English Student Gains Hands-On Experience With Rare Texts at Folger Shakespeare Library

Through hands-on work with scholars and rare materials, Jessica Reed ’26 is building experience for a career in library science.

By Chelsea McLin M.A. ’19

Carefully turning the pages of centuries-old practice books, Jessica Reed '26 examines handwritten notes and marginalia left behind by students learning math hundreds of years ago. On another day, she flips through early 20th-century advertisements for Shakespeare productions.

For the University of Maryland English major, now an intern at the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill, working with rare materials like these is a dream opportunity. Combining her interest in the early modern period with a passion for archival work that brings overlooked stories into public view, the experience offers a glimpse into the kind of work she hopes to pursue after graduation.

After learning about the internship through the English department last summer, Reed is gaining hands-on experience in both the research and operational sides of a major humanities institution. Since starting in the fall, she has taken on increasing responsibility, supporting scholarly programs, assisting researchers and contributing to ongoing archival projects.

We recently spoke to Reed, who is on the literary and cultural studies track, about how the internship is helping her explore a future in archival and library work.

What do you think made you stand out to Folger’s review committee? 

A lot of the internship and what Folger does is interact with researchers and fellows, so they wanted undergraduate students who exhibited an interest in academic publishing or research.

I’m finishing my thesis soon, which is exciting and nerve-wracking. I am writing about a John Keats poem which was heavily influenced by John Milton. I worked with the digitized poems, Keats' annotations on “Paradise Lost” and some of Keats' correspondence. I used secondary scholarship from the Folger Library while writing, too. I'm a registered researcher in the Folger Reading Room! During the interview, I was able to talk about that and having experience with long-term research projects.

What does your day-to-day look like?

If we’re running a scholarly program, I help things run smoothly—guiding people from room to room, making sure they have their researcher badges, setting up tech for presentations, organizing catering. Ahead of time, we also prepare folders with logistical details and a list of who’s attending and where they’re coming from. One of the larger programs focused on Afro-British political thought in the early modern period and brought together scholars from places like Cambridge, Oxford, Princeton and other universities across the U.S. Being able to learn about their research and careers was really rewarding.

On days when we’re not running a program, I focus more on archival work. The office is going through renovations, so we’ve been reviewing files, comparing them to the archival inventory and figuring out what we have, what’s missing and what should be kept or discarded. These are all institute documents, so no rare materials, but it is interesting to see the evolution of the Folger over the past few decades—things like brochures about past programs, old program syllabi and renovation budget information. 

I helped set up a display of rare materials for participants in the Folger's program on Early Modern Numeracy. Many of these materials were practice books in which young people would learn math during the early modern period, so I got to see genuine handwriting and marginalia from hundreds of years ago, while being very careful about turning the pages! I've also gotten to see old advertisements for Shakespeare plays put on in the early 1900s as part of Folger's program on Black Performing Women.

What skills have you developed? 

I’ve been learning how to read inventories of materials like manuscripts and photographs and how to preserve documents for future use. It definitely took some time to get used to working with older materials and understanding what I was looking at. I've also had rare material training, which means I can be trusted with valuable documents. That certification is really helpful.

The archivist who trained me emphasized the importance of having two copies of everything in different places to ensure the documents' survival, so I check the inventory to see how many copies we have before discarding anything. I’ve also gone through the institute archives to correct and update the inventory.

Beyond that, my supervisors have been really supportive about letting me explore different areas of expertise. I’ve set up informational interviews with librarians and archivists, since I’m interested in going to library school. It’s been really helpful to talk to people who’ve already gone through that process.

What’s next for you, and how is this internship helping you toward your goals? 

I want to take a year or two to work, save money and get more experience, then apply to library school programs, possibly the Master of Library and Information Science program at UMD. Eventually, I want to work as a librarian in an institute like the Folger and support researchers in their work. Some of the librarians I have spoken to through the internship have shared the challenges they face––the main being balancing access and preservation. We want to keep these old, cool materials alive, and we also want to keep them protected from damage. You don't want to just lock them up underground where nobody can ever see them because then there’d be no point. This is something that librarians at all levels handle. Should an item be accessible to a wide range of people or should it be digitized? The balancing act of being a librarian really interests me.