Haley Shaw
Haley Shaw ’16 lives in Boulder, Colorado, and is earning her masters in Library and Information Sciences with a concentration in Museum Studies from Kent State University’s online program. While working on that degree she works part time and is also completing an internship at a small library on the campus of University of Colorado Boulder for an organization called the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR).
Shaw graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences at Ohio University with B.A.s in Anthropology and Classical Civilization with a minor in Music and a Certificate in Museum Studies from the College of Fine Arts.
Soon after graduation, Shaw moved to Colorado to explore new opportunities.
While working at the University of Colorado as a retail assistant, she made connections with the INSTAAR library. The librarian was so excited when she found out Shaw was studying LIS and had experience both in libraries and museums that she offered her the opportunity to work as an intern to gain some extra experience and build her resume.
The internship is giving Shaw hands-on experience with library work.
Her general tasks include shelf reading and original cataloging. She also helps the library present exhibits related to things going on in the building or with INSTAAR that feature the library collection.
Her first exhibit, “Creating Change,” focuses on art and science and how the two fields work together to create meaningful and beautiful evidence related to climate change. This exhibit was designed to accompany a talk being given at CU Boulder by James Balog, a photographer and climate scientist. The exhibit featured his books and some of his photographs. Alongside Balog’s work, Shaw also presented art and photography from other artists associated with INSTAAR and the Extreme Ice Survey. Her current project is designing an exhibit exploring the science of snow.
Her OHIO Experience
“My time at Ohio University has really set me up for success with this internship, grad school, and in my future career,” Shaw says.
With her majors in Anthropology and Classics she gained a wide variety of skills that she says she has been able to apply both practically and academically.
There are the obvious things like study skills, research experience, and presentation skills she gained in coursework and through opportunities like the Student Research Expo.
But also from the more practical side of things. She had a work study job she loved at the Music and Dance Library, where she learned so much!
She also was able to complete the Museum Studies certificate program which gave her the skills she needed to put together the exhibit in her current internship.
Learning Latin and Greek as a Classics Student has been useful as well, as she works with many Spanish speaking people in her area. Her Latin skills help her understand Spanish better (though she is still learning).
“I value my Anthropology background very much,” Shaw says.
“It is amazing the wide array of skills Anthropology teaches. I feel like I have the ability to go out and do almost anything with what I learned from Anthropology.”
From practicing teamwork in archaeological field school with Paul Patton, learning about the human body from Nancy Tatarek, and seeing just how many ways Anthropology can be useful and building a CV in applied anthropology with Haley Duschinski, Shaw says she learned so many things that she uses every day, “without even realizing it sometimes!”
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