Aerial Maps & More! Friday, January 27th (12:30-5:30)

Today, I helped three customers in the reading rooms with their various questions. The first needed information from the Pease, Graham & Niles Family Collection; I showed the customer how to use the finding aid on TARO so that she could isolate what specific boxes she needed me; once she pin-pointed what she wanted, I located them in the stacks and brought the down to the reading room for her. The second customer was looking for a specific article from the Austin American Statesman; I found the microfilm reel that she needed and showed her how to operate the microfilm equipment. The last customer that came in was the architect who had emailed me an inquiry regarding aerial photographs. Researching and finding the aerial photographs in our collection can be tricky and time-consuming, even for the experienced archivisits. Fortunately, before the architect came in, I had started teaching myself how to do this. Together, we were able to figure it out and we found the 1951 aerial photographs of the Brentwood and Crestview neighborhoods he need for a slideshow presentation he was giving. I was happy, both that I figured out how to do this and that he left a happy camper!

When I was not on my reading room shift, I helped Nancy bring up some posters from the basement and place them on easels for Sunday's public celebration of the dedication of the reading room to the Betty Baker and Steve Sadowsky reading room. Both were lifelong historic preservation advocates for the city of Austin. We looked over the posters to make sure they did not contain any errors. We then placed them on the easels and ensured they were the correct height. We stored them in the O'Henry room before I set out to do some reshelving before wrapping up for the day.

Maria-Elena Cigarroa

Supervisor: Jennifer Hecker

General Schedule: Sundays (11-6); Thursdays (2:00-6:00); Fridays (12:30-5:30)