Atlanta Emerging Librarians Summer Field Trip

By  Mandi Goodsett

On Saturday, July 12^th members of the Georgia chapter of SLA (Special Libraries Association) and the GLA group Atlanta Emerging Librarians (AEL) had the opportunity to tour a couple of special libraries in Atlanta. The first tour was of the Jimmy Carter Library, led by archivists Brittany Paris and Ceri McCarron. Tour participants were presented details about the presidential library, including its history, its exclusion from FOIA laws, and its relationship with the Jimmy Carter Museum. Participants asked lots of great questions about the library’s preservation techniques, treatment of sensitive materials, and the history of the name “presidential library” vs. archives (it was thought that the word “library” would be more recognizable by the public). After the presentation, Brittany and Ceri led the group to some of the library’s archives and showed us examples of some correspondence within their collection, such as letters between John Wayne and Jimmy Carter.

After the tour, SLA and GLA members had a networking lunch in the CNN building’s food court and gathered to take a tour of the CNN library led by reference librarian Lindsey Knight. Many of the fascinating things the tour participants learned we aren’t able to share due to confidentiality issues, but the group was privileged to learn more about CNN’s long history of prioritizing the existence of a company library and about the kinds of reference questions someone working as a news librarian encounters.

Tour participants gave lots of great feedback about the tours and expressed interest in participating in future tour events. If you couldn’t make it to this year’s tours day, please consider joining us for our next tour event! Ideas for tour locations or comments about the event can be directed to atlantaemerginglibrarians@yahoo.com . To learn about future events, join our Google Group at http://groups.google.com/group/atlanta-emerging-librarians or find us on Facebook!