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Education Background:
Masters in Liberal Studies
What was your professional background before your current position?
Taught Social Studies at Mynderse Academy in Seneca Falls for 20 years. Worked as a docent/archivist at Waterloo Library Historical Society.
Describe your current position and what do you like best about it:
Seneca County Historian. I love being able to research and learn more every day.
What has been your biggest professional challenge?
There is so much more to know. I'll never learn it all.
Have you seen any shifts towards sustainability in the workplace that you think would be useful in other libraries or institutions?
Digitization is vital to the preservation of the materials that are deteriorating before our eyes. It's not just the information that these documents hold. It is also the handwriting, the wording, the titles that people used. These give us insights into the social norms of the time.
How are you supporting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in your work environment?
I am constantly finding material on different populations that contributed to the growth and progress of our area but are under documented in official records. I have found unlabeled photos and census reports of minority populations in our county.
What other organizations are you involved with?
Seneca Singers, Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints, Seneca Textile Guild, Association of Public Historians of New York.
What advice would you give to someone new to the field?
Be open to new discoveries. Don't make assumptions about something that happened decades or centuries ago. Follow the evidence.
Are there any tips you would like to share that help you get things done?
Don't be daunted by big projects. Just tackle them one piece at a time. Start them now.
Favorite web tools or websites:
Ancestry, Historic Newspapers.
What are you most proud of?
My articles in the Finger Lakes Times and my digitization efforts. I also work hard to make new presentations that are entertaining and informative.
What is one thing you would you like to learn?
German. I have a lot of items that are in German.
What are you most looking forward to this year?
Doing more presentations on new topics and digitizing and indexing more documents.
Thank you Pam!
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