Tell us about your ambition to work in archives, how did you discover you wanted to do this?
When it came to looking at career choices in sixth form college, I had just decided I no longer wanted to be a lawyer and realised how much I loved organising, filing and spending time in libraries. I was a library ‘Assistant’ at both Primary and High School. I was scrolling a ‘Find a Career’ page and saw Archivist and Academic Librarian right near the top and made my decision there and then. I did further research into the roles and became impassioned with increasing access to knowledge. Education has never been easily accessible or very accepting of me as someone who is disabled, black and living in poverty in South Manchester, and I have seen many of my demographical peers be pushed out of school and academia; this is an issue I strive to be part of fixing.
What’s your current role working the Library at UoS?
I am a ‘Digital Archive Student Partner’ working for both Salford Digital Archives and an external primary source publishing company called AM. This is a paid part-time job in which I have the opportunity to assist and learn from every team in both companies and overall, a lot more about the industry, the job roles available in it and the type of work that can be done. I have a detailed project plan with a diverse range of tasks and a mentor from each company to check in with and check any completed work. I get to offer my student voice and opinions on how to encourage students and academics to engage with the archive collections and utilise them in their research or teaching which has been a really interesting way to gain experience in market research and promotion. I have been enjoying the high responsibility and technical skills I have been able to gain with this role so far.
How has studying English (Multidiscipline) supported your ambitions?
I have focused my Multidiscipline degree on English Language and Creative Writing and have been able to tailor each of my assignments and projects in my final year to my personal interests, particularly zine culture and the creative and sociopolitical practices around it. I am creating my own zine for my Final Portfolio coursework which has been a really cool experience so far. I have learnt interesting research skills and had the opportunity to customise the modules I take to fit my career aspirations and topic interests which has been amazing. It is a really versatile degree and many of my friends, after hearing about what I do, have said they wished they had picked it haha. The most useful module I have done so far was the work placement module which taught me more about job searching and assessing my own skills as well as helped me with CVs, cover letters and interviews and got me a temporary placement at the Working Class Movement Library which was a dream opportunity for me and opened the door to network with people in the industry and learn the ins and outs of an archive library with hands on experience.
What are your own writing interests and what do you hope to achieve with your writing?
I believe in creating change, strengthening community and that knowledge is power, essentially the traditional core beliefs of journalism. However, I prefer to express this creatively, through poetry or flash autofiction. I have recently become interested in writing creative theoretical essays and have started to do more research into creating these and how they tie into zine-making. To me, they are an interesting way to encourage engagement in sharing resources and information. I hope to empower and inform other marginalised people with my writing, to make people feel less alone in their struggles and encourage them to take action and advocate for not only themselves but their communities too. I also hope to encourage other people to find power in their own words and knowledge and find solace and comfort in expressing themselves creatively the same way that I do.