Looky Here It's My Field Practicum Blog

This week we're doing Tuesday instead of Thursday because of schedule conflicts, so it felt like I was just here (which I was on Thursday). That's OK, I like being on campus. What a busy day! Kheir and I collaborated on finishing the wording for what will go over the Justice Freeman "hero" portrait that will be blown up for the Justice Freeman commemorative event (which has been moved from the original date in February to a non-finalized date that is up in the air). I also spent time preparing files in InDesign for 2 of the 3 portraits that will be enlarged, and sent them off to Kheir as well. I also wrote a bunch of the wording that will go in the tri-fold brochure. I thought I was going to have to design it as well, but thankfully we can just send the wording and the images off to the design department! I was delighted to learn this because I'm used to working in small businesses where one person does kind of everything. The fact that there were employees who ta...

Today I continued going through the Chief Justice material for the glass cases that were originally on the top floor of the library, now on the 3rd floor in the archive. The cases were being moved as I was arriving, so now I can play with putting items in them to see how they look in there. I finished looking through most of the items that were available and decide the best way to display them would be via his life before he was appointed to the Illinois Supreme Court in case #1, and everything from his campaign for the Supreme Court and on in glass case #2. I had to make decisions about what items that were imporant but fgor whatever reason would not go in a glass case (because they were too similiar to something else that was already on display, took up too much room which could have been better served with smaller and more interestin objects etc).   Kheir and I also deliberated on which 3 items to enlarge. We went up to the scanner on the 4th floor in the LIS department and...

Today Kheir and I emptied out 2 of the 4 glass display cases on the 4th floor of the library, one of which was material from the Provident Hospital of Cook County (the first Black-owned hospital in America), and the other case was historic Maxwell Street material. We brought the stuff that was in there back down to the archive on the 3rd floor, and I found a space for and labelled the material. I also spent some time going through boxes of the Justice Charles E. Freeman material, mostly newspaper clippings (though I did see his senior year of high school yearbook and his photo in it). What I was finding was that I had to familiarize myself with the different types of courts, because it was immediately apparent to me that I didn't really know the different levels of courts, which is important to know, seeing as how Justice Freeman had started as a judge in the lower courts and then moved up until he was eventually appointed Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court. Also, I found ...

This is a blog devoted to my Field Practicum (for LIS Practicum 5970-51) for Chicago State University. I'm Liz (Elizabeth) Mason, in the MLIS program, and my specialization is in Archives and Records Management. This is the Spring 2026 semester. This blog serves as a journal to document my experience as required by the class. This class is a 1 credit course, and the practicum itself is on the CSU campus, in the University Archives and Special Collections (it’s on the 3rd floor of the Gwendolyn Brooks Library), with university archivist Kheir Fakhreldin. So far I have gone in for one day, even though technically the semester hadn't started yet. The day I went in was last Thursday, 1/8/26, and I was there from 10am to 3pm. Kheir gave me a tour of the archive (including what peridocials it holds, the CSU prediential portraits, the offices and workrooms of the archive and more). He also showed me selected materials (newspaper clippings, documents, pictures etc) from the Justice Fr...