Samantha Meier Helps International Researcher Find Dorothy
Dorothy Hamre in Goblin Valley State Park, Utah, NAU.PH.93.37.940, 1951.
Author, Sam(antha) Meier pictured outside of Ouray, Colorado (where Dorothy Hamre retired.)
Samantha Meier, Archivist for Discovery in Special Collections and Archives (SCA) just had an article she wrote on helping to find Dorothy Hamre published in Archival Outlook, a publication of the Society of American Archivists (SAA).
The article concerns Special Collections & Archives’ remote reference support for Padmanabhan Balaram, emeritus professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bengaluru, India. Prof. Balaram contacted SCA in late April to ask about images of Dorothy Hamre from the Dorothy Hamre and Kenneth Alexander Brownlee photographs (NAU.PH.93.37). Dr. Hamre was part of a team of researchers at the University of Chicago who identified one of the first known human coronaviruses.
The article explains how SCA staff, notably Kelly Phillips and Sam Meier, were able to successfully identify and digitize images of Dr. Hamre for Professor Balaram while navigating a mostly-remote working environment. This highly successful remote reference interaction emphasizes SCA’s ability to support scholars around the world with timely and important research questions.
Read the fascinating story at: https://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?m=30305&i=667849&p=4