How Students Enhance Our World

One of the most rewarding aspects of working at an academic library is having the opportunity to work with students, opening their eyes to what happens behind the scenes. Brown University student employees, interns from the library science programs at University of Rhode Island and Simmons, and sometimes even volunteers with interests in anything from librarianship to particular aspects of the Library’s collection, can be found in Rock 202 digitizing archival materials and creating metadata throughout the year.

A few years ago, in my role as metadata librarian, I had the great pleasure of working with Evelyn Ansel (’11.5), a student who had received an Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award (UTRA), and her faculty collaborator and Librarian of Middle Eastern Studies, Ian Straughn. Evie’s research project was centered on the Minassian Collection of Qur’anic Manuscripts and culminated in a digital resource designed not only to give online access to Brown’s collection but also to provide the potential for identification and bringing-together of parallel manuscripts at other institutions.  The metadata describing the various aspects of the manuscripts allows for faceted browsing by script, manuscript number, time period or material.  Additionally, the metadata includes information on calligraphic style, techniques of illumination, size, number of lines and known parallels in other collections.  Perhaps my favorite part of the site is the video that Evie created, highlighting part of her research process while capturing a part of Evie’s personality.

Evie has graduated and  moved on from Brown but she continues to enhance the scholarly world.  She has woven her interest in research, cataloging and conservation with a background in shipbuilding (this she learned from her grandfather) and is off to her next adventure.  This fall she will be heading to Stockholm as a Fulbright at the Vasa Museum where she will help the museum begin to take metadata about the Vasa (a nearly 4000-year-old vessel) and the 40,000 or so objects found on board, from an internal catalog to a publicly accessible digital database.  Evie will also be generating research and assisting with conservation work on a of part of the collection.