An Archivist’s Tale

09/01/2024

Dear Prospective Master of Archives and Records Management Graduate Student,

Thank you for your interest in the Master’s degree program in Archives and Records Management at Alma Mater Europaea University. Our program, under the direction of Prof. Dr. Peter Pavel Klasinc, is designed with an interdisciplinary approach, allowing students to specialize in their areas of interest and expertise. The program is delivered in a 100% online format, taught in English, with lectures and workshops conducted either synchronously or asynchronously and at the instructor’s discretion.

For more information about the program, please refer to the attached document (https://lnkd.in/e2-9gWqQ) and the provided link (https://lnkd.in/eMHPc5Zu).

To evaluate your eligibility for enrollment, please send scans or photos of the following educational documents to [email protected] and [email protected]:

Bachelor's degree certificate
Transcript of records and diploma supplement
Curriculum vitae or a self-written description of completed education
Any other documents relevant to enrollment that demonstrate your eligibility to apply for the master’s program

Additionally, please complete the application here (https://lnkd.in/evG6rWA7). You can find a detailed description on how to register to the portal and fill out the application here (https://lnkd.in/egsTDHZZ; under "How to fill in an application for 2nd and 3rd cycle study programs").

We recommend registering with a personal username and password (“uporabniško ime in geslo”). Please find Alma Mater Europaea University – European Centre, Maribor under “Private higher education institutions.”

There is no need to attach documents on the last page, since you will send them already via email. The application is non-binding and free of charge, but it will allow us to consider you for enrollment in the program.

After submitting your application, we invite you to schedule an interview here (https://lnkd.in/exSY_bG8). This interview will help us gain a comprehensive understanding of your academic achievements, personal experiences, and aspirations.

The enrollment in the program will take place online during August, September, and October 2024. The academic year commences on November 1st 2024.

Best regards and good luck!
Karen

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

08/04/2024

On approximately 2016-12-01, I began a project that collected fragments of distressed archives and assembled the pieces in bottles. These bottle poems included text, yet the viewer could never see each piece of text at the same time. The original bottles simply included paper, but, over the years, I added string, thread, degrading leather, costume jewelry, dead insects—any object I found in the distressed and poorly maintained archives our team was trying to resuscitate.

The archives itself had suffered seriously from poor housing and storage, neglect, and an almost absolute absence of climate control. We improved the climate with air conditioning units, and we rehoused most of the archives. We did not complete the job because the pandemic ended that project, and we never were greenlighted to return to that work.

Over the years of working there, I collected the scraps of brittle archives that broke away, first adding them only to bottles—some of which (all of them empty liquor bottles) we found in the archives. The records had suffered from the elements, general neglect, and even active disregard for the records by custodians who had come decades before us. We did, however, identify, catalog, and rehouse 1500 cubic feet of records and transfer them to the New York State Archives, and we rehoused a much larger set of records destined to the New York City's municipal archives, though none of those records have yet been transferred.

As the years progressed, this art project of mine (which still continues) only grew in size and breadth. I made object poems on stones, paper boards, wood, shells, animal skulls, mirrors, bonen, ceramics, glass, and other media. The single series of poems in bottles grew to 21 series, the largest (the bottles) growing to 258 so far.

Recently, I realized I must have been approaching the 1,000-item mark for my series of series, Third Life (named by Brenda Scruggs Gunn, and I thank her for that). Third Life refers to the progression of documents (which may or may not be kept indefinitely) to archives (records designated for "permanent" retention), to my artworks about and of archives, which are destined for permanent retention at the University at Albany's M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, which holds hundreds of cubic feet of my work in all media, including even my writing on archives.

After realizing last week that I was approaching the 1,000 mark, I went to the two databases that document 37,062 of my works (with thousands more left to be cataloged), and I identified, for the first time, all the subseries that make up Third Life. On July 30th, I was 15 pieces shy of 1,000. By yesterday (August 3rd), I had passed the mark, and rested, temporarily, at 1003 items.

Third Life is likely the largest art project of my life so far, and I still have enough materials to make hundreds of pieces out of decaying paper and other material.

The illustrations are of the seven pieces I made yesterday, and the first four of those are the pieces that concluded the first thousand of these works.

With more coming.

01/17/2022

Go Agnes, go!!! ☀️

Born in Budapest in 1921, Keleti was the Hungarian National Champion in gymnastics by age 16. But in 1941, she was expelled from her gymnastics club due... 38 comments on LinkedIn