Meet The Interns…Alyia Marasco

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behind-the-scenes, collections, curator, deep love of learning, design, education, exhibition, hands-on education, History, homeschooled, independence, McKinley Presidential Library and Museum, Museum Studies, museums, Ramsayer Research Library, Walsh University

Hi! My name is Alyia Marasco. I’m currently a junior at Walsh University where I’m pursuing degrees in History and Museum Studies. After graduation, I plan to eventually go on to graduate school to pursue a master’s degree in Museum Studies. My end goal is to be a curator of collections and work with exhibition design. I love history and spending time in museums, so I’m very excited to be interning at the Ramsayer Research Library for the 2021-2022 school year!  

Growing up, I had a unique education. Being homeschooled, I had the freedom to choose what topics I wanted to study. I also had the freedom to explore outside of classrooms. Because of this independence, I was privileged to have a hands-on education. This meant I took tons of field trips exploring nature centers, historic sites, monuments, and– my favorite– museums. I’m originally from Medina, Ohio, so I was also lucky to live near the city of Cleveland, which has a great wealth of museums. Some of my favorite memories from “school” are taking classes at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, going to the Cleveland Museum of Art for my birthday every year, and visiting the Great Lakes Science Center with my friends. I also had the opportunity to visit the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum several times growing up, so interning here and seeing behind-the-scenes has been such an interesting experience. My unique course of education has given me a deep love of learning that I still value to this day.  

I decided to major in History and Museum Studies so I could share my love of the two subjects. In the future, I’d love to create and design exhibits to tell the stories of a museum’s collections. If I could inspire others to love history and museums like I do, I feel that I could make a difference.  

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Treaty of Greenville…

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Archives, Archives Bring Good Feelings, archiving in the key of life, Canton, education, History, Howard Chandler Christy, McKinley Presidential Library and Museum, ohio, precious art work, seek the threads, Stark County, thank you notes, treaty of Greenville

In 2011 a boy named Zane visited our museum with his class. On his history tour he viewed a mural we have in our Stark County Story called The Treaty of Greenville “The Signing” by Ohioan Howard Chandler Christy. Zane went back to his school and created this one of a kind work based on our copy of this famous piece.

Welcome Samantha Weaver…

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Archives, Blog, education, findyourquest, findyourwhy, friends, high school, History, life, morethanamonument, ohio, school, seekthethreads, Stark State, volunteer, Walsh University, William McKinley Presidential Library & Museum

Podcast

 

We want to welcome our followers to get to know Samantha Weaver, an intern and now a volunteer at the Presidential Library!

Born in Canton, Ohio, Samantha has lived here in Stark County her whole life. Growing up fairly close to downtown Canton, she has many memories of going to the Stark County District Library with her family. She loved reading and writing from a young age, even having a short story she wrote to be published in a book when she was in junior high. As a young girl, she also remembers going to different museums all over Ohio, which helped inspire her when she was growing up as to what she wanted to be when she got older. Her careers growing up changed from teacher to forensic analyst to paleontologist and now to her current goal of pursuing a career in records management/archives in the museum field.

She attended Hope Academy from 1st grade to 5th grade, transferring to Dueber Elementary for 6th grade, and then Lehman Middle School from 7th to 8th grades. She then got accepted to Timken Early College High School, which she went to for all of high school. While in high school, she was also in the Upward Bound Math-Science program at Stark State for all 4 years, where she found her love for museums once again after visiting the Field Museum in Chicago. She then found out about Walsh University’s Museum Studies program and from then, it was set for her. In 2017, Samantha graduated with an Associate of Arts degree from Stark State College and a high school diploma from McKinley Senior High School. She began attending Walsh University in fall of 2017 with a Museum Studies major and Art History minor.

In her free time, she likes to read about art history, write on her blog, learn about different museums and to visit them as well. She likes to draw and keep herself occupied by reading biographies, non-fiction, and mystery books.

Samantha began as an intern at the McKinley Presidential Library & Museum in August 2018 and is now staying on after her internship as a volunteer in the library. She chose this museum for her internship because it is close to where she lives, but it is also her favorite local museum and she has many fond memories from over the years. She loves being a part of a team and talking to the other volunteers because they are so knowledgeable and easy to talk to. Samantha feels like she has finally found a place where she belongs and can be creative in this positive environment. After being here, her love for the archives has grown and she sees herself continuing a career in this field.

Samantha would like to end with one of her favorite quotes:

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Gandhi

We want to thank Samantha for letting us interview her and allow us to share her story on our social media. Our team at the McKinley Presidential Library loves being able to share stories of our volunteers with people outside of the museum and we want you to be apart of that too!

If you would like information on how to become a volunteer, be sure to private message our page or call the museum at: (330) 455-7043

 

Goodbye and Congratulations to Sarah Dickes…

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Blog, education, findyourquest, findyourwhy, History, Intern, Malone University, Museum, ohio, photos, preservation, school, Walsh University, William McKinley, William McKinley Presidential Library & Museum

Podcast

With heavy hearts, our team at the McKinley Presidential Library say goodbye to one of our interns, Sarah Dickes.

Sarah has been an intern here since August 2018 and has been a real pleasure to get to know. She has been a huge help with many of our ongoing projects and helping wherever she can. We are so fortunate to have had her in our library and the opportunity to get to know her during her time here. Sarah has a blog where she has posted about some of the projects she has worked on here. You can see some screenshots of her blog below by scrolling through the slideshow.

She has just completed her last year at Malone University as a History major and Communications minor and is moving on to Syracuse, New York to pursue her career in Museum Studies and Library Sciences for graduate school.

We want to congratulate her on her journey and wish her all the best as she moves forward!    

 

 

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Project McKinley Correspondence…

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25th President of the United States, accessible, archivist, binders, Canton, chronological order, citizen, conference, conserving, correspondence, create labels, custom-made folders, database, dedicate their time, documentation, documents, education, file folder, finding answers, findyourquest, Guest Blogger, Historical, information, letters, librarian, Library, long journey, managing, Mckinley, McKinley Correspondence Project, McKinley Librarian, motivation, museum software, obstacle, ohio, preserving archives, Presidential Library, protocol, pursuing this project, research requests, researchers, scanning, sleeves, systems, track, transcribed, volunteers, Walsh University, William McKinley

Podcast 

 

Our volunteers at the Presidential Library want to show you the long journey of the McKinley Correspondence Project.

To start, we want to tell you our motivation for pursuing this project. One of the major aspects of the library is making sure our information is accessible, especially for our researchers who dedicate their time to finding answers. Our volunteers at the library take their research requests very seriously and we have systems in place so that information in our library can be accessed by our volunteers and archivist.

Our project began around 2005 with one our current volunteers, Judy Pocock and Janet, a former McKinley Librarian. At the time, the Presidential Library was not how it looks today, and it wasn’t as organized or put together for accessibility. There were many projects that needed to be started and one of these projects was the McKinley Correspondence documents. This project consisted of letters to and from William McKinley during his life. They began by thinking of the different directions they could go with this project, and where to start.  It is so important to have a plan and take the time to think before you start on your project. The main goal was to find some way to summarize and put the letters in chronological order. Judy began to write out abstracts for each letter, which was a daunting process because most of the letters are handwritten. It was very time-consuming, but they were able to get a majority of them completed before Janet, the former librarian left and the project was put on hold.

This brings us to 2016 when our current archivist Mark Holland attended a conference about managing, conserving, and preserving archives. There he learned that keeping documents in binders with sleeves was not appropriate protocol anymore and he began to think of ways that they could house the McKinley Correspondence letters properly. There was a major obstacle in the way: retail stores do not sell the correct length and height of the documents. Thankfully, he was able to work with a company who put him in contact with a third-party and they were able to create custom made ring folders. These folders would allow the strain to be placed in the folders and the housing and not on the documents themselves. Once that part of the project was completed, there were still more steps that had to be thought out. The letters had to be transcribed and have correct abstracts so they could easily be found. The letters were transcribed by our volunteers, Susan Henry and Judy Pocock and former Office Manager, Rita Zwick. This part of the project took years to be completed. Volunteer, Rosemary Shaheen spent many hours entering data on the letters that researchers can find online.  Moving on to 2018, our library had an intern from Walsh University who began working on the digitization process of the project. Samantha did more of the technical side of the project by scanning and adding each piece of the sleeve to our database using our museum software. After the scanning and cataloging was completed around December, those involved in the project were able to see the results of their hard work. After having a couple of meetings to discuss the next steps, Judy and Samantha worked together to put the sleeves into our custom-made folders and create labels for each file folder, making sure everything was in chronological order and placed in the appropriate area. We are so excited to have this project completed, as it makes our research easier and more effective than just leaving it in huge binders with documents spanning five years or more per binder.

Completing the McKinley Correspondence project was extremely important because we can track what William McKinley was doing and who he was writing to during his life and even letters written by people close to him confirming his death. These documents are very important to the Presidential Library because it relates to William McKinley as a citizen of Stark County, and it  gives historical documentation about the 25th President of the United States.

March 26, 2019
McKinley Presidential Library
Guest Blogger, Samantha Weaver

Bundles for Baker…

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Archives, education

Podcast

 

 

Welcome back to 70 Artifacts for 70 years! Look for our logo in platinum honoring the 70th anniversary of the Stark County Historical Society.

If you ask most longtime residents of Stark County whether they remember listening to John Baker on WHBC their reaction is always the same.  First, a big smile crosses their face, and they give you an excited “yes!”

Today we add another oral history to our vast collection.  John Baker helped us learn more and add more to our collection on early radio and television in Stark County.

John is a gentle and humble man who is a veteran, a radio announcer, “actor,” television anchorman, advertising agent, and Plain Township trustee.

More dear to him than any of the former are his accomplishments as a family man and husband to Nancy.  Speaking about his wife, “Meeting, and marrying my wife Nancy was the best decision of my life!”

John and Nancy Baker viewing their “Bundles for Baker!”

Thank you to John & Nancy Baker for helping us learn more about our citizens of Stark County.  Thank you to Volunteer, Tom Haas who worked countless hours on this project, and saw it to completion.

To view or listen to John Baker’s oral history, or any of the oral histories we have in our collection, please call 330-455-7043 to make an appointment.

More Later…

Projects, Industries, and Stark County, Ohio…

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Archives, education, Mckinley, Stark County, Walsh

An Immersion Experience of Primary Documents, Canton Industries.

Fifteen students from Walsh University visited the Ramsayer Research Library yesterday.  They received a tour of the archives, learned about our two missions; The Life of the 25th President, William McKinley and His family, and Stark County History.

The class was introduced to three industries from Canton, Ohio; Bucher & Gibbs Co., Aultman & Taylor Co., and Diebold Safe & Lock Co.

Using our new 1884 View of Canton, Ohio mural, I was able to show them renderings of the three companies, and their locations.

Thank you Dr. Will Cooley, for taking the time to allow your students to explore a little of what the Ramsayer Research Library has to offer.

Our hope is that each student will consider using this Archive when they are researching their current project, and future work.

If It Is Meant To Be,
It Will Come To You… – J.C. Pocock

More Later…

Old Friends, and New Spaces

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education, friends, Genealogy, organization, volunteers

Putting things together, a little at a time. The Ramsayer Research Library is a busy place when it wants to be. The people who volunteer are so helpful, and understanding. They are a real boon to our organization. For the third week in a row we had researchers for genealogy. The requests numbers are up as well. I called the genealogy department at the Stark County District Library and an old friend answered. I thought, this will be easy! We will begin to collaborate with that office to benefit genealogists. One of our volunteers gave me a very nice compliment on how we were moving in the right direction…the spirit of the library at Mckinley Presidential Library & Museum is beginning to breathe deep, and take form…