Recent Posts

I was told about an internship opportunity with the Rockefeller Archive Center by my roommate. She encouraged me to apply, knowing that I was looking for new opportunities. I applied, was interviewed, and began to work with the RAC in the Fall of 2022. I had no previous experience in archival work, but was excited nonetheless. I was ready to explore more of what you could do with a History degree. Little did I know that I had stumbled into greatness.

While my Digital Strategies team colleagues attended the Code4Lib conference last week, I was able to attend Deque’s axe-con 2023 digital accessibility conference, which was a virtual event that included talks on a broad range of topics related to accessibility including organizational strategy, technical development, maintenance, testing, design, and advocacy. In this post I’ll highlight two of these talks that relate to my own work and upcoming projects at the RAC, but axe-con is free and recorded, so all the talks are available online for further exploration.

This past week, we both attended the Code4Lib conference in Princeton, New Jersey. This year’s Code4Lib was exceptionally well programmed, both in terms of content and sequencing. Our reflections below offer a brief insight into our experience.

Working at the RAC has opened my eyes to how I view and understand archives and philanthropy and has furthered my need to work in the industry. I have learned so much about the RAC and its different departments from the collections management, processing, and reference team, and from the “RAC 101” videos that give a more in-depth understanding of the archival process. The projects I worked on were similar to the projects I hoped I would be working on. I would even go as far as to say I know these projects were made for me. During my internship at the Rockefeller Archive Center, I worked on a couple of different projects.

The Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) has become increasingly aware of and concerned by the environmental impacts of climate change. We recently commissioned a carbon footprint study to better understand our emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). For the RAC, GHGs are tied to our energy usage. Developed in consultation with Climate Change & Environmental Services – a local firm that specializes in environmental inventories – this report creates a benchmark of our current energy usage and GHG emissions as well as a foundation for future action which can reduce our environmentally harmful emissions.