy, all the while developing a balanced professional relationship with my supervisor, Nancy Duff. This ability is, I think, crucial to any future job I might hold.

Aside from the 16mm evaluations, I also took on mini-projects such as re-imagining the displays in the student lounge, organizing the various store rooms, and documenting a structured continuity for future students who hold this position to be able to pick up where I left off. All of this, again, contributed to my growing independence as an employee, while ensuring productivity was being spent in the right places. Projects such as the lounge displays allowed me to use my creativity to add a story to the objects which we had deemed worthy to put on exhibit, and it is something that I am proud to say other students will be able to both enjoy and learn from.

All in all, I’m very happy to have had this opportunity, as I was able to work among not only great people, but artifacts that I would have never otherwise been exposed to. Aside from this, being on campus almost every day granted me the further benefit of being around whoever might be here during the summer, including professors. In this environment, conversations needn’t necessarily be “all-for-academic” purposes, granting me the ability to develop better relationships with those who are (of course, admittedly) much more advanced in the study of film theory than I. In other words, anybody that knows the ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ Film Studies program knows that it is a tight-knit group of people, and being present during off-season hours advanced my relationship to this community.

I would like to primarily thank Nancy Duff, Diane Berezowski, Jack Coghill, and Brian Foss for giving me this opportunity and I wish the best to any future student who takes over this position. Good luck!!

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