 First of all, I want to welcome you to today's Mark guest lecture. It will take about an hour. You'll have plenty of time for questions and answers before the end of the hour. And if you don't, we invite questions by email later on. Our speaker today is one of our Mark grads from 2018. She graduated in the spring of that year. And she is currently the director of the archives for the province of St. Joseph of the Capuchin Order for the states of Montana, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan. She's worked at their headquarters in Detroit, Michigan since October 1st, 2018, not long after graduation. During that time, she has transformed the archives from an unorganized storage unit into a professional vault. Before this, she worked for the state archives in Lansing, Michigan for three years and volunteered at Michigan State University Archives as well. And now I'm going to turn over the presentation to Julia. Thank you. I wanted to say I'm so happy to be here today. And I'm just really glad to be able to share my knowledge and what has happened. So when I started at the Capuchin Archives in Detroit, Michigan, of course, this was my first real big opportunity. I was very happy having worked as an estate employee for the state archives in Lansing, Michigan. But this was an opportunity that is certainly was excited and eager to look at. And I'm so glad that I made the choice to come. Upon my arrival in Detroit, there were no records on a computer of any sort. It was very interesting that they did have software. They had the ad lib software by Axial, but there were no records on it. So they had bought the software, but for some reason nothing was done with it. But I was very fortunate to have inherited the software. I was very happy about that. But anyway, so there was nothing on the computer. There were no finding aids of any relevance. Many collections were on the floor to the point that shelved collections were unreachable. Contents of most boxes were unfolded material that oftentimes included unrelated materials and different collections that would be in the same boxes. As I stated earlier, there were no relevant finding aids or, you know, which would be an inventory of each collection. Also, there were no inventory for the books or the periodicals. There was no organization for the books or the periodicals in the records room. What I mean is that the books were all just stacked and the periodicals, everything was just stacked on each other. So there were shelves, but a lot of them were being utilized. A lot of stuff was just on the floor. And then there were some petrimony and prior records on the database, which was an access database. So it wasn't exactly easily accessible, but it had a lot of great information on it. And I'm very thankful for that as well. The reference room also was not open for patrons to visit. And that is something that I was unaccustomed to having worked in a public institution where I was very happy to be able to see patrons come in. That is the difference with my job now. I do have a lot of people within the province come in unexpected, and I make sure that they know that they're welcome to come and stop in anytime to use this as a resource. However, this is not a public institution. So secular patrons do have to make an appointment with me. And then I'm happy to invite them. Upon organizing the archives, I reorganized the books into 14 sections for audio, visual materials, textiles, relics, artifacts, provincial friaries, seminaries, parishes, which are the locations within the province, along with the provincial history, committees, friars, personal effects, and our Blessed Solana's Casey collection. Blessed Solana's Casey, we have a museum as well for him here. He has been beatified and he's very revered. He certainly is on his way to becoming canonized as a saint in the Catholic Church. We're very fortunate that we have his tomb here and his museum as well. Created, I also created record group numbers for each of our 137 collections, and an object number for each item and file folder in each collection. So then I uploaded over a thousand object images, certainly probably more than that at this point. And then I've also reorganized file cabinet files into 12 sections, including deceased friars, former friars, tertiaries, novices, postulates, students, candidates, affiliates, things like that. Then I organized the books into 66 sections, which included foreign language, states, and the province, saints, Franciscan as well as Capuchin, inspirational books prayer, along with theology books, that sort of thing. And I did create a periodical section for 45, but it actually has just grown and I now have 47 publications, and I put them in order. And it is really nice. I do get a lot of inquiries on the periodicals. I'm very glad to have those. The Calvary Provincial Archives includes the states of Montana, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan. This requires me to be able to go to these different locations, be able to document the artifacts and paintings, saint relics, and things that they do have in those locations as well. And what I do is that I will put the metadata on the ad lib software, and I note their record group number. I have a specific patrimony record group number for each artifact, and then I note its location and take a picture of it, and then the scanned images in my system. So it will be documented. And then I go there every year to make sure that the item hasn't moved. And I do this for hundreds of items. So anyway, so I use axial software to manage our inventory that it currently has over 12,000 records, including 1,825 books and 47 periodicals, and a full inventory of 137 collections, including, well, it's using approximately 1,300 linear feet of archival materials in the vault. That's at the current time. Actually, we're at capacity right now, so we're in the process of renovating our vault. So we're going to have more linear feet. Imported 963 files from an XML format into axial, currently importing 526 prior files and 667 patch remotely files from access database into axial as well. It's looking and working on currently. Each folder in each box is documented along with audio, visual, the textiles, photographs, and artifacts, as well as the relics and 152 relic queries. Included is our blessed Solonis Casey collection and museum in our center, with many of its archival items being displayed there. Each archival item on display is documented in the archives. Archival items and other locations throughout the province will be recorded in the software as of this spring. It's something I'm currently working on now. I'm adding records daily in the form of prior files, books, new items given to the archives, as well as anything from the other state to document any new cash money items that they acquire in the other states. And I do manage a small staff that gives me about four hours of help every week. My AdLib software provides, I enter the metadata for each archival item, including the record group number, the box number, and the folder and object number. The location is also encoded, and I give it a unit number and then the shelf number for each item in the archive. And I'm working on that as of this spring because we're in the middle of renovating the vault, so all of the boxes are going to change shelf number and location number, so I haven't put all of that in yet, but I'm going to be working on it this spring. Each box in the vault is also labeled with our logo. The title of the collection is also on the label, along with the record group number, the box number in the series, and a description of the content. I'm also in the process of designing the software to crosswalk across collections. This means so that when I conduct a search for an instance when I enter a prior name, it comes up with all the books that he's written. His thesis paper, his personal effects, his prior file, anything that he's written or even been on a committee for that it will all come up at one time for me. I think it's very important to have the software crosswalk across collections. It's very helpful. My archives renovation, as I've touched on speaking here about, it's that we are conducting an archival renovation to expand our vaults that include a new gaseous clean agent fire suppression system with a NOVAC 1230 fire suppression fluid. It's a gaseous clean agent, as I'm sure you're all familiar with. It's certainly not going to use sprinklers. It's very safe for archival items. The new HVAC unit as well will be for climate control for my temperature to be at 60 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit in the vault, as well as the humidity between 35 to 45 percent. I also have a window in the vault right now, which is quite unusual for a vault. We're going to block that out with cinder blocks. We're going to remove the false ceiling tiles and then we're going to move the wall further out to expand the square footage. We're also installing a new metal door with a key fob entrance that way it will be locked whether I'm in the vault or I'm working outside of the vault. I want it locked out so right now it doesn't have that capability. And then we hope to have this project finished by this June. In regards to reference requests, that is something that's a very big part of my job and the part that I love the most. Most of our reference requests come in Detroit via email. I have had over 150 request requests since I have started in October. Most of our patients request are historical in nature about the province. Occasionally we do have genealogical inquiries as well. When I do have a secular patron, I have them sign a non-disclosure statement before they receive any archival information. This is to protect our copyright issues. This is not a public archive as I mentioned. So all secular patrons make an appointment to research at the archives in Detroit. I personally research each reference request for information and then email the scanned images of reference to the outside patrons. I also convert real tapes, VHS, beta, slides, etc. into digital format for patrons upon request. And then my general turnaround time is typically between one to two days. Of course that's different when it comes to conversions because conversions can take weeks and weeks on it. But for our typical questions, I'm happy to be able to answer them usually within one to two day time frame. Another interesting part of my job that had come up as very surprised was that I discovered a very large reliquary on the floor in the vault when I started and it ends up being the St. Timothy Reliquary. And I ended up leading a team to research it. This team included two forensic pathologists who came to determine if the bones were of human origin. There was a lot of speculation as to if this was real. So I had to start with a very basics. And so that's what we did. I also sent out the bone fragments for carbon dating to a company in Miami. However, the adhesive that nuns had used on the bones in 1926 had rendered the bones available. What the nuns did in such sincere sweetness is they cleaned these bones and then they put linen around them, but they put an adhesive and then the linen so it would stay nice. So God loved them, but it was this glue that they had put on it that made it it's impossible to be able to know the date of those bones, unfortunately. Let's see. I also did some research on it with other archives, as well as in the messenger, which is our periodical. It goes back to 1926. And I did find that a Louis Wython was the relative authority in Austria at that time. And he would write certificates of authenticity for relics. And an interesting part is that when we finally got to open more and more of this large reliquary that on the back sure enough there was his name that it was given to our province from Louis Wython. It's very interesting. I've written a 30 page paper so far, 30 pages on this, and I'm still actually working on a little bit more research on it. So maybe when it's done, I'll have it publishable soon. Very interesting. In addition to working in the archives, I'm also the museum curator, as I stated for the Solanas Casey Museum here in Detroit. And in that capacity, I have created new signage for the 12 Steps Saints and the Steps to Saint foot exhibit that we have. And what I wanted to do with that was to represent the different ethnic groups in a balance for the demographics of the Detroit metropolitan area. I thought that was very important as well as gender so that anyone coming in from any sort of faith or any ethnicity that they would feel a commonality with one of the saints and steps to Saint foot exhibit. I thought that was important. Let's see. I also had written museum signage for exhibits that need to be rotated five times per year. So Catholics have different holidays, such as Advent and Christmas, candle loss at Tiffany, things like that. And actually a lot of our pilgrims who come here are coming here because Solanas Casey Center is known as a healing place. So we have healing services on Wednesdays. So a lot of the people that come here are not Catholic. And so what I do is I write things in more of a historical context so that they will understand what, you know, what we're doing for Advent, for instance, and why we do it. And that sort of thing. So it's more of a historical as well as just interesting with a lot of the art exhibits and artifacts as well. Now let's see. I also keep track of locations of archival items in the museum on the ad-lib software that are on rotation. And designed museum exhibits for the new museum. We're also renovating the museum. In addition to renovating the vault, we're also renovating the museum. This is a much larger scale and it's going to take a few years actually to do this. But I've been working with having contractors come out to give me quotes on new museum cases and how we're going to design the museum flow. I was going to look completely different. And I think it will be more inviting for new patrons and for folks coming here. Future projects. Well, some future projects that I'm very excited about this year and in the future beyond that for the archives is that I want to do with land deeds projects for every property owned by the province. Being that we're over four states that is actually a whole lot of land deeds. So I want to be able to have that in a more central location here in the archive. I also want to know the cemetery records. I want to start a project for that so we can find where each deceased friar is buried around the world. A lot of our cabbage and friars are in missionary work and so they can be in many different locations throughout the world. And then, you know, if they happen to de-cease at the time that they're working overseas, then of course, they're buried there many times. And so I want to be able to have that documented in a central way as well. Also, as I stated earlier, importing friar files from the access database and the patrimony files, and then also scanned images from alchemy software, which is another outdated software that I inherited. And there's some good information on it and I want to be able to import some of the images to Axial. Let's see. Also, a very regular thing. I need to also digitize more images and also have refolder and takeout staples for all of the records in my 137 collections as well. And contacting the Capuchin Archives, you're always welcome to contact me. The Calvary Province is located at the St. Joseph of the Capuchin border. We are located on Mount Elliott Street in Detroit, Michigan and my email address is listed right here. And thank you so much for listening to my presentation today. Now I'd like to invite any of you to ask questions. Just unmute your mic if you'd like to do that, or type into the chat area and Junie will be glad to answer your questions. How many of you have ever thought of working in an archives similar to this one that might be affiliated with a religious denomination rather than universities or libraries that we usually hear about? Oh, thank you. Oh, this is so nice. Yes, I have been able to accomplish a lot. Honestly, I've been so, so tired when I get home. I mean, honestly, just organizing so much, it's just been a whale, a whale of a journey, a huge, huge undertaking. Let's see. Oh, the funding for the updates, funding. Let me think. I'm just doing a lot of it just myself. Yeah. Oh, you mean for the renovating of the vault? Yeah, they do have some money set aside because they understood when they hired me in that they would be renovating the vault and perhaps doing whatever it was that it needed, and they didn't know what that would be. And so they did set a bit aside for that. That's a question above Christine's also. Okay, gracious. Oh, okay. How familiar were you with the archive material? Oh, I see. Absolutely not familiar at all. I just got started and just jumped in with both feet and I actually learned very much on the fly. It's amazing what you can really learn when you really put your mind to it. You know, I thought about it day and night and I'm very fortunate that I live alone and so I just, you know, I probably did what people are not supposed to do, but I took my work home with me at least in my mind and organized every night what I'm going to do the next day and the next day. And that's kind of how I did it. I would write it out every night. Yeah. Let's see. Thank you. Where did I start in regard to the organization of physical materials? Oh, the books and periodicals. Oh, thank you, Rachel. What a great question. Yeah, in fact, they were just piled up on the floor. So I pretty much started by just trying to organize which ones were duplicates and which ones were we were going to keep. I would keep duplicates, of course, very prominent ones, but then which is so many sometimes I would have like even 10 copies of the same book. And so I would try to do that very first to make sure I had enough copies and then put the extras in another pile. And then I pretty much just tried to organize it like I would think of a Barnes and Noble, you know, when I would walk into a Barnes and Noble store, what would I see? What would I want to see? I would thought, well, I would want to see a section on prayer. I would want to see a section in the, I would want to see the foreign language section, because I certainly have a lot of foreign languages and I put all the different languages in the, you know, other things that, of course, I would have to have a periodical area and I just put that alphabetical order. So that's pretty much how I organized it. Let's see. Oh, Leanna, let's see. Apologize if you repeated, but what did you find was your biggest challenge? Oh my goodness, there are so many. I think probably the biggest challenge. Oh, gracious. I really loved all of it. I don't know that I would find anything that was particularly, I didn't particularly like that it would feel like it was too much of a challenge. I think I enjoyed every bit of it. So I don't, I don't think I had anything. Let's see. And I'll, okay, let's see. I think I think I'm losing track here. There's so many questions. All right, there we go. Daniel, L Daniels, let's see. Can you go a bit further into how you are moving information from, oh, thank you. Yes, what issues are you finding? Oh, this is quite large. This might be my challenging part, is that I'm actually working with the ad lib people as well. They have their IT department as well that can work with me. And what I do is I am writing fields with them because I have the ad lib designer. It's the designer package which is different than the standard package. So I can write code for the fields that I want. And then I can have them help me to introduce, to import the data from access database or Excel or an XML format into that. So, so it works. It's in conjunction with that. So that's how I'm doing it. And what issues am I finding? Things that are issues are generally typos. That's the biggest thing. And there aren't too many, but when you find one, you know, and so you just have to go over it again and again and again, just to be sure that you don't have any typos. Let's see. Okay, Karen, thank you. When all of this renovation is done and the archives are in good order, what do you expect your day activities to be? I think most of my day-to-day activities are going to be answering reference requests, which is my best part of the job. I love to be able to help people find what they're seeking. And so I think that will be the most part of it, but honestly, these projects, I think, are going to last till I retire. I can't see a day when I'm not working on projects that are huge. But yeah, I think the bulk of my day is definitely going to be just helping people find what it is they're seeking. Let's see. And Kat, I see. How did you know where to begin with the research about the reliquary bones and find the forensic pathologist? Actually, I thought about it because so many people had speculated to me, friars, for speculating that they didn't know if this was a relevant reliquary. And so they were saying that we don't know that it's a real thing. So I thought, well, the first thing we would have to do is just figure out to make sure that they're real bones, that sort of thing. So I picked two forensic pathologists who actually worked with our monastery before in regards to the Solana's Casey Center because we do have his tomb here, and they worked with that. So I used those two forensic pathologists, and they were more than happy to volunteer their services for us. They were very good to us. Let's see. And I see a question from Karen. How did you find this position? I found it on ArchivesGig. There are tons and tons of positions on there, and that's where I found it. Let's see. From Amanda. You mentioned that you were not familiar with the connection collection before you started working at Capuchin. But I was wondering if you have a theology background or a Catholic history background? Actually, I do not. And I'm actually not Catholic either. So now I didn't have a background in it, but I found it very fascinating and interesting, and I absolutely love it. I always tell them I plan to stay till I retire. I don't plan on going anywhere. It's a great place. So now I didn't have any background in it, but I guess I just learn it as I go. That part of it. Let's see. From Stephanie. What steps would you recommend I take to prepare to enter this field? I would say to volunteer someplace. That was my greatest thing because I volunteered at the Michigan State University Archives, and they were so good to me to really take the time to show me each step for processing archives and things like that. And there's so many different aspects of archiving. You know, there's the digital archiving, and there's a lot of importing, and you know, whatever part that really is fascinating to you, like museum archives, for instance, whatever it is to just volunteer with someone, and then you can really get more information. And there are great recommendations too. I mean, to get this job, it was my, the recommendation from the gentleman who was my boss when I was volunteering at Michigan State University Archives. He was one of them that was really integral for me to get this job. They called him and he had such a glowing recommendation for me that, you know, it helps for me to get in. So, that's a good part of it. Let's see. From Wendy, Lily. Thank you. This is fascinating. Before you arrived, how long can they live without an archivist? Honestly, I'm not sure. I think it's been a while though before because it was very, very disorganized and things were on the floor. So, I think it's been a very long time since an archivist was still, but I don't know exactly how long. From Chuck, how did you find the job with a campus recorder? What was the hiring process like? As I said, I went through archives gig and the process was like many of the other ones, where you get an interview and then it was a phone interview with a few people, and then they had me come in for a regular interview with, I think, four people. And so, so that's how it went. It is very similar to any place else. From Sharon, is it important to be religious affiliated with the religion in order to work in such an archive? If not, would it be more helpful, perhaps? I have found that it's been fine for me. They've never, they didn't ever ask me the hiring process if I was Catholic, which was interesting. I thought that I might, but they did not. And even after I'd been here for a long time, they never did ask. They were just very, very happy that I was organizing the archives and doing a very good job. And so, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't an issue or anything like that. It wasn't part of a mandatory part of it. Let's see. From Leana, was the program you used to create all the files already owned by the facility? Or did you need to seek out an organization's system program? Oh, the AdLib software was already owned. The archivist before me had purchased it. And so, that was great. But for some reason, I don't know what happened, but he never got to enter any records into the system. So, I was just glad that I inherited it. Let's see. From Kat, which San Jose State University classes helped you the most with this job? Oh, the one where I was doing archival renovation. I had to write a paper about designing a balls, a real ball, brought under Professor Dalby. And that one has been so good for me. I remember when I wrote it, it was very interesting paper to write, but I never thought I'd get a chance to do it. And so, now here I am. And I feel very well prepared, because I'm very familiar now with archival fire protection. When it comes to how many hours a certain metal door can withstand fire or things like that, how it has to be certified, it's very important. So, I'm really glad that I was able to take that class. It was very good for me. Let's see. From Elle Daniels, do you find yourself acting as both the archivist and records manager? Actually, I feel only as the archivist. And the reason I say that is because they do have regular records that a records manager would take care of. They do have somebody else that's not. They don't have the title records manager, but they do send like human resource records, things like that, to another location. And that is completely a different department than where I'm working. So, I'm just the archivist. And then from McKenna, legally, they aren't allowed to ask you if you're Catholic or not. Yes, that is true. I didn't bring that up, but yes, that is very true. They weren't, you know, but you know how sometimes some people can, even though they're not legally supposed to ask that, they kind of would prefer if you were a certain way. There wasn't like that at all here with me. They were just, they were just one of the most qualified person and it didn't matter. So, they wanted someone who was going to really jump in. I think they said that some of the other people they had interviewed when they showed them the archive in the room and how, you know, kind of see, you know, that it was, that they kind of shied away from the whole idea. So, I think they were really looking for someone who is really excited and wanted to jump in and didn't, you know, didn't get scared off or anything. So, I think that was the important part. Let's see, from Leanna. Okay. What would you recommend to future archivists who finds themselves in a location that does not have the proper facilities or proper archivists? Let's see. So, so is your question meaning that you are, see, if you were an archivist but you didn't have a proper archiver, you mean there's nowhere to apply for an archive job? I'm pretty sure on the clarity on it. Maybe you can make it more clear to me. Oh, the archive itself. Okay. So, you would be an archivist but you didn't have it all. You didn't have, you know, the facility or the software. Is that what you mean? I see. Probably in a case like that, I would probably try to just prioritize and try to at least secure the, the records as best I could. You know, there are some people who are doing, you know, putting things in metal storage units because of course metal is not going to burn. There's that option. You could just stack the boxes even though they're not, you know, acid-free boxes and they don't have the proper shelving. You could at least put it in a, you know, a metal container, a storage unit like that, and then at least it would be safe from fire. And it would certainly be very hard to access, but at least it would be, you know, kept and preserved. And if you didn't have, you know, software because it can be expensive, you know, I suppose an Excel spreadsheet would be the best thing. Just do your best with what you've got. And it would still work. I think I may have missed a question from Sam. Why, why did you preserve, pursue an archival position? What are some of the skills you flex on a daily basis? Actually, I've always been very interested in genealogy and I've been working with archival records for well over 20 years now. And so I feel really at home in an archive. And so that's why I got my degree, my graduate degree in archives was because I thought, oh, I love it here. You know, I really like the organization like that. So that was the reason I got into it. I thought I would work a lot with genealogical records. And then what skills do I flex, the organizational skills, to be able to look at a collection and to be able to just organize it and then keep organizing it down and down to where, you know, each file has its own record group number and that sort of thing. You know, and when I get information and a lot of times writers will come by and they'll give me something, you know, and say, this should be in the archive. And then you just have the organizational lines know where can I put that where it will be found again. And what is the best way to preserve that, you know, those sorts of things I think are the most important and the things that I flex the most for skills. I think this will be your last question and answer. So all right. Let's see from M. Tally. What's the experience like working on your own most of the time? Do you like that? Or do you wish you had more people to help? I'm used to working on my own. So I'm good with it. And it's funny because I do really like working with people. So I'm always telling friars and different people, come back and visit come visit. So I want them to be able to see this as a resource. And so I think that kind of helps too. A lot of times they'll just come in, you know, and I try to encourage them to come and look at some periodicals, look at some books. I do ever reference table. And so I do have a lot of friars are very, very good writers. And so they do want to do a lot of research. So that is happy and encouraging for me because then I can have them come in and they can come in for a day or two sometimes. And research. So I like that aspect of it. I guess I'm used to working on my own. I like it. Yeah. But I also like, you know, talking to people here and there too. So I keep busy. Yeah, it works out really well. Thank you. Okay, I'd like to thank Junia now. We're past our hour. And this was fascinating. I'm so glad we had plenty of time for questions and answers. Thank you, everybody for attending. If you have additional questions, you can send them along to me if you don't have Junia's address and I can forward them for you. Thank you. Thank you so much for this opportunity. It's been wonderful.