Madison Hall just completed her first year as a graduate student in TMU’s Photography Preservation and Collections Management at the Creative School. This summer, through the Young Canada Works program, she’s gaining experience researching and handling special collections at the Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections.
The Libraries’ Special Collections are home to a growing mass of prominent photography collections that include: the student First Edition Photobook Collection; the Kodak Collection; and the Collingwood Collection–composed of photos taken in Ontario between 1940s and 1990s. The latter is especially appealing to Hall as she notes she has, “a particular interest in early-to-mid twentieth century photography.”
Her role at the Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections is not the first opportunity Hall has had to work with older materials. She previously held positions at local history museums and a municipal archive, which she credits as giving her a solid foundation in collections handling and archival research. However, this is her first time working with special collections at a library, a different environment that adds to her breadth of experience. “My current role at TMU Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections is particularly valuable in order to consider how library-based collections operate differently from other cultural/heritage institutions–especially in terms of descriptive standards, and the emphasis on serving academic as well as public audiences,” she says.
In this role, Hall is working towards an internship credit–a requirement of her graduate program–while gaining valuable experience in an area that she may one day be interested in working in. “I have aspired to become either an archivist or collections manager since my first job in a museum, and have a keen interest in how primary sources, especially photographic materials, can help shape or change our understanding of history,” says Hall.
Not only is Hall gaining experience handling photography collections, but she is also receiving mentorship from Special Collections Librarian Alison Skyrme to whom she reports. “It’s been wonderful to work with Madison and see her put into practice the archival and photographic preservation skills she has learned in theory,” says Skyrme. “She has naturally adapted classroom concepts to the real challenges of working with an archive collection with all the attendant preservation issues. She is becoming a thoughtful steward of our visual history.”
Hall’s goal throughout the summer is to learn as much as she can about making collections accessible and engaging to the public, “while preserving the quiet legacy of vernacular photography,” she says. In working with the Collingwood Collection, she is gaining hands-on experience with rehousing, condition assessments, description, digitization, and public outreach with photos that require careful handling and contextual research. In so far as the experience relates to her studies, Hall adds “these are things that I have developed a theoretical grasp on.” Through her role at the Archives and Special Collections she is able to take that theoretical knowledge and put it into practice.