“We lost out to love. Though I can’t think of a better reason to lose, right?” So mused Milligan Libraries Director Gary Daught when he learned that Information Resources Librarian & College Archivist Lindsay Kenderes would be resigning her position at the end of May to join her fiancé in Austin, Texas. “You work really hard to build a great team of librarians, and you want to keep the team together indefinitely, especially when everyone is working together so well. Still, you have to be prepared for changes as folks continue to grow in their personal and professional lives. We will miss Lindsay, of course. But otherwise it’s all good.”
As it happens, “it’s all good” extends to the person we were able to get to fill Lindsay’s position. “Search processes can be very stressful. They take a lot of time, energy, and expense,” notes Daught. “But we were very blessed to have found a local librarian ideal for the position — 2015 Milligan alumna, Katherine ‘Katie’ (Siebenaler) Banks.” Katie has been shadowing Lindsay as a volunteer intern since mid-March, so by the time she assumes the position full-time on June 1 she will be thoroughly familiar with her duties. “This has been the most wonderfully smooth search process I could have ever possibly imagined!”
Gary Daught asked Lindsay to share some of her highlight moments as Information Resources Librarian & College Archivist since coming to Milligan College in 2014. He then asked Katie Banks to share what she is most looking forward to as she prepares to step into the position.
Farewell Lindsay
One of the aspects that I am going to miss most about Milligan College are the people. While working as Information Resources Librarian & College Archivist I have been allowed to collaborate with our library staff, students, faculty, administration, staff, alumni, and the public to the degree I never thought possible in just four years. I am so appreciative of Gary Daught’s direction and mission for the Milligan Libraries, which has allowed me to learn, thrive, and serve in a user-focused academic library environment. I have had the opportunity to collaborate on projects with all of our library staff, including especially:
MCStor, Milligan’s Digital Repository
Starting in 2012, Gary Daught and Meredith Sommers pursued establishing an institutional repository at Milligan College. I entered this project in 2014 and worked collaboratively with David Baker and Gary Daught to implement MCStor, Milligan’s digital repository, which went live in July 2015. MCStor provides digital access to student and faculty scholarly work as well as digitized archive materials, including photographs, manuscripts, and audio recordings. I am extremely proud of this initiative. To date, we have been able to archive over 100 undergraduate and graduate scholarly work submissions, with close to 3,000 digital archive images digitized from the Holloway Archives at Milligan College. I am also extremely grateful for Amanda Bristol and Milligan’s Information Technology Department for hosting MCStor server space and for supporting this mission.
Milligan’s Sesquicentennial 150th Anniversary
One of my major capstones was serving on the History and Research subcommittee while managing digitization projects, researching a high volume of archive reference requests, and curating physical and digital archive exhibits for Milligan’s 150th Sesquicentennial Anniversary in 2016. This event and my involvement proved to be great for promoting the Holloway Archives and Helsabeck Archives. I am extremely grateful that I could serve Milligan College during its 150th anniversary.
Primary Sources Instruction
Collaborating with Mary Jackson and Milligan faculty, Mary and I led instruction on primary sources from the Holloway Archives at Milligan College for the COMM 431 Narrative Journalism and HUMN 250 Interdisciplinary Research Methods courses. Mary is a stellar instruction librarian. I learned so much about instructing students both inside and outside of the archives. I am excited and most appreciative for our faculty’s continued interest to utilize our archive primary sources to enrich their students’ learning experience.
Book Chapter Co-Author
Jude Morrissey invited me to co-author a book chapter titled “Building Bridges with No Trolls: The Practical Ethics of Open Access Institutional Repositories and Digital Archives,” published in Applying Library Values to Emerging Technology: Tips and Techniques for Advancing within Your Mission (ACRL, 2018). I am grateful for Jude’s innovative vision for user services and open access at Milligan Libraries and for suggesting to contribute to this publication!
Promoting the Helsabeck Archives of the Stone-Campbell Movement
With the time and dedication from David Kiger, Katie Banks, John Mark Wade, and David Baker, the Helsabeck Archives of the Stone-Campbell Movement now has an online presence on the Milligan Libraries’ Archive page and serves as a research destination for researchers of the Stone-Campbell Movement.
Archive Internship at the Holloway Archives at Milligan College
During my time at Milligan, I initiated a volunteer archive internship opportunity to be offered each spring semester in the Holloway Archives at Milligan College. Students who complete this internship curate an archival exhibit; arrange, describe and process an archive collection; digitize manuscripts and photos; and analyze primary sources. The skills gained from this internship include: training in appraisal, preservation, arrangement, description, and processing procedures; learning best practices for preservation, care and handling of archive materials; experience with digitization equipment and software; and curation design and exhibit installation. My interns have been Katie (Siebenaler) Banks (2015), Blake Stanley (2017), and Kristen Williams (2018). I have fully enjoyed serving as a mentor with each of my interns and I am extremely proud of all of their accomplishments.
Thank you Gary, Mary, Jude, David B., David K., and Katie for making the Milligan Libraries a wonderful place to work and serve each day. I appreciate all that you do and will miss you all.
Welcome Katie (Siebenaler) Banks
Katie (Siebenaler) Banks graduated from Milligan College in 2015 with a double major in History and Humanities. Her experience in libraries and archives began in high school, when she volunteered at the Elizabethton/Carter County Public Library. “As someone who loved history, I was initially thinking of pursing a public history or museum studies degree after Milligan. But then I began to discover how much I like archives.” During her final semester at Milligan, Katie completed an internship in the College Archives with Lindsay Kenderes. The experience was capped by mounting an exhibit on student clubs and traditions. “As a second-generation Buffalo, I had grown up always hearing about Milligan, so it was especially fun to work in the college archives on an exhibit like this.”
Katie went on to Indiana University to pursue a Master of Library Science degree with a concentration in Archives and Records Management (2017). She worked in the University Archives, where she processed archival collections and transcribed handwritten board of trustees’ minutes, including a set of minutes when Robert Milligan was hired as a professor at the university in the 1800s. She also worked in the political papers archives, processing the congressional papers of a former congressmen from Indiana. Her internship was at the home of the first president of Indiana University, where she contributed to an interactive exhibit on women at the university and assisted with library instruction. “My time at Indiana University was invaluable in preparing me for working in an academic library and archives,” she says. Most recently, Katie has been working as a cataloger for the Washington County Public Library, and assisting with reference work at the Welshimer Library.
“I am excited for the opportunity to work with the Milligan community,” says Katie. “I am thrilled and honored to become Milligan College’s archivist. I hope to continue to bring awareness to both archives within Milligan Libraries, and to use them as resources for research and learning.”
