Today I am kicking off a new series of archivist interviews with the spotlight on Michelle Goodridge of the University of Guelph Archival & Special Collections.

1. Can you tell us a bit about the collections?

The University of Guelph Archival and Special Collections has over 8 kilometres of records, in a variety of formats, covering 7 core collecting areas; Landscape Architecture, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Campus and Regional History, Agricultural and Rural History, Scottish Studies, Culinary, Canadian Theatre, and Rare Books (see infographic above).

2. How long have you worked there and do you have previous experience in archives or libraries?

I have been working in this department for over 4 years now and I have held a few different job titles during that time. My most recent title of Archives Associate I’ve had since September 2012.

Prior to working at the University of Guelph Archival and Special Collections I did a four-month internship as part of my MA program in Public History at the City of Cambridge Archives and volunteered at the Region of Waterloo Archives.

I took my MA program thinking I would work in museums (I had worked in several prior to beginning the program) and then I fell in love with archives after taking an elective course on Archival Outreach.

3. What are your current duties and projects?

I am one of four Archives Associates within my department. Our job duties are grouped into categories; reference, processing and research.

For reference, we are each assigned email reference weeks as we take turns answering email reference questions and we are regularly scheduled on the reference desk in the reading room.

Processing is the largest component of our duties (50% of our time) and this is where we prepare items for appraisal, we catalogue archival and book donations (or purchases), we process collections and create finding aids, etc.

The last part is research which includes professional development, outreach, teaching, belonging to cross-functional committees, etc.

We also all have specializations within the 7 collecting areas; mine are culinary, landscape architecture, social media and genealogy research.

Current projects I’m working on are updating our website – the University of Guelph Library recently updated their website and as a result we lost a lot of our content so I’m repopulating that. I also am working on outreach strategies and collaborating with other library staff to make instructional videos and create LibGuides. I also manage the archives’ social media accounts and generally create most of the content and belong to the library’s social media committee.

4. Can you share more about one of your favourite items?

The favourite item question is tricky. I’d have to say some of my favourite items are the manuscript cookbooks that we have. These are handwritten cookbooks (not published) and they have a whole range of content from recipes to home remedies to “cures” for cancer. It’s really fascinating content and it has compelled me to do doctoral research with them starting next fall.

5. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about yourself or your work?

This is a truly rewarding career. I love being able to help a whole range of researchers and have a lot of variety in my work day. I get to stay in academia and keep current on trends and have the opportunity to really spread my wings and try new things. I also get to work with some fantastic people and collaborate with other librarians, faculty, students and community members (for example, I partnered with the Guelph Public Library to offer a series of genealogical workshops this summer).

Thank you, Michelle!

You can follow Michelle on Twitter @migoodridge and the University of Guelph Archives @UoG_ASC.

If you have questions you’d like me to pose in future archivist interviews, please leave them in the comments below.