Spring break is often known as a 'breather' or 'time to relax' for most college students. However, this year I was provided the opportunity from the School of Library and Information at Wayne State University to participate in a condensed internship with the National Archives and Record Administration in Washington D.C. The opportunity was exhilarating and the possibilities of what we were going to experience were endless, happy to say that the actual time there lived up to the hype.

My week long experience would mostly be conducted in College Park Maryland, where the second archive building is located, referred to as Archives II. For a little background information, this NARA building is dedicated mostly to researchers and is not a museum compared to the National Archives in D.C. Archives II contains textual, cartographic, microfilm, and electronic records. There is also motion picture film, sound, and video recordings and photographic/graphic works. The materials are designated by floor level for researchers and equipment is provided when necessary.

The small project we were assigned for our week of work is a part of a much larger digitization program that is being completed by NARA. There are two main goals associated with their plan, which is access and furthered preservation. The digital access is for the benefit of researchers that come into the archives but also for those who cannot make it to the archive, allowing them to conduct their research online. Also, from a preservation concern, the plan is to no longer pull the records once they have been digitized. It was interesting to learn that the standards/requirements for the scanning are purely for access, not as concerned about quality but more about quantity. Stephanie and I got the chance to work on declassified army records, specifically the Vietnam War, roughly six archival boxes containing 5-10 folders each. The records contained war bulletins, operation reports, combat experiences from the U.S. forces in Southeast Asian from 1950-1975. After being brought up to speed on scanning requirements and specifications, we got to check out the equipment we would be using! The two of us took turns alternating the scanners, so we could gain good experience with both. I had never seen or used either of them before. There are six different types of scanners that one has access to in the scanning room. The two new scanners, for me, were the ScanSnap SV 6000 and the Zeutschel, below is a picture using the ScanSnap. The Zeutschel was an amazing piece of equipment and probably one of my favorite things to learn to use during my time there.

NARA did everything they could to make us feel comfortable and give us an all encompassing experience. Along with our project work, we participated in various tours, workshops, and presentations. The tours of both Archive I and Archive II were beautiful, "both behind the scenes" and what all visitors have access to. There was a special opportunity for us to meet Sam Anthony, assistant to the Archivist of the United States, who conducted the Archives I tour. He took the time and was eager to talk to me and Stephanie, giving guidance and advice on how to network/market ourselves in the D.C. arena. Our supervisor also took us back into one of the stacks at Archive II, another highlight. The career workshop specifically stood out for me, we had to opportunity to learn how to build our career profile and cater it towards government jobs.

The week went by in a flash, but it was an experience I will never forget. Along with the work at Archives II from 8:00am to 4pm, we didn't miss out on the opportunity to explore the city. Several of the Smithsonian museums had extended hours for the summer so we took every chance we got to explore those, highly recommend the American History Museum. We also took the chance to explore the Holocaust Museum and International Spy museums, all of the (most, I am sure I missed something) monuments, The Library of Congress and experienced different restaurants in the areas. A fun little side note, we also got to experience the first Metro shutdown, for something other than a weather emergency since 1976, it caused for a crazy Wednesday! Needless to say, it would take pages and pages to go over every detail of the trip, but this synopsis covers the experience SLIS provided for me over spring break 2016.