A Remote Internship Experience with MIT Libraries’ Indie Tarot Collection.
In the spring of 2020, just as I was beginning my dual degree program in History and Archives Management at Simmons University, the pandemic hit. Little did I know that it would force me into remote learning for the entire first year of my two-year program and upend all hopes of working in person with archival materials. The following is my reflection on working with visual materials as part of a remote internship.
I chose to go to Simmons for the field placement requirement, where faculty assign a 60-hour internship for archives students to gain experience and get their hands a little dirty (figuratively and literally). And as the pandemic raged on through 2020, I tried putting that field placement off as long as possible, in hopes that I would still have a chance of doing it in person. Finally, as fall of 2020 came to a close my advisor instructed me that I would have to do my internship in the spring of 2021 in order to graduate on time. I signed up, but since things were still so uncertain, I had little hope of getting an internship. I had resigned myself to the idea that I would complete a project internally instead.
When I learned that I would be doing my archives field placement with MIT Libraries Department of Distinctive Collections, I was ecstatic. Although I would be doing the work completely remote, I was still grateful for the opportunity to learn. I was set up to work with Processing Archivist Greta Kuriger Suiter to help with a few of the collections and get a better understanding of ArchivesSpace, the creation of finding aids, archiving born-digital photographs, and writing social media posts for the MIT Libraries’ Instagram. And it wasn’t just the department that hooked me, but the visual collections I would be working with—especially the Indie Tarot Collection.
The Independent Tarot Card Collection began under former Head of Distinctive Collections, Emilie Hardman, and has since accumulated over 400 decks. Ranging from about 1992 to 2019, the decks are from contemporary artists, and focus on radical, feminist, queer, POC, and spiritually diverse recreations of traditional tarot narratives and archetypes. The tarot decks are more than what we would call a typical visual collection, they are unique unbound artists’ books with non-linear, “create your own” narratives. This makes them especially difficult to describe and categorize. Not only are the cards themselves collected, but also any decorative boxes, bags, crystals, mini manuals, and other additional resources are all kept and stored with each deck. I was very impressed with the vigilance to keep the decks whole, exactly as the artist or creator intended them to be or be used. In fact, the libraries’ staff encourages hands-on use by students, faculty, and researchers. After all, the decks were created to be experienced: touched, shuffled, and laid out into meaningful spreads.
The MIT Libraries hosted a webinar with then director Emilie Hardman to talk about the collection.
I was introduced to the collection through a recorded MIT Libraries webinar with Emilie Hardman who gives an overview of the collection, their mission, and the history of tarot in general. Tarot is an art form all its own, but more importantly, it serves as an interconnected platform that transcends cultures, races, and spiritualties. Each individual piece has something to say, which is why it would be a challenge to create a traditional, overarching finding aid for it. My job then was to begin the somewhat tedious process of entering the decks into ArchivesSpace at the file (item) level. At this level it was the bare minimum of description, and, with the exception of a few decks already with a specific scope and contents note, it was clear that it was not possible to write up a detailed description of each and every deck. Title, year, and box number would have to be done to make them (at the very least) findable.
Examples of the custom-made pockets made for each deck in a standard archives doc box.
Since everything was remote, I was set up to work from spreadsheets and photos (that Greta so graciously took on her phone) accessed via a shared Google Drive. Wunsch Conservation Lab staff began processing the Indie Tarot Collection in 2018. The collection inspired the creation of the “document box pocket,” a non-adhesive conservation-grade container designed by the Conservation Associate Ayako Letizia and conservator Cat Thomis at HF Group. The pockets resemble little bins and are versatile, ranging in depth from 39mm to 65mm. Each deck is stored in its own custom-made pocket and into a standard legal archival document box for long-term storage. Up to seven pockets fit into a box. The Wunsch Conservation Lab’s downloadable resources are available freely and include how to fabricate a document box pocket. You can also watch their instructional videos including their indie tarot deck archival shuffle.
Through photos and an expertly created Google Sheet that Wunsch Conservation Lab staff would update with finished boxes, I was able to input metadata for decks into a bulk import Excel spreadsheet, which I then uploaded into ArchivesSpace. Every week there would be a set of new boxes to work through. After importing items into the finding aid, I wrote up the required collection level notes. This included scope and contents, conditions governing access/use, dates, extent, language, and more.
This internship was the first time I had ever used ArchivesSpace, and it was surprisingly easy to get started. Greta was amazing at connecting via Zoom, giving me short walkthroughs of how it works in general but also specific requirements that the department upholds. She would then give me small assignments to begin inputting information into the finding aids and check back in with me to see if I had questions. Needless to say, because Greta had set up such an incredible set of tasks and an overall plan for the internship, she made it incredibly easy for me to learn remotely.
The Antiquarian Tarot Deck.
Although my work was primarily within Excel spreadsheets and ArchivesSpace, I reveled in the photos Greta had sent me of the individual decks. I was assigned to come up with a social media post about the collection that would include a few photos of one or more decks. As I scrolled through titles with usually no further context, I came upon the Afro Goddess Tarot Arcanas deck. By the title alone it sounded interesting, but once I asked Greta to pull it from the box and take photos for me, I was stunned at just how beautiful the deck was. With intricately beveled backs, each card was originally hand painted by artist Andrea Furtick. Her mission was to recreate the traditional tarot arcana into an Afrocentric, “melanated” version. The deck also came with a box (signed by the artist), velvet bag, and “The Melanated Tarot Divination Guidebook.” I was delighted to share the deck on social media because to me it represented the collection’s overall mission to subvert and rethink tarot archetypes.
The Afro Goddess Tarot Arcanas Deck.
This internship has taught me that collections can represent something much bigger than what they might at first glance seem and what it means to make a collection like Indie Tarot available. It has also taught me the value of a remote experience. I truly believe that remote internships for visual materials, albeit restricting in some ways, can be incredibly rewarding. It allows access to students and new professionals who may not otherwise have the opportunity to work with the collections. I would not change my experience this past semester for anything.
I want to thank the MIT Libraries’ Department of Distinctive Collections, Greta Kuriger Suiter, and Jana Dambrogio for allowing me to work with this collection and for being incredible resources in my professional development. The finding aid to the Indie Tarot Collection is available through the MIT ArchivesSpace platform.
Ashley Tooke, Archives Intern, MIT Libraries’ Department of Distinctive Collections.
Photographs taken by Greta Kuriger Suiter and used with permission.