Biography

Bernadette Birzer is the Archivist for Collection Management and Digital Initiatives at Newcomb Institute. Before working at Newcomb Institute, Bernadette worked as the Registrar of the African American Military History Museum (Hattiesburg, MS) and then as a Library Tech for Digital Initiatives and Publishing in Howard-Tilton Memorial Library's User Services and IT department at Tulane University. She is a Certified Archivist via the Academy of Certified Archivists and is currently pursuing a second graduate degree, a Master of Liberal Arts from the School of Professional Advancement (SOPA) at Tulane University. Her research interests currently focus on exploring creative activism techniques, intersecting identities in art, addressing privacy issues within digital collections, and promoting archivists as community activists.

Key Responsibilities: 

• Oversees the storage, organization, and preservation of archival collections and print materials, including the management of the Islandora digital repository at the Newcomb Archives and Vorhoff Library Special Collections. 
• Establishes workflow schedules for the processing and digitization of archival collections. 
• Hires, trains, and supervises student workers, interns, and volunteers to implement processing workflow. 
• Staffs the reading room reference desk by appointment and provides remote and in-person reference assistance, as needed.