A final post from Abraham Tewolde

It is with a heavy heart that I introduce the fourth and final post by our Stanford University Libraries 1st-generation intern Abraham Tewolde, whose time with us here at the Archive of Recorded Sound comes to an end this Friday, August 16th. Working with Abraham this summer has been a real joy. The diligence, aptitude, and speed Abraham has demonstrated during his work here has been nothing short of remarkable, and witnessing the enthusiasm he has shown as he has learnt about the history of recorded sound, library research methods, and archival practice has been a true pleasure.

Thanks must go to Felicia Smith and Chris Bourg for devising and coordinating the excellent 1st-generation intern program here at Stanford Libraries. Thanks also goes to Benjamin Bates, Interim Operations Manger at the Archive of Recorded Sound, for his supervision of Abraham's daily tasks and help coordinating his schedule over the past few months. 

All the staff here at the Archive would like to wish Abraham well as he starts college here at Stanford in the fall, and thank him for all of his hard work. We look forward to hopefully seeing more of him in the Archive in the near future. 

Over to Abraham.

"Well now that it’s August my time here at the Archive of Recorded Sound is coming to a close and all that I can say about my internship is that it’s been a really fun experience. I have had an amazing opportunity to learn about the function of the libraries at Stanford and it will leave me better prepared for my freshman year. During my time here I have had the chance to take part in most of the archive’s daily tasks including shelving and examining LPs and 78s, researching phonographs, digitizing audio, and most recently creating finding aids. Finding aids are essentially a guides that describe the contents of an archival collection and they enable people to find specific items within boxes of items that compose a collection. There is often a lot of data that accompanies each item which can make creating a finding aid a time consuming process. Right now I am working on inputting additional data for the Issei Oral History Project in Watsonville Collection (http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt8489s0c0/admin/#did-1.2.1) finding aid. This is an oral history collection that outlines the story of a group of Japanese immigrants who lived in Watsonville in the years leading up to World War II. It has been really interesting to see how all the interviewees ended up in Watsonville and how they managed to resume their lives after being sent off to the internment camps set up to house people of Japanese ancestry during World War II. 

Digitizing 78s and LPs has been one of my favorite activities but I’ve also learned a lot about the archive during my time here while doing other tasks. I’m truly going to miss the work that I have been doing at the Archive because it was a lot more fun than I expected it to be. The staff here has been very welcoming and they have guided me through a lot of what I have done, so I wanted to thank them for all their help, you’ve made this internship and this summer a very fun one".  Abraham