More Product, Less Process – Interview with Erica Williams, Archivist and Records Manager

What is your role at History Associates?

I’ve been an archivist at History Associates for 11 years now. It was my first job out of grad school. We’re a team of historians and archivists who are hired by private companies, government organizations, and nonprofits that need archival or historical services. I was originally hired to work on a contract for the National Library of Medicine. Since then, I’ve collaborated on many different projects, such as the National Park Service archives work and our current project, the Dr. Hector P. Garcia Papers.

Most of my work is connected with 20th century manuscript collections. My job is to arrange them into a coherent order and attend to any physical processing tasks, such as photocopying, sleeving, removing oversized materials – basically to make sure everything is in the proper housing. Then we write a guide so that researchers will know what’s in the collection and where to find things.

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