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Meet Processing Archivist Ashlyn Velte

Archivist Ashlyn Velte pulling a box from a shelf in the Archives.

The University Libraries would like to introduce our newest processing archivist and instructor, Ashlyn Velte!

Velte started working with the Special Collections, Archives & Preservation department this past May. In 2016, she graduated with her Master of Science in Library Science from the University of Northern Carolina at Chapel Hill. There, she spent two years working in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC Chapel Hill through a fellowship and said that the fit was great. 

“I like serving people,” she said. “I like having an impact on communities, and I think archives [work] is a great blend of the organizational work of libraries with feeling that I’m preserving the history that will impact on what we understand as a collective memory of our past, and that is very important to me.” 

After graduating, Velte went on to the University of Idaho, where she continued working in archives. One passion project during her tenure became the collection of books, art, costumes, and documents bequeathed by U of I alumna, published science fiction writer, and longtime Moscow resident Victoria E. Mitchell to the University of Idaho Library’s Special Collections and Archives. 

“In addition to science fiction books, there were manuscript materials related to the science fiction community in the Inland Northwest where there were all of these early conventions in the 70s and 80s,” she said. “It ended up being this really rich documentation of what the science fiction community was like during that time.” 

Velte also started to create the infrastructure for born-digital material at U of I before coming to Colorado. She said her favorite part of archival work is being able to think about tasks both in the big picture and the small scale. That, and working with students. 

“What I also like about libraries is the information literacy part of it and with archives, students learn about primary source interpretation,” she said. “I like being able to introduce students to thinking about where their information comes from and why that is important.”

Velte said she is excited about the current projects the Archives at CU Boulder have underway. Welcome to the Libraries, Ashlyn!