Getting to Know First-Year SLIS Student Mary Kate Kwasnik

1) Where are you from? Any interesting facts about your hometown?

I grew up in Westborough, Massachusetts.  This is the hundredth town in Massachusetts, and home to Eli Whitney, the man who invented the cotton gin and interchangeable rifle parts!

2) When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

When I was a child, I wanted to be a sports reporter.  However, I didn't like sports and was way to shy to imagine talking to strangers.  I'm not sure why I wanted to do this.

3) What did you study as an undergraduate? Why?

I studied Art History, and I really just fell into it.  I was a Media Studies major and took art history to fulfill a requirement and fell in love.

4) If you were a cheese, what would you be? Why?

I think I would be havarti with dill.  It just has a really special flavor, and I find myself identifying with it a lot.

5) Michael Jackson or Prince? Why?

Maybe Prince because he's a little sassier.

6) Do you have any pets? Show us a picture!

I have a one eyed jack russel terrier named Abigail.  This is her:

7) What historical figure do you think you would be friends with? Why?

I would like to be friends with Billie Holiday because she was amazing and must have had crazy (and sad) stories.

8) What are you most nervous about this semester? Why?

This Bancroft assignment!  800 documents?!  

9) What are you most looking forward to this semester? Why?

I'm looking forward to getting settled and feeling confident in my librarianship/archivistship.  

10) What do you love about archives?!

I love touching something that's ridiculously old and thinking about who else has touched it.  I also love the fact that whoever made the original document probably had no idea a nervous grad student would be gaping at it a hundred years later.

This is me:

And this is a photo from my archives:

"Woman and Excited Young Daughter on a Canoe Trip" Around 1990.  Kwasnik Family Archives.