Looking through the glass: Sara Primm '20 relocates, digitizes the College's archaeology collection

Art history professor Andrea Campbell and Sara Primm ’20 look at glass samples from Randolph’s archaeology collection

One of the things Sara Primm ’20 is learning from Summer Research is just how much work goes into relocating a historical collection. She and art history professor Andrea Campbell are relocating and digitizing the College’s archaeology collection.

Glass fragments from ancient Rome and Carthage are one of the main items being sorted through currently.

“You have to plan where each item will go, you have to clean everything, and there’s a lot of research involved too,” Primm said. “There’s not a lot of information out there about Roman glass, particularly, so you have to find what you can and sort of build on the information available. That’s probably been one of the most challenging, but also interesting, parts of Summer Research for me.”

Primm and Campbell are moving the physical collection into what used to be the Slide Library in Leggett Building. Going through old slides used for art and other courses over the years has been an added bonus.

Sara Primm ’20 examines a fragment from ancient Rome

“The idea is to make the archaeology collection more accessible,” Campbell said. “We’re moving everything here and putting a key pad lock on the door so that faculty and staff who teach in museum and heritage studies can come in and use the collection for exhibits and coursework and that kind of thing.

“A whole other part of the project is to begin shifting the catalog to an online database because it’s been cataloged over decades, and some of the catalog is literally on floppy disks,” Campbell added.

Primm is a history major and one of the first Randolph students to declare as a museum and heritage studies major.

“You really can do a lot with a history major, and I knew I didn’t want to teach, so I thought I would try out the museum side too,” Primm said.