January 8th, 2012
If someone asked me five years ago what I would be doing when I graduated from Elon University in 2011, attending graduate school would never have crossed my mind. I would have said that I was going to be a journalist, specifically a sports writer. There was not a doubt in my mind or any of my family or friends’ minds that this would happen. Sports and writing were my two biggest passions and it only made sense for me to pursue a career as a sports journalist.
As I began to pursue a journalism degree at Elon and gained a tremendous amount of experience, I learned that this was not the career for me. While I was slowly realizing this, I found a new passion – archives. When I was a freshman at Elon, I was hired in the Elon’s Archives and Special Collections Department. After my first few months working in the archives, I realized the important role archives played in society and how I wanted to be a part of this field. Even though I never anticipated becoming an archivist, I am excited what my future holds.
While at Elon, some people described me as an “old-school” journalist. I read the physical newspaper everyday and was hesitant to rely on the Internet as my number one source of news. I enjoyed looking at old newspapers and really understood the historical significance these documents had in society. Journalism is described as the first draft of history, with providing a primary source account of what occurred in a specific place and time. For many small towns across the nation, the local newspaper is the main historical record. Now with many news organizations moving part or the entire publications online, the purpose of newspapers has not changed. They still provide news to the public and provide a historic record, but the way archivists preserve this information has changed with the digital age. Digital information presents a new set of challenges to archivists, and if careful preservation of this information is not instituted, valuable information will be lost. Working with digital materials, specifically at a news archive, would be an ideal career for me.
My ideal career would be to work at a sports media company’s archive, such as ESPN or the MLB Network, archiving digital materials. This would be my top preference, but if I could work in any athletic archive, I would be incredibly happy. Not only am I a huge sports fan, but also I understand the historic role sports have played in society. Sports are historical markers and can be marked with major events in our nation’s history. For example during World War II, there were several women’s baseball teams formed in order to provide entertainment, while many of the male athletes were overseas fighting in the war. These teams are an important part of our country’s cultural history and documents about these teams need to be preserved. There is nothing that would make me happier in life being able to work each day at an athletic archive.
If working at a media company or an athletic archive does not work out, I would like to return to university archives. Unlike larger institutions, when I worked at Elon, I was able to work on many different projects. At this point, I think I working in a smaller university’s archive would give me more flexibility in working in all areas of archives and not just one area. The university setting is a great environment to work in and is a small community. Working at a smaller institution, I would be able to work with different departments of the campus in providing reference help and work with these departments on any projects that may come up. Even though working in a university would not be my first choice, I think it would still be a rewarding career.
After having several journalism internships, and leadership positions at Elon’s student newspaper, I think my journalism experience will be able to bring a different perspective working in a media company’s archive. Combining my journalism background and my sports passion, working in a setting such as ESPN or MLB Network would be my dream job. I understand the many budget cuts taking place in the media industry, which will make it difficult for me to earn a position in this sector. Regardless of where I work, I hope to be a mentor to younger individuals interested in archives.
