Welcome to my Portfolio
The first thing most people notice about me is my love of history. When I got my BA in History and my MLIS from the University of Washington, it enabled me to pursue my passion for learning and outreach. I'm currently looking for a position that will help me share my skills and knowledge in a broader context.
Personal Philosophy
When I returned to the University of Washington to study history, archives, and library work, I already had a general goal in mind: I wanted to move towards a career which would be intellectually stimulating, allow me to pursue my more serious academic interests, work with a wide variety of people, and ultimately provide me with a meaningful sense of accomplishment in my everyday work. During my time studying in the history department, and then at the Information School, I encountered and learned about many trends, developments, and career options that allowed me to further refine this goal.
While many of my fellow students wanted to focus their careers on new media, new technology, and the future of libraries, I chose to work on preserving and understanding the history and accumulated materials of the past. The past holds more fascination for me than anything new or modern, and it is certainly significantly more vulnerable to cultural neglect, misunderstanding, and simple entropy. So much of modern American culture concerns itself exclusively with the future or simply with the present, while our understanding of history, even our own local history which should be deeply important to us, is often reduced to sound bites and stereotypes. People talk about a commitment to diversity - I believe in the importance of understanding the diversity of perspectives and worldviews represented by our own past. These offer us excellent opportunities to realize how quickly and completely opinions which are now common consensus can change. In short, I think that we can do better when it comes to historical education, and that if more people are exposed to historical perspectives and historical ways of thinking, our whole society will be improved by the experience.
Goals
Ultimately, the past, as physically embodied in documents and artifacts, needs champions - and I intend to be one of those champions.
I hope to find a position working in an institution which shares my commitment to history, archives, preservation, education, and outreach. Following my work experience at the Library of Congress and other large federal government institutions, I have found that my true commitment is to local history and smaller-scale archival and historical environments. I envision myself employed by a library, museum, historical society, archive, private corporation, or academic special collections environment, working with a mix of other professionals, researchers, interns, students, volunteers, and the public. Alternatively, I would welcome consulting work on a small scale, working with personal collections, research projects, presentations, tutoring, and exhibits.
Looking Forward, Looking Back
Looking back from my current perspective, I realize that my main reason for wanting to pursue a career in history and archives is to be able to work with real historical materials, especially ones that haven't received the attention they deserve, that will encourage others to realize the importance of understanding history. I enjoy helping people see that this means more than simply being able to read the text of historical documents online, or looking at digitized photos of objects - that it means examining and interacting with older media technologies and unfamiliar media formats, truly engaging with and thereby comprehending the everyday realities of life in the past. Exposure to the context, as well as the content, of historical records is essential to understanding them. I am constantly reaching out and finding ways to make history meaningful and relevant to people in their own lives, whether this is through offering better methods of finding materials in processed archival collections, through designing and staging engaging or interactive exhibits that reach out to academic and non-academic audiences alike, or through giving presentations, demonstrations, and lectures directed towards a wide variety of audiences. Ultimately, I would like to be able to work with donors in order to add to the collections held by historical institutions, and help build and develop the repositories of the future.
This portfolio bears witness to my commitment to the field of archives and public history, and I hope it will help me to secure a position where I can provide service to the public and continue my professional development as I work towards my long-term goal: a curatorial or leadership position in a history-focused institution.
All uncredited photos on this site were taken by Gabriel Chrisman
All material copyright Gabriel Chrisman, 2010
No reproduction allowed without permission