Name: Dan Brennan

Title and Duties: Spe­cial Col­lec­tions Assis­tant IV, respon­si­ble for cat­a­loging and pro­cess­ing of Uni­ver­sity Archives collections

Recent projects: Pro­cess­ing the Depart­ment of Ori­en­tal Stud­ies Records, Depart­ment of Music Records, Depart­ment of Pol­i­tics Records, Office of Gov­ern­ment Affairs Records, and Dean of Under­grad­u­ate Stu­dents Records, as well as tying together the last stages in the pro­cess­ing of the Uni­ver­sity Library Records. I am also cur­rently work­ing on a project, with much help from my stu­dents Sarah and Josh, to make some sense of the many addi­tions to the His­tor­i­cal Pho­to­graph Col­lec­tion that we have received in the last few years.

Inter­est­ing work anecdote: Though not exactly a work anec­dote, almost a year prior to my com­ing to Mudd I did a bit of research on the his­tory of the Prince­ton Art Museum for a grad­u­ate school project that put me briefly in touch with the archives. If I search far back enough in my e-mail inbox, I can find a mes­sage from Dan Linke answer­ing my ref­er­ence ques­tion. Lit­tle did I know…

Worked at Mudd since: May 1, 2006

Why I like my job/archives: My edu­ca­tional back­ground is in his­tory and polit­i­cal sci­ence (plus a grad degree in museum stud­ies) so work­ing at Mudd is a nat­ural fit for me. I feel lucky that I get to work on a daily basis with col­lec­tions in which I have a legit­i­mate inter­est, and which cover top­ics from colo­nial Amer­ica to plasma physics. Find­ing new ways to pro­vide access to them and increase their research value to our patrons is the most reward­ing part of my job, espe­cially since I get to see the results of this first­hand through my ref­er­ence work.

Favorite item/collection: Though I’d be hard pressed to pick a favorite, one small col­lec­tion that I have a par­tic­u­lar fond­ness for is the Prince­ton Print Club Records. The short-lived 1940s cam­pus orga­ni­za­tion arranged for stu­dents to bor­row from the club’s col­lec­tion of art prints for the pur­poses of dec­o­rat­ing their dorm rooms. Obtain­ing the prints was accom­plished largely by sim­ply writ­ing let­ters to the artists and ask­ing them if they might have a copy. When cat­a­loging this col­lec­tion my inter­est in museums/art his­tory com­pelled me to look through the entire folder of cor­re­spon­dence, unearthing inter­est­ing let­ters from Ansel Adams, Thomas Hart Ben­ton, and many others.