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Carol O. Bartels
Director of Technology, Hired 1991
My first years at The Collection were spent working in the manuscripts reading room as a manuscripts assistant, where, besides attending to patrons, one assisted in processing collections. My first weeks were spent learning the holdings and writing “91-2-L” on the George Javier Febres Papers. It was an eye-opening experience to say the least. To fulfill a research request for Canadian history professor Rani-Villem Palo I printed out 22 pounds’ worth of microfilm copies of various New Orleans newspaper articles, and I made fast friends with researchers who made daily visits, such as Reid Mitchell when he was working on All on a Mardi Gras Day: Episodes in the History of New Orleans Carnival (95-523-RL) and Anthony A. Fernandez, who would bring us king cakes and candies as he researched materials for his elevation drawing of the cutter Louisiana (1993.60).
____	_	_______	As manuscripts cataloger
from 1993 to 1997 I thoroughly enjoyed reading other people’s letters. Cataloging the Thomas Cripps Papers (MSS 459) was a real treat; the letters from his family in England read like a Charles Dickens novel. Working with the Grima Family Papers (MSS 471) was fascinating,
Carol O. Bartels, 1992
Thomas Cripps wearing Masonic collar
ca. 1865; ambrotype 1993.76.4 a,b
especially the family correspondence and household inventories. Cataloging and processing manuscripts was a joy. The people within the papers became your friends, and when the work came to an end you truly missed them. In 1997 I left the Williams Research Center for the Systems department. My first task was to interview everyone on staff and ask them what functions they would like to have in a new collections information system. Doing those interviews taught me a great deal about THNOC and its staff. I really got to know everyone. Once the selection was made, I worked as a codeveloper with the staff of MINISIS Inc. on MINT, one of the first integrated museum, library, and archival collections-management systems.
It is amazing that I have worked for The Collection for a quarter of a century, half its life. I have had some wonderful opportunities working here and have met some interesting people from the past as well as the present. The best, however, are the supportive and caring THNOC staff members.
Kathy Slimp
Manager of Administrative Services, Hired 1988
Throughout my 28 years here, I have been fortunate enough to enjoy a variety of responsibilities, titles, and offices as the organization has grown. This is the family you choose, as we have grown up and older together. That sense of family truly characterized our Katrina experience. Members of the staff helped to secure the collections and our buildings prior to the storm, then came in eight days after to move our most important holdings to a safer place in case of fire. The board stepped up and continued to pay the staff until we could get back into the city and resume our work. The board also established a fund to which anyone could contribute, and it was divided among the staff members who had lost everything. It has been a pleasure to work with such intelligent, interesting, enlightened colleagues. I plan to leave here in a pine box.
Kathy Slimp, 1988
14 The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly