Case study – Adalgisa – a career as an archivist
Adalgisa is a senior archivist at the UK National Archives she talks about how her career started in Italy and how she continued her career when she moved to the UK.
It may seem unlikely but my inspiration for taking up a career in archives was: The Plague, Palaeography and my love for reading, not necessarily in this order.
I was writing my first dissertation (Master’s degree in Classics, History and Italian Literature) on the Plague in Rome and my brilliant supervisor suggested that I could use original documents kept at the Vicariate Archives of Rome. I could not read the documents, obviously, and I do love reading, so that led me to study Palaeography. I discovered a new world and how incredibly skilled an archivist had to be. Therefore, I decided that one day I would be one of them.
I qualified as archivist at the University La Sapienza in Rome and I did some basic training at the State Archives in Rome. In the meantime, I had been accepted at the Vatican School of Archival Practice and Palaeography and after completion I was offered the great opportunity of an internship at the Vatican Archives, so I spent 18 months there. Then I followed my future husband to London. I had promised my mum that I would not abandon my passion for archives and documents. I applied for a volunteering position at The National Archives in London. I count that as my UK training. 15 years later here I am!
I’m now one of the Senior Archivists in the Cataloguing Taxonomy and Data Department at The National Archives. I oversee various cataloguing and data-enhancement projects, so I am involved in working with original records. I work onsite three days per week and those days are mostly spent working in repositories and checking records. When I am working from home I am mostly looking at spreadsheets for catalogue data and entries in Discovery, our online catalogue. I currently manage three people, so a good part of my time is also dedicated to them. Finally, I try to make some time for training as I am constantly learning!
My career highlight was definitely when the entries for my first paid cataloguing project were published in Discovery. I was one of the editors for The Unknown Treasures Project and we were cataloguing material from the Court of Common Pleas and in particular the reference series CP 52, which was partially catalogued. Seeing the first batch of entries in Discovery is a moment that I will never forget.
If I had any advice would to give to people interested in pursuing a career in the archives sector it would be: Keep on learning and looking for possibilities and training. Don’t be afraid to ask for advice and support from more experienced colleagues. I have been tremendously fortunate to have such knowledgeable managers and colleagues, I learned from them all I know today, and I keep on learning from them every day.