Winter 2009 issue
ARCHIVIST REPORT
Emily Plassman, Music Therapy Student
I am pleased to report on the progress I have made in the archives so far this school year. I finished filing three boxes of treasurer information, including budgets, conference data, and other documents, that I began organizing last year. In the Chronology series, two boxes were added. The Miscellaneous series saw the addition of three new boxes, including a box for national conference materials.
My main task this semester has been to reorganize the University Specific series, now consolidated in five boxes. Before, there were multiple copies of documents spread over three or four different folders and boxes of material without any real sense of order. The Duquesne University section, the largest, is now composed of four boxes. Information preserved includes history of the program, the curriculum, clinical sites, self-study reports, department newsletters, brochures, video tapes of important lectures and seminars given by guest speakers, department photographs, significant special events (such as the department’s twenty-fifth anniversary celebration), awards and plaques, and scrapbooks made by Duquesne’s Music Therapy Student Association. The fifth box in the University Specific series houses information relevant to all other schools in the region that have sent material to the archives: Immaculata University, Marywood University, Molloy College, Montclair State University, Nazareth College, New York University, Slippery Rock University, SUNY – Fredonia, and SUNY – New Paltz.
Lastly, I have also used my time to create an updated timeline of the history of the Mid-Atlantic Region and have created a set of guidelines for future student archivists to follow so the method of organization in the archives remains consistent with each new person in the position. I have also helped several people in locating documents in the archives for varying projects.