Select Projects

Below you will find select projects which I have developed, managed, and executed over my nearly decade-long career in archives and special collections. If you would like more information about a particular project, please view my curriculum vitae or contact me at Rebecca.Wells@utexas.edu.

In addition to the select projects below, examples of over 50 collections I have fully or partially processed at three archives on the University of Texas at Austin campus—including finding aids I have written, updated, and encoded—can be found by searching my name on the Texas Archival Repository Online (TARO).

(Please ignore any collections where the creator(s) or subject(s) name is Rebecca. I will be listed under "Processing Information," "Processed by," and/or in the Raw XML as the encoder.)

Best Supporting Administrator: Developing Management and Curatorial Skills through the Harry Ransom Center Gala and Robert De Niro Exhibition

Roles: Project Manager and Curatorial Assistant

The Harry Ransom Center Gala: A Celebration of Film Honoring Robert De Niro, is a one-night event that puts the spotlight on the Center’s film collections and acknowledges the contributions of Robert De Niro and other donors toward the goal of raising $3 million to endow the De Niro Family Curator of Film. The funds raised will support the development and care of the Center’s film collections in perpetuity. As the Project Manager for this institution-wide initiative, I developed a project plan and timeline for gala logistics and served as the liaison for the institution-wide initiative. While monitoring milestones and conducting research and analysis on best

practices for hosting a gala, I devised a committee structure, convened numerous standalone and recurring meetings, served on a hiring committee, and assisted in accomplishing development and marketing tasks. Throughout the process, I refined my project and people management skills, with a particular focus on anticipating and responding to an ever-evolving project and an over-extended staff. Additionally, I developed an understanding of the requirements of working with high-profile donors and their teams in a remote environment.

To activate the Ransom Center and its collections during the gala, guests, students, visitors, and researchers will have the opportunity to engage with the Ransom Center’s film collections through the Fall 2022 exhibition on Robert De Niro’s education and early career in the Stories to Tell gallery. Acting as Curatorial Assistant, I have been afforded enormous autonomy to select, layout, and collaborate in the assessment of materials from the Ransom Center’s film collections to tell the story of eight of De Niro’s films, six of his earliest films as well as the two-well known films The Godfather: Part II and New York, New York. In co-curating this exhibition, I have enhanced my

curatorial skills by making difficult selections regarding what will and will not be exhibited. I have also mastered the logistics of documenting and tracking selections for the exhibition in Aeon and the in-house database software. Additionally, I have collaborated interdepartmentally on assessing the materiality of papers, photographs, scripts, posters, costumes, and props for their suitability for exhibition. Lastly, I have grappled with the impact I have as an information professional in presenting an interpretation of cultural history to the public and my role in the stories which are and are not told.

Magnum Photography Collection Rehousing Project

Role: Magnum Project Preservation Specialist

The Magnum Photography Collection—a collection of approximately 200,000 press prints from the New York bureau of the Magnum Photos, Inc. cooperative agency—housed at the Harry Ransom Center has been in high demand by researchers, faculty, staff, and students in the reading room, classrooms, and galleries since its donation. From 2018 to 2020, I executed a project to improve the collections long-term preservation and discoverability by rehousing the photographs and updating the finding aid to add context and include a folder-level container list. Over 170,000 photographs, 2,750 boxes, and hundreds of thousands of folders and sleeves later, I had refined

my large-scale archives and preservation project management skills and successfully completed a project on a tight timeline with adjustments due to Covid-19. I had also gathered and reported on statistics, supervised the work of volunteers, students, and staff, and collaborated with conservators on more than 100 hours of conservation treatments. Lastly, I developed technical skills to automate description work, including programming in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to create macros in Excel to transform large amounts of data, and learned how to encode the finding aid in Oxygen XML Editor.

Jenny Lind Chapel Museum Preservation Project

Role: Project Manager

In 2014, I visited the Jenny Lind Chapel Museum and saw that the collections materials were not exhibited or stored in accordance with archives and preservation standards. I also noticed that the exhibitions were out of date and the environment of the museum was wreaking havoc on the collections. It had been over a year since I’d begun my work and mentorship with the Archivist/Librarian at the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center, and my fascination for preservation and archival work was growing. I felt called to help the museum and its collections which I later found out were without a curator for nearly half a century.

With the partnership of my mentor, I developed, managed, and executed this project. I grew as an aspiring archivist and preservationist through

conducting a needs assessment and cleaning and rehousing the collections, as well as curating the new educational exhibit. Still, it was my experience as the leader and public face of the project that was most transformative. I developed and navigated relationships with stakeholders, built a budget and secured grant funding, made multiple presentations to diverse audiences, and influenced change in the environment and staffing of the museum. This project—the first major archives project I lead—helped to direct my career going forward, knowing that I am intrinsically driven by advocating for archives and preservation work, the people who do this work, and the cultural heritage and records institutions that connect collections with the public.