Washington DC Trip (April 2009)

I just got back from a 4-day weekend in Washington DC. I had been planning this trip for weeks, figuring out all the details. For those of you who may not know, I want to be an archivist. Washington DC is one of the centers in the world for archiving, so I set up appointments with archivists at the Library of Congress, National Archives, Smithsonian, and planned to stop by and hopefully get to talk to someone at the Holocaust Museum Archives. In total, I had 6 informational interviews in 2 days (Thursday and Friday, because, of course, I could only visit museums, not archives, on Saturday and Sunday): LOC-1, NARA-2, Am Hist-2, Holocaust-1, and got to meet far more than 6 archivists. In addition to visiting those archives, I went through the public areas of: The Library of Congress, Holocaust Museum, American History Museum, Air & Space Museum, Postal Museum, Natural History Museum (briefly), American Indian Museum (briefly), and the Castle (Smithsonian headquarters). These experiences I had just a week ago Thursday and Friday, were life-changing - I have yet to see the exact degree to which they were..

My first interview was with the head of the Rare Books at the Library of Congress, a St. Olaf graduate. He held a major grudge against "normal" archivists, saying they were not as skilled as rare book archivists. However, he did offer me a paid internship for summer 2010...

All of the archivists I interviewed had MLS degrees, library degrees. Most or all of them also had history degrees, either at the BA or MA level. Most took no more than 10 years from grad school to get to the position they were currently in. One person said it would probably be possible to get a job with a MA in museology; everyone else seemed skeptical. Many seemed skeptical of my plan to work as an archivist without a history degree, but German was generally considered an ok alternative. Psycholinguistics was hardly mentioned.

Now here comes the question: Do I change my course plan, and go to library school, or stick with the original plan, and get a museology degree? I've always thought I wanted to work in a mid-sized museum, where a museology degree would be preferable...although MLS degrees would also be just about equally functional. But what if I wanted to "move up," to Washington-level archiving? What if I want to take a break from the non-profit sector and work at Microsoft for a few years to save up some money? A museology degree would count for something, sure, but not near as much as an ALA-certified MLS with archives certificate/concentration.

So of course, Friday night, I immediately jumped on the computer and did research on grad schools. My requirements: ALA-certified, archives concentration/program option, urban location. My current top choices are: Pratt Institute (NY), Queens College (NY), San Jose State University, and University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada).



As for fun aspects of my trip, I stayed with a friend who goes to George Washington University, so I got to pretty much be in the center of everything. I met some of her friends, saw the area, went to the memorials and monuments (and massively scraped up my leg when I tripped on my morning run!), ate some good ethnic food for once, and went to a Marian Anderson commemorative concert at the Lincoln Memorial, with the Marine Band and Chicago Children's Chorus, among other performers.