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| Erin (left) and Charlsie (right) |
At the end of March, we had the opportunity to travel to Portland, Maine to attend the New England Archivists’ 2026 Spring Meeting. The Spring Meeting is an annual two-day conference dedicated to networking and professional development for archivists at any stage in their career. We were fortunate enough to be selected to present on our work processing legislators’ papers in the State Library’s Special Collections department as a part of the graduate student lightning talks.
The first day of the conference, we attended several engaging sessions with topics ranging from document and textile preservation to gender in the archives. We also got the chance to meet and connect with other early professionals and Simmons students.
We started the second day by attending a panel about the importance of caring for ourselves and others in archival work. After lunch, it was time for the graduate student presentations. There were four other groups presenting, and we went last. It was great getting to meet the other presenters and hear about the projects they are working on. We were nervous when it was our turn to present, but the audience was extremely responsive and seemed interested in our work. We were also thankful to have processing archivist Alyssa Persson in the audience cheering us on. The presentation was centered around our experience processing the papers of Lois Pines, a former state representative and senator, as well as meeting her last summer. This project was very formative to our growth as archivists, so it was great to share our experience with an engaged audience of other people in the field. We are very grateful we were able to attend the conference and hope to return next year as professionals!
Erin Wood and Charlsie Wemple
Special Collections Interns
