Assistant Archivist Hired!

The Moravian Archives for the Southern Province is pleased to announce that Sabrina Garity has been chosen as the new Assistant Archivist. Sabrina is currently completing a dual degree program at Simmons University in Boston, Massachusetts, which will result in a Masters in Library Science in Archival Science and a Master of Arts in History. Sabrina also holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction from the New School (New York, New York) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.

Sabrina has been working as a Law Library Assistant at Boston College’s Law Library, focused on digital initiatives, including building LibGuides, improving web design, social media development, and migrating the digital repository to a new platform. Her time at Boston College and her coursework at Simmons University have made her familiar with professional archival practices and standards.

The search committee was particularly impressed with Sabrina’s social media experience, highlighting the Law Library’s outreach initiatives. Her posts have been excellent advertisements for their in-person outreach, bringing in unprecedented numbers of patrons for events, even tripling attendees for similar events held in the past. By incorporating educational content into these posts, they not only increase the Law Library’s visibility and build rapport with their community, but they lead viewers to pursue further research on their own within the library’s digital and physical collections. Sabrina and her colleagues who have worked on the social media team at Boston College Law Library were recently announced as the winners of the American Association of Law Libraries’ Excellence in Community Engagement Award for the project titled Social Media: A Method to Increase Engagement for Library Services. This award honors outstanding achievement in public relations activities.

Her research focus in history has centered on post-war Germany, and she has taken several courses in the language. While not fluent, she has the reading skills necessary for the records of the Moravian Archives and will be attending the German Script Course in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, this summer, along with Archivist, Meaghan O’Riordan.

Sabrina is originally from Midway and has been fascinated by the history of Old Salem since her elementary school field trips. We are excited to welcome her to the Archives at the end of May!

The Archives expresses great appreciation to the search committee that shepherded the Assistant Archivist search, including Stephanie Bennett, Collections Archivist for Wake Forest University; Johanna Brown, Curator of Moravian Decorative Arts and Director of Collections for Old Salem Museum and Gardens; Heather Fearnbach, president and owner of Fearnbach History Services, Inc., and member of the Moravian Archives Commission; Tom McCullough, Assistant Archivist for the Moravian Archives for the Northern Province; and Chris Ogburn, Director of Programming and Resident Musicologist for the Moravian Music Foundation.

We are also grateful to the members of the Moravian Archives Commission for their participation in the finalist search process. Thank you to Frank Crouch, Heather Fearnbach, John Jackman, Paul Knouse, Karl Kapp, Keith Kapp, and Neil Routh. Thank you also to Archives Operations Coordinator, Cindy Lamb, for her contributions to the search.

A welcome event will be held for Sabrina after she joins us in May.