The JoAnn and Rupert Reyes Collection
My experience as an archivist includes processing the professional papers of Joann and Rupert Reyes. The collection documents the Reyes’ activities as founders of “Teatro Vivo,” a bilingual theater company in Austin, Texas. I collaborated with four other student archivists to survey 13 linear feet of material, including photographic prints and negatives, stagecraft documents, press, correspondence, financial records, and audiovisual media.
We assessed the unprocessed collection to create an Appraisal Report and Processing Plan for the series arrangement. Applying DACS and EAD standards, we finalized the container list, described the collection, and encoded a finding aid for its stewarding institution, The Benson Latin American Collection.
Attention to detail.
It’s a strength I brought to the team. I took meticulous care to identify materials that contained sensitive information. The unprocessed collection included a bulk of tax and financial records. These records were grouped with other documents that evidenced JoAnn Carreon-Reyes’ significant contribution to the company’s success, as its business director. In the process of item-level weeding, I applied the Benson’s institutional standards for preservation stewardship. This included replacing metal paper clips with plastic ones, and binder clips with paper file folder inserts.
Coordination and communication.
These skills were crucial to making choices about the intellectual arrangement of the collection. After our team of five simultaneously inventoried the large extent of materials, we articulated our understanding of how the records reflected multilayered functions of the Reyes. The act of categorization involved discussing blurred lines between their specific actions as directors, their personal projects, and greater theater operations during their tenure. We paired collaborative decision-making with assigned tasks based on individual strengths.
Pride and passion.
Archival processing is like navigating an interactive map, where you zoom in and out to view records within their enveloping fonds. Each record reveals action, exists in a network of relationships, and can be seen from shifting perspectives. I felt engrossed as I collated, analyzed, arranged, and described the Reyes’ records in the strive to best capture their origin and context while facilitating discoverability.