#university of wisconsin

UWM to honor Willem Dafoe with honorary doctorate at 2022 commencement

I really hope somebody records his speeches and posts them online.

gareleelove:

MeetBrendan Dooley, a graduate student in the department of Library and Information Science.

What is your area of study and research interests?

I’ve been intent on the archives concentration since starting my MLIS in Spring 2021, but I could see that changing. This semester I’ve been working as an intern here in the archives as well as a reference intern upstairs in the American Geographical Society Library. I find both places to be incredibly fulfilling places to gain experience and am truly enjoying the reference aspects of each as much as the research sides of what needs to be done. Helping others with their requests is incredibly rewarding.

What year are you on in your program? When do you plan to graduate?  

I’m in my third semester of classes right now. I took an archives and library course when I started in spring 2021 semester. I did a three-credit fieldwork class over the summer in the UWM archives where I worked on accessioning the Jim Northrup Papers, which was a fantastic experience (and led in part to my internship in the archives here). If all goes to plan I’ll be able to graduate Winter 2022.  

Tell us about your summer fieldwork.

The Northrup accession from my summer fieldwork had me working with the personal and professional writings of Native American author/activist Jim Northrup Jr., an Anishinaabe from the Fond du Lac reservation in Northern Minnesota, not far from the western edge of Lake Superior. He was sent to a federal boarding school at the age of 6, and he was a Vietnam vet, journalist and newspaper editor and columnist, poet, playwright, novelist, writing instructor and more. He began relearning his native Ojibwe language as an adult and started an annual camp to help teach it to others. He and his wife, Pat, made traditional birchbark ricing baskets for chaffing wild rice they harvested from nearby lakes and taught that as well at the camp and internationally at events and readings they were invited to do.  

What draws you to the archives, special collections, or libraries profession?

A sincere love for discovering information and growing knowledge, for myself and those around me. I’ve been a writer, journalist and editor for 20 years. Circumstances (due to Covid-19) found me out of a regular full-time gig in summer 2020. I used the opportunity, and the Wisconsin GI Bill, to turn that situation into a positive and return to school for my MLIS, something I had been considering for a year or so — though as a part-time nights/weekends student on a longer path to graduation. My love of journalism, similarly, was wanting to uncover stories and share them with the public — that’s all in the same vein as archival work as far as I can see.

What is your favorite collection within the archive, or most interesting record/collection that you’ve come across?

My favorite collection to come across in the archive, aside from the Northrup collection I’ve been accessioning, is the Charlotte Russell Partridge and Miriam Frink Papers, 1862-1980 ( Milwaukee Mss 167). I was typing different phrases and names into the archives’ Finding Aids search just to get an idea of some of the different collections we have. I typed in my last name and got a hit for my grandfather in this collection. He was an artist in Milwaukee who worked on the Federal WPA project here (which I knew), but there is a photo of a pen-and-ink drawing he did in the collection’s WPA section that I didn’t know existed … and neither did the rest of my family! So it was a pretty cool surprise to find that. I plan to make a copy of it for some reprints to frame and hang among his watercolors we have at home. 

What are you working on now for the archives?  

My two bigger projects right now are the Northrup Finding Aid so the collection can be live soon and an immense scanning task of SAA papers for an off-site patron.  

What’s something surprising you’ve learned (about yourself as an archivist or about the profession) since you’ve started working at UWM Archives?

One of the biggest misconceptions I’ve had about the archival profession is the idea that the archivist is a neutral party. That is the biggest way in which my eyes, and mind, have been opened by the UW-Milwaukee MLIS program and working here in the archives and the AGSL — to take a more critical look at the collections, both what’s here and what isn’t. Why is something here? Who thought it was worth preserving? Why did they think that, and what things were missed or not accessioned? What voices are missing? How can I be a positive influence on the collections and ensure there is access to all who want it?