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Why i stick with it



I tell this story and people think i am making it up, but i first stepped foot into an Archives when i was in 5th Grade on a field trip to Ohio University's Alden Library.  To this day i remember that trip.  During high school when i belonged to the Upward Bound Program at OU and was "forced" to take a guidance course and decide what i wanted to be when i grew up.  I remembered the Archives and thought that might be a cool place to go and interview the person who works there and see if it might be for me.  That trip opened my eyes to a whole world that i never knew existed but quite honestly looked like my bedroom closet.  Box after box of letters, papers, phtotographs, and newspapers.  I was blessed as a child living in the remains of a once very prosperous mining area.  But by the time i was a child it was very depressed and vacant houses buildings and stores where everywhere many still  had the contents inside.  As kids we roamed these abandoned buildings picking up bits and pieces of history and taking them home.  For me it became a passion and long before i understood what an archivist does my bedroom closet and under my bed had become an archival storeroom of old photos and papers.  My mother began to make appraisal decisions without consulting the archivist and alot of my collection disappeared over time, but i persisted and here i am today overseeing a huge collection housed in state of the art storerooms in two buildings.  A long long journey from those old card board boxes in my closet.

I stick with it because people tell me my eyes light up when i talk about things in my collection, i stick with it because i feel as though this job is me.  Yea i have been in places where i was less than thrilled with the collection, the boss and as always the patrons, but i stick it out because of all the jobs i have done in my life and believe there have been a slew this is the one that gives me the most satisfaction.

A long answer to a very short question.

Rob Dishon
Archivist
LaGuardia Wagner Archives
At LaGuardia Community College.

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