Published: August 31, 2018 by Katie Kuryla 

Welcome back everyone! Our first blog post of the fall semester is one of our spotlight series on Anna Belle Rosen. Anna Belle is the secretary of our school’s chapter of the Society of American Archivists. It is great to see MARA students becoming more active in the school community and Anna Belle is here to tell you about the wonderful things that SAASC has to offer.

Check out the information she provides as well as why she joined the MARA program and then check out the SAASC meeting on Wednesday night! Keep an eye out on Facebook for future reference to the meeting! And introducing… Anna Belle Rosen!

Hello everyone! I’m Anna Belle. I live in Oakland, CA with my wife and our orange tabby cat, Samson. I currently work at a used bookstore in Berkeley, CA, but someday I would love to work at a historical society. I started the MARA program in Spring 2017. I work full-time, so the only feasible way I personally could do grad school is through this program. I’m so thankful that it exists! That’s part of the reason why I got involved in the SAASC. It is the student chapter of the SAA, or the Society of American Archivists. Our mission is to promote archival interests, discuss archival issues, foster career development and provide opportunities for connection between professional archivists and archival students.

Towards the end of the spring semester,I saw several posts on social media asking if anyone would be interested in becoming an officer for the chapter. At first I was reticent to put my hat in the ring, but I’m so glad I did! Being secretary means that I am in charge of taking minutes at our meetings and making them accessible to members, updating the community through our Facebook and Twitter pages and facilitating greater understanding about our mission through maintenance of our website. I’m hoping that through the SAASC’s web presence I can make members feel like they are part of a thriving community of archivists. I want to help connect our student members all over the country.

The SJSU MARA program is such an incredible opportunity to gain knowledge about the archival and records management fields, but I truly feel that this is only one part of the whole. Connection with a community of like-minded individuals, and the ability to share ideas is something that is necessarily a bit more difficult in an online-only program. The other SAASC officers and I are hopeful that we can provide a space for this to occur. We’re planning on-site archives visits to provide the opportunity for people who are able to travel and meet other members in person. However, we also understand that we all live very busy lives! Webinars and recorded sessions are sometimes the best way to learn more about a particular subject, so we’ll definitely have some of those as well. We also would love to get as much participation and input from our members as possible! The student chapter is here for you, which is why we’ve started out this year with a survey. Each of the officers and I have particular interests in archives, but we want to be sure that a variety of professions are covered, including corporate archives, digital asset management, state archives, among others. We’re also kicking everything off with our annual meeting, September 5 at 6 p.m. This meeting will give people more information about the student chapter and what we do, as well as provide information about anyone who is interested in helping out. The great thing is that there are a ton of ways to interact – writing blog posts, connecting through Facebook, retweeting on Twitter, or even just filling out a survey means that you are being an active member of our community.

Personally, I chose the MARA program because I have always been interested in history, but I also have an inherent love of organization. I was always the kid who was extremely excited about folders and dividers at the beginning of every school year. As I started in the MARA program, I liked the idea that I could use my skills at an archive or I could use my organizational skills and recordkeeping knowledge at a business. Overall, the SAASC has had a lot of engagement from people in the MLIS program, so I would love to see some renewed interest and cooperation from people in the MARA program – we are all in this field together! The other SAASC officers and I are really looking forward to starting conversations and providing opportunities for members of our student chapter!