This week we go behind the scenes of Wheaton Archives and Special Collections with a guest post from Becky Baker Halberg, who completed a practicum with the Archives last fall. Becky is an alumna of both Wheaton College and Wheaton College Graduate School and holds a B.A. in history and theology and a M.A. in History of Christianity. She is currently finishing her final semester at University at Buffalo where she is expected to graduate with her M.S. in Information and Library Science in May 2022. Becky worked at Wheaton College for the last five years while completing her M.A. before recently relocating to Minnesota. In addition to her interest in archival research related to the history of Christianity, she enjoys exploring the topic of Christian laity’s information literacy, particularly concerning the role of church libraries in fostering its growth.

This past fall, I had the privilege of participating in the inaugural Wheaton Archives & Special Collection Digital Preservation Practicum. Over the course of the fall semester, under the guidance of Katherine Graber, Assistant Professor of Library Science, and Emily Banas, Public Services Archivist, I reorganized, compiled metadata, and ingested into Preservica hundreds of slide images from Collection 278 Papers of Elisabeth Elliot.