N.B.: The Burke Archives had the good fortune of inviting Olivia Rutigliano to be our Intern in Primary Sources for the 2016-2017 year. During this time, she has processed the papers of Henry Pitney Van Dusen, one of Union’s most well-known presidents. Read below to learn about Olivia’s first experience processing a large archival collection, Union’s […]
Category: Student Entry
Queer Books in the Theological Library: a Web Comic
In addition to being a student at Union Theological Seminary and working at the Burke Library, I also draw a weekly web comic called QueerBibleComics.com. It’s part diary, part art project. It’s a way for me to creatively and visually engage with the ideas I encounter as a seminarian. Most of the comics are about […]
Analyzing Scavenger Hunt Scores to Understand Library Familiarity Among Incoming Students
When I was a kid I loved scavenger hunts– the harder, the better! Whenever we took a field trip with school I preferred to explore a museum or new place with a scavenger hunt, rather than have someone show me around on a long tour of things I wouldn’t remember. Scavenger hunts contained mysteries […]
Letters between a Prisoner and a Soldier: The Houser-Shinn Correspondence from the Roger L. Shinn Collection
“I’ve never had the experience of writing to anyone in the army before. I suppose you’ve never written to anyone in jail before, so I guess we’re even.” George Houser, July 17, 1941 George Houser and Roger Shinn first met as students at Union Theological Seminary, living across the hall from each other on […]
#LoveInAction: A reflective essay
That sounds familiar! As I sifted through the materials in the Burke archives, reading student publications and looking at pictures that were over forty years old, I kept recognizing my classmates in these relics from our predecessors. My project was tracking a series of student-driven movements in the 1960s and 1970s that radically transformed the academic […]
First Collection Completed
My first archival project here has been completely fascinating. The Catholic Church in India from 1880-1893? I know absolutely nothing about that! I found myself absorbed with the first few volumes, trying to get a sense of that world. The pages were browned, the edges were crumbling, some of the spines were a wreck and […]
Light in the Darkness
“Every book is a little light in that darkness”- Scott Landon My job at the library resembles the craft of archaeology. On any day, I may come home from work with several centuries of dirt on my hands. This can be from crosschecking in world cat whether we have Der Kleine Katechismus Dr. Martin Luthers […]
So exactly why an MLS?
In 2003, around the New Year’s holiday, I spent a little over 30 hours (in the span of two days) teaching myself how to use Microsoft’s now defunct program FrontPage. By New Year’s Day, my eyes burned, my right wrist ached from (self-diagnosed) carpel tunnel syndrome, and most importantly, I completed my first website (a […]
Sexual Politics in the Archives
As an incoming MA student at Union, having previous experience working libraries as well as a Master of Information & Library Science degree under my belt, I’m excited to join the student staff at the Burke Library for this next step in my academic studies in theological librarianship. My area of research is ethics, specifically […]
Day One – Here We Go!
I am thrilled to be working as an archives student assistant at the Burke Library. I find it auspicious to be starting a new job, at my new school, in my new city, on my 31st birthday. What will this year hold for me? I am excited to find out! This begins my 9th year […]