SLIS student, Mara Powell, has been a volunteer at the Rabbi Leo M. Franklin archives at Temple Beth El for almost a year. She first started as part of a mini-practicum for LIS 7730, Administration of Visual Collections. After the project was over the archivist asked Powell to stay on as a student volunteer and she has contributed her time since.

Powell has worked on digitizing the fragile scrapbooks of the granddaughter of the Rabbi Leo Franklin (for whom the archive is named), providing rich historical context to some of their prevalent congregation members. She has assisted the Temple archivist in her research activities for her lecture about discovering the life stories of the people buried at Temple Beth El's Lafayette Cemetery through headstone inscriptions. Through this project, some forgotten congregation members were remembered again. Powell says, "It was great to be able to contribute to this cultural history."

She has also processed a collection from the Hebrew organization, NA'Amat, formerly Pioneer Women. NA'Amat is an organization that strives to enhance the quality of life for women, children and families in Israel, the U.S. and around the world. By organizing and creating a finding aid on PastPerfect software for this collection, she has been able to provide access for the community to research this group.

Currently, Powell is assisting in preliminary research for next year's Jewish History Lecture.