I have been fortunate in some regards, as much of my daily work in our department was fairly easily translated into remote work, especially after I gained access to our servers. I have encountered roadblocks attempting to help staff and the public with reference requests - a substantial portion of our physical image archives have yet to be digitally cataloged or imaged, so they are inaccessible. My work assisting with the development of our department’s new order management system and museum’s new digital asset management system have continued during this time. I have created new keyword lists, a data dictionary for all museum users, and have spent a good bit of time testing functionality and reviewing existing documentation. So too has my own work improving documentation about the physical and digital archive - in the form of a completely revised section of our departmental standard operating procedures and revised protocol for metadata creation and quality control, for example.
Our department was still hosting an intern when we transitioned to remote work, and my co-mentor and I had to adjust quickly in order to continue to support this student. While we no longer had the chance to continue archives digitization and photography studio work, we are able to shift our focus in order to continue providing learning opportunities. We met weekly and discussed ideas surrounding work in libraries, archives, and museums. These conversations were organic, and it was a welcome standing meeting on my calendar. Staff across our department also created a series of presentations on different topics: my co-mentor provided a walk-through of how to edit photographs she and the intern had worked on together, another staff member provided a deep dive into complex image editing in Photoshop, and I provided one on metadata and another on cultural heritage imaging standards and quality control. This was certainly not the ideal outcome for this internship - effectively cut short by a pandemic - but it was encouraging to know we could still connect. I hope we’ll be able to welcome our intern back someday soon, once we are no longer living in a socially-distanced world, to give this student a proper thank-you for all her hard work.
In July, new changes came in the form of layoffs and a museum-wide restructuring. My role shifted and title changed, and I became a part of the newly reimagined Research Center. I will now be a part of a centralized Archives unit, that is comprised of the Art, Architecture, and Design collection, Institutional Archives, and the Imaging Archives. Given my need to continue focusing on physical and born digital materials created by the Imaging team, I will still work closely with my old department. There are still many questions that remain about what this change will look like and how I’ll work with my colleagues. But if I’ve learned nothing else in 2020, it’s that I need to take things one day at a time.
Watching this small garden grow has been grounding
Abruptly adjusting to working remotely during a pandemic has been challenging. It has been hard balancing the realities of life outside of work with the needs and demands of our museum. If nothing else, I am glad to be learning and growing both because of and in spite of what we’re collectively facing. I feel fortunate to have retained my job (so far). I sincerely hope that our institution, our field, and our society as a whole can recover from this reality.