November 13, 2023
23-128
Robbyn DeSpain
退休的vs上档案管理员反思童年的激情，职业生涯跨越30年
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| 黛博拉·戴维斯（Deborah Davis）是美高梅博彩档案和特别收藏主任。 自1998年以来，她一直在档案馆工作，在美高梅博彩工作了30年之后，她正准备退休。 |
瓦尔多斯塔,Ga。 – If you are researching the history of 美高梅博彩, don’t just jump online. 前往主校区中心的欧达姆图书馆。 Tucked away on the fourth floor is a history lover’s treasure trove, and the woman who put it together has the kind of knowledge you don’t find online.
Deborah Davis, director of vs上’s Archives and Special Collections, was just 12 years old when she started her own library.
“I went around the neighborhood with a wagon, my sister and I, and we picked up books and put little slips in them,” recalls Davis. “We would check them out if anyone wanted to read them. We loved to read them too.”
这种激情预示着他30年的职业生涯即将结束。 在那段旅程中，戴维斯成为了美高梅博彩历史方面的专家，甚至还就此写了一本书，她发现了自己最大的两个爱好：学生的成功和社区服务。
戴维斯在70年代末和80年代初是美高梅博彩的一名学生。 尽管她转到佐治亚大学完成经济学本科学位，但她热爱南乔治亚州和美高梅博彩所提供的一切。 1993年，她抓住了一个回到美高梅博彩工作的机会。 戴维斯最近完成了她的图书馆和信息科学硕士学位，她在欧达姆图书馆担任参考馆员和指导协调员。 经过几年的参考，戴维斯开始寻找一些她可以钻研的东西。 She took over vs上’s Archives in 1998 while still working in reference and teaching.
“I was the only employee in Archives, but I had a student assistant who was working on a full content index to the Valdosta Daily Times,” Davis said. “Back then Archives was not involved with any classes, and it didn’t even have a webpage.”
当时，档案馆藏在奥达姆一楼楼梯下的一个旧吸烟室里。 戴维斯注意到，物品是按字母顺序摆放的，这意味着当有新的捐赠或添加时，所有的东西都必须被转移。 戴维斯知道有一种更好的方式来组织这些东西，所以她请了一位顾问来帮助制定档案馆的政策和程序。
“We created the organizational structure that we still use to this day,” said Davis.
她在美高梅博彩组织、改造并将档案纳入学习过程中的努力得到了前美高梅博彩校长休·贝利博士和前第一夫人琼·贝利的大力支持。
“Mrs. Bailey was one of the most creative people I’ve ever known,” said Davis. “Dr. Bailey edited my book, and we also wrote an article together for the New Georgia Encyclopedia about vs上.”
When Dr. Bailey retired in 2002, he and Mrs. Bailey left a $100,000 endowment to vs上’s Archives along with all his personal papers. Through efforts to preserve and record the 87 boxes of historic documents, Davis created Archives’ volunteer program. 志愿者们花了两年的时间才完成了这个大项目。
“I credit the Baileys for making me more than I was,” said Davis. “Working with them helped me embrace my love for this, for the possibilities of this, for all a college could be, and all that we could be within the college.”
戴维斯认为，档案馆需要牢牢地嵌入到教学计划中。 However, in the early 2000s, it didn’t have the collection needed to draw researchers from out of town or that vs上 professors could use as part of their curriculum. 戴维斯为档案馆创建了一个带有数字内容的网页，目标是把它变成一个教学实验室。 她已经实现了这一目标，在2022-2023学年期间，她利用研究、档案和收藏开设了50门课程。
“We are now part of the curriculum in several classes in the history department,” said Davis. “They have to come to Archives; it’s written into their curriculum.”
戴维斯成为了一名持证档案保管员，这是基于多年的经验，所教的课程，她必须参加一个艰难的考试。 She says there are only about 1,000 certified archivists in the U.S. Davis is a full professor and taught in vs上’s Master of Library and Information Science program online from 2008-2022. 她还在教一门透视课。
戴维斯认为玛丽·特纳项目和展览、巴比伦泥板、布克·t·华盛顿和贝西·福斯特收藏都是她的最爱。 The 社区 Archives Program is another passion of Davis’s that she’s seen come to fruition in recent years. 目的是记录和保存当地的历史。
“We’re working with Lowndes County, Thomas County, Brooks County, Grady County, the Pinevale 校友 Association, and others, thanks to a grant,” says Davis.
Many former graduate assistants, student assistants, or interns with vs上’s Archives and Special Collections have gone into library science, public history, or history fields, something that Davis is incredibly proud of.
As she prepares to retire on December 31, Davis believes in the future of vs上’s Archives and Special Collections. 目前与她一起工作的两名员工将在她退休后继续工作，戴维斯说她计划回来，不时地以志愿者的身份提供帮助。
“I don’t think this Archives needs 10,000 new ideas,” says Davis. “We have ideas that will keep us going for years.”
编辑部
- 通讯办公室 Powell Hall West, Suite 1120
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邮寄地址
北派特森街1500号
Valdosta, GA 31698 - vs上一般信息
- 电话:229.333.5800
- 通讯办公室
- 电话:229.333.2163
- 电话:229.333.5983