Utilizing Student Library Assistants in University Archives and Special Collections

Student Assistants are used in all departments of the library, but very little is directly written about the management of students in university archives and special collections. By reviewing the available literature and presenting the results of several interviews with archival professionals, this paper intends to explain the current approach to internships and archival education; the attitude of supervisors to their student assistants; the available funding options; the ways in which job descriptions are written and positions are publicized; the hiring process; the orientation and training of the new workers; the tasks the assistants are assigned; and the system of motivation, evaluation, and rewards. For each of these topics, the paper explores the differences that exist between the work of graduates and undergraduates and the areas in which the literature and reality do or do not coincide