{"id":915,"date":"2024-04-23T17:10:17","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T00:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libraries.wsu.edu\/friends\/?p=915"},"modified":"2024-10-16T08:11:24","modified_gmt":"2024-10-16T15:11:24","slug":"it-started-here-student-employee-finds-purpose-in-donor-funded-digitization-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libraries.wsu.edu\/friends\/2024\/04\/23\/it-started-here-student-employee-finds-purpose-in-donor-funded-digitization-project\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It started here\u2019: Student employee finds purpose in donor-funded digitization project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Paging through 100-year-old articles of photogenic baby contests and agricultural weather reports, Rebekah Rahman felt she was serving something bigger than herself. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of pride I feel when I finish an article because someone will use this. Someone will need this,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2022, third-year Rahman has digitized newspaper clippings for the Kimble Digitization Center, a project funded by donors Wallis and Marilyn Kimble to preserve Washington state and Palouse history.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her particular box of state history spans 45 sections, some with more than 100 articles, and she has only 10 sections left to go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rahman scans the articles and crops them in Adobe Photoshop before transcribing them and tagging specific people and places in the images, which may help community members researching topics like genealogy or climate. She likes the idea that she is bridging the gap between historical documents and the public, making these \u201cuntapped resources\u201d accessible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile I\u2019m just seeing this long list of farmers from somewhere in the middle of Timbuktu, that\u2019s probably someone\u2019s grandfather who they\u2019ve maybe never met,\u201d she said. \u201cTo that person, it would mean the world just to see their name in print somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joleen Warner, Rahman\u2019s manager, said students bring a unique perspective and background to the collection they digitize, shaping specific word usage and transcription in a way that reflects their voice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Warner said she admires Rahman\u2019s organization in balancing her course load and two part-time jobs. When Warner steps into Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC), she knows Rahman is completing her work without question. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe\u2019s kind of like Superwoman,\u201d Warner said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rahman studied public relations with a minor in business administration, but she always saw herself in a library position in school. After sending her resume to nearly all the libraries\u2019 supervisors, she heard from the Kimble Center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the time, I had no idea what Kimble was. It felt like, \u201cWhat\u2019s this secret project?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Rahman said she feels it is a privilege to do her work. Not only is she working toward preserving history, but she also enjoys grabbing free coffee on Fridays and chatting with her MASC \u201cwork besties\u201d or visiting the Kimble Center to decompress in the safe space when she is not on the clock. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a second home,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rigors of radio<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each morning, Rahman wakes up at 3:50 a.m., stumbling outside in the dark toward Murrow Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She produces Northwest Public Broadcasting\u2019s \u201cMorning Edition,\u201d editing pre-recorded content and stories into newscasts broadcasted by radio at the top of every hour until 8 a.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 7 a.m., the coffeepot is on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomeone needs to start that early,\u201d she said with a laugh. \u201cMaybe that should be me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rahman said she loves hearing news before everyone else, whether it\u2019s environmental stories or federal legislation. NWPB serves the eastern Washington region, especially rural farmers or older generations dedicated to waking up at 5 a.m. and listening to the news. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rahman began working as a student producer in fall 2023, and her first newscast was \u201cscary.\u201d She had been training with the host of another show, and her own host was late for the first time because his car broke down. Rahman sat in her booth, thinking, \u201cOh my God, what do I do?\u201d for 30 minutes before her host arrived and helped finish the newscast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout her experience at NWPB and her coursework as a public relations major, Rahman discovered she wanted to become a publicist and represent people who can\u2019t market themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding her way back home<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rahman moved to Issaquah, Washington, her sophomore year of high school from South Carolina. She said she disliked the toxic academic competitiveness and lack of school spirit in this place that was far from her small, Southern town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a close friend mentioned WSU, Rahman soon found herself at the online New Coug Orientation, where the Coug spirit was palpable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI could feel it,\u201d she said. \u201cI could feel what it meant to be a Coug.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rahman said there is something special about standing in football stadiums surrounded by Cougs, knowing when to clap only when everyone else does. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet she struggled to find a community on campus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once she joined the WSU Libraries\u2019 staff, that changed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her work gave her one more thing to look forward to and encouraged her to build communities in spaces like English Club, Her Campus, and the MASC family. This is her biggest accomplishment to date. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt started here,\u201d she said. \u201cIt really did.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paging through 100-year-old articles of photogenic baby contests and agricultural weather reports, Rebekah Rahman felt she was serving something bigger than herself.  \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of pride I feel when I finish an article because someone will use this. Someone will need this,\u201d she said.  Since 2022, third-year Rahman has digitized newspaper clippings for the […]","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":916,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[153,42,154,152,135,56],"class_list":["post-915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-browse","tag-kimble-digitization-center","tag-manuscripts-archives-and-special-collections","tag-northwest-public-broadcasting","tag-rebekah-rahman","tag-student-employees","tag-wsu-libraries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.wsu.edu\/friends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.wsu.edu\/friends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.wsu.edu\/friends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.wsu.edu\/friends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.wsu.edu\/friends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.wsu.edu\/friends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1024,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.wsu.edu\/friends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915\/revisions\/1024"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.wsu.edu\/friends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.wsu.edu\/friends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.wsu.edu\/friends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.wsu.edu\/friends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}