My Experience in University History and Records

By Alissa Thompson, History Major, East Carolina University  

I started working with the University History and Records department at Joyner Library as an intern during the summer of 2025 as part of my undergraduate degree program in history. My primary internship project was the creation of a digital exhibit titled A Century of Architecture at East Carolina University that explores how ECU’s campus has changed since its inception. My goal for the exhibit is for viewers to look deeper than the name and purpose of each building and connect with ECU’s history. I spent about a week planning my exhibit topic, ultimately choosing to focus on ECU’s campus architecture so my project would be firmly rooted in the University History and Records department’s collection. I used the library’s Digital Collections and researched building histories to gather photographs and information for the exhibit. To make the dimensions of each uniform, I formatted my pictures in Canva. I learned to use Omeka software to create metadata for each photograph and to build the digital exhibit.  

After completing the digital exhibit, I was invited to develop a physical version as part of a new initiative to maintain a rotation of displays that are prepped and ready to fill exhibition space between scheduled installations. I used Canva to create readable and creative labels with exhibit text as well as to format the selection of photographs to fit my goals for a physical exhibit. Fortunately, the sections and subsections I developed translated well into the physical display because the exhibit’s segmented format is especially adaptable: the full version can fill all the cases in the North Carolina Collection Room, or individual sections can be extracted to fit smaller spaces. Each segment functions as a self-contained unit, retaining meaning even when presented independently of the full exhibit. One of the challenges I encountered while developing the exhibit was adapting the quantity of digital elements into a physical format. The digital version contained a large amount of content, which worked well online but needed to be carefully scaled to fit the physical display cases in the North Carolina Collection room. I focused on ensuring that the selected materials would fit within the allotted space while still communicating the essential themes of the exhibit. I reviewed each section to determine which items were most critical to the story and which could be omitted or combined if necessary. In several cases, I had two images representing the same subject, and I evaluated each one based on clarity, historical value, and how well it represented the topic. I chose the image that was the best example of the subject and complemented the flow of the exhibit’s story across the cases. This taught me how important it is in exhibit curation to make intentional choices, not just about what to include, but also about what to leave out. I learned how to format exhibit text with accessibility in mind and selected fonts and text sizes to ensure readability. I made a diagram of my layout plans to help in the future when the exhibit is displayed, and I spent a day in the Preservation department where I practiced using a dry mount press to heat-set facsimiles, bonding them to Fome-Cor™ extruded polystyrene boards with photo-mount tissue. 

In addition to my internship, I was hired as a student employee and split my time between work and my internship projects; on workdays, I transcribed oral history interviews. Transcribing recorded interviews from ECU’s oral history collections taught me how much detail is involved in preserving spoken memories. I enjoy hearing the interviewees’ stories, and I am attentive to details when I work to pay respect to the priceless and often irreplaceable contribution of the speakers. One of my favorite aspects of my work was the unexpected connection to my internship project: several oral histories referenced the same buildings I had researched for the exhibit, such as professors sharing their experiences teaching in the Old Austin Building or in alumni’s recollections of student life. Hearing their personal reflections on these spaces added life to and animated the architectural history I researched for my exhibit.  

I am heading into my senior year this fall and am excited to continue learning about the field of archives. After graduation, I plan to enroll in ECU’s Master of Library Science program. My experience working in University History and Records has transformed that goal from an idea into a clear and exciting path forward.