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Beacon Street Journal.

Relationships are as important to institutions and organizations as they are to people. Over past decade the Congregational Library, under the leadership of Librarian Claudette Newhall and Jessica Steytler, Archivist, has welcomed interns from Simmons College graduate Archive Management and Library Science programs. The chance to work with seasoned archivists and librarians provides opportunities to utilize classroom knowledge and experience first-hand, the multifaceted disciplines under a watchful eye. Continuing this ongoing relationship intern Mary Guinan worked under the supervision of Associate Archivist, Cristina Prochilo, in March and April this year.

After earning a history degree in her native Nebraska, Mary tapped into her experience as an intern at the U S Navy Museum http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org8-1.htm in Washington D.C. and applied to the Archives/History Dual Degree program at Simmons, here in Boston. As an alum of the same program, Cristina was the perfect choice to mentor Mary in her required 60 hour internship as part of the"intro. to archiving" class. The internship is designed to give students a hands-on overview experience where they take a project from start to finish. Mary worked with the collection of Edward Franklin Williams, a late 19th century Congregational minister educated at Yale and Princeton who migrated to Chicago to preach and teach. The collection of sermons and lectures at Chicago Theological Seminary and Beloit College along with some memorabilia from his college days took up four archival boxes and it was up to Mary to inventory, arrange and refolder all the material. She then created a finding guide which is accessible in print and digital format and is linked to the website and online catalog. The process encompasses part research and part preservation developing a natural relationship between archivist and subject. "It is really fun to put the pieces of this person's life together" Mary commented. In the process, she taught herself to decipher pages of Williams' handwriting, reading every word in the manuscripts.

Mary aspires to work at the National Archives and dreams of touching the Declaration of Independence someday.

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