Transcript of National Archives History Oﬀice Oral History Interview
Interviewer(s): Daria Labinsky
Interviewee(s): Mary Ann McSweeney

Daria Labinsky: This is Daria Labinsky and I am doing a NARA oral history interview with MaryAnn McSweeney, and today's date is March 23, 2021. Hi, MaryAnn. Mary Ann McSweeney: Hello!

Why donʼt you start just by giving us your background, how you ended up working for a National Archives facility?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Well, I had three boys, three children, and I don't have a college degree, so I was looking for something that I could do part time, and that was in, like, 1983, I think. And so, a friend of mine who knew a friend from the regional archives in Atlanta, a friend of hers, a secretary, told her about an Intermittent [program] opening. But when she found out it was only 20 hours a week, she said, “No, I need more money. ” So she said, “Hey, why don't you do it?” [Laughs] So I went in and got that little thing. That's how I started. And so I just started oﬀ doing the basic preservation, refoldering court cases, and etc., for about the first, I donʼt know, two or three years I was there? Yeah.

Daria Labinsky: So what kind of court cases were they?

Mary Ann McSweeney: They were everything from bankruptcy, to criminal, “lewd and lascivious behavior. ” [Laughs] Yeah, they were just the basic, and I was working on the Georgia courts.

Daria Labinsky: OK, so that was, you said, 20 hours a week?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Yeah, that was 20 hours a week. And then we ran out of money because they only allowed a salary cap, right? Which was fine for me, because it always happened in May, and the kids were out of school. So to pay money for somebody to watch them would have been just barely breaking even. So, then, I would start back over again. And so I stayed there. And then, I think at the same time I was doing the court cases, my boss put me in charge of the Tennessee Valley Authority records, which I really enjoyed doing those because it was the Depression era. And so, fortunately for me, I gained a lot of experience, because we had the negatives of these wonderful pictures, just incredible pictures of the people standing in front of their little, poor houses, and in front of their stills with guns, churches, all kinds of great pictures. So I had reported to him that Iʼd noticed some of them were bubbling up, and so on. And we started a huge contract to get the—I can't remember what it's called, those particular photos that bubble up like that—is it acetate?

Daria Labinsky: Yeah, I think thatʼs right, cellulose acetate.

Mary Ann McSweeney: They were acetate. So we started this big contract with somebody in Chicago, a company, and I started having to send those, describe them, and then, post that—if you can remember, I don't know what it was called then. Was it EAP [Electronic Archive Project], with Dan Jansen where we started having to put those first photos, anything that went online digitally. I donʼt know if you were there then.

Daria Labinsky: That was before me.

Mary Ann McSweeney: So thatʼs sort of how I got started in ARC [Archival Research Catalog] because that was before ARC. So I had to select photos, I had to put them in this database, and I had to send them to Dan. And then they were posted somewhere in NARA [laughs], Iʼm not sure, because the catalog wasnʼt available yet.

Daria Labinsky: Wow, so you were one of the first, like, digitization people, huh?

Yeah [laughs], I knew nothing about it, but we had specific instructions, and I did that, and we sent them up there, and theyʼd digitize them, send it back, etc., etc. What was interesting, I was also put on the Tuskegee Syphilis Project with CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and those photos, which means their photos, the people were in full view. And they had been available to the public for a long time, which is kind of sad. But then, of course, NARA realized that that was a mistake, so we had to take them and block out the eyes, and we did all that. And that was really interesting, just to see the case files. So, and then the segue from Dan was, the next thing that got me experience was the ARC project, where Deb Wall and six other people came down. I think they went to every facility and explained what they wanted to do. And when it started to roll out, nobody but me. [Laughs] My kids were so much older then, and you know what I mean, in high school, so I really had a lot of free time. I didnʼt have to worry about it, so. And I wasn't intermittent then. I think Iʼd gone to permanent, part-time. And I was the only one that volunteered to do the project up in Washington for the training. So when I came back after the training, they started to put me on descriptions of the TVA series, so I started doing all that. And just one thing led to another, and I took all the Microsoft classes, I did as much as I could to promote myself for promotions. And I think I finally got up to like a [GS] 5 or something. And then the appointment came up in the library for a [GS] 7-9-11 specialist. And I had already made inroads with Bob Bohanan and Dave Stanhope, because they were both involved in the ARC training up there. So I saw a lot of them, I guess they liked me, and I had a good segue into that job. And I got that position and started from there into the library.

About when was it when you started working on the TVA stuﬀ?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Oh, probably ʻ88, ʻ89.

Daria Labinsky: OK. And then the Tuskegee stuﬀ?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Same.

Daria Labinsky: OK, thatʼs really, so thatʼs interesting. So they realized after the fact, that they needed to protect these people's privacy?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Yeah. Well, their faces. And so not only that, but the whole case files were open, which was really, you know, a total invasion of people's privacy, to talk about their sex life, you know.

Daria Labinsky: Right.

Mary Ann McSweeney: And the whole thing—it was amazing to me that that ever happened. And to see it firsthand was something else.

Daria Labinsky: Yeah, I can imagine. It must have been a bit disturbing, you know?

Mary Ann McSweeney: It was disturbing. Well, we know there was penicillin available, and that was horrible, just to know it was withheld.

Daria Labinsky: Yeah.

Mary Ann McSweeney: So, yeah, that was bad. And even with the Tennessee Valley Authority records, those were also open—the case files, which I complained about not too long after I started. I said, “you know, these government oﬀicials went out to these homes, and they interviewed, and they wrote down this case file, and theyʼre calling them morons, or ʻthey're retarded, ʼ or just went on and on about how dirty they were. ” I just didnʼt feel like that needed to be in the public eye, or at least take the name out. I think it was a good 10 or 15 years later where they decided to do that.

Daria Labinsky: Wow.

Mary Ann McSweeney: So you could get all of that. And I mean, it is history and I understand it, but it was to me, the way they described people, they wouldʼve been fired now. So it was weird. Yeah.

Daria Labinsky: So was that, was that also put online?

Mary Ann McSweeney: No, they weren't online, but they were open. The regions don't have, like we do, restrictions. So you can come in and say, “I want to see all the case files. ” And so researchers did that, yes.

Daria Labinsky: Wow. That is pretty disturbing. So, how long were you at the records center then—or at the archives?

Mary Ann McSweeney: [Thinking] Probably ʻ83 to ʻ96, maybe, ʻ97.

Daria Labinsky: And that was 20 hours a week, usually?

Mary Ann McSweeney: No. Well, I was, like I said, I would do part-time, permanent part-time. Iʼm not sure what year that was, but then my husband died. And it wasn't a matter of emergency, but I needed to get more hours, so they put me at full-time.

Daria Labinsky: I see.

Mary Ann McSweeney: And that was in 1995, when he died.

Daria Labinsky: Wow. So how old were your kids? In high school?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Yeah. Yeah. The twins, the youngest ones, yeah. They were seniors when my husband died, so.

Daria Labinsky: So that was a diﬀerent building, correct? So where was that building?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Oh yeah [laughs], youʼve never been there?

Daria Labinsky: I went to the Atlanta archives, now, the new one.

Mary Ann McSweeney: The new one. Yeah. That was an old military supply depot in East Point. It was really kind of nasty. And I was so scared to go to the library because we always said, “Youʼre going from the slum to the country club. [Daria laughs] Youʼre not going to fit in. [Laughs] But I found that not to be the case, real quick.

Daria Labinsky: So who was working? Who on staﬀ was there, thatʼs there now, when you started at the library?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Letʼs see, now. Ceri [Escodi, now McCarron], Youlanda [Logan]. Keith [Shuler]. I think that's it, as far as the archival staﬀ.

Daria Labinsky: OK, I thought Betty [Egwenike], maybe.

Mary Ann McSweeney: Oh, Betty. That's right, Betty was there.

Daria Labinsky: OK. I just happened to see a list of employees from ʻ96 somewhere. Anyway, OK, so you were doing processing. You were hired to do processing?

Mary Ann McSweeney: I was there doing processing. I wasnʼt expecting to be thrown into A/V right oﬀ the bat. So they put me on this, I donʼt know, project back there with indexing, where I had to listen to the First Lady [collection] tapes. And most of them were a minute or five-minute introductions, what she said at every event, I had to write all that down. And I have to tell you I was about in tears after two months of working there. I was used to doing a lot of diﬀerent activities at the region. And I wasnʼt used to sitting in the same chair and doing the same thing for eight hours a day.

Daria Labinsky: Yes.

Mary Ann McSweeney: So, I finished that project for Dave, and I went to Bob Bohanan, who was supervisory archivist at that point. And I said, “Look, I don't know, but Iʼve got to have some other things to do. ” It wasn't just that. But even the first textual project they put me on, I was just shocked that they wanted me to read every page. And I said, “I just simply don't get this. ” Anyway, there were some problems in the beginning, and Bob agreed with me. He felt sorry. And he says, “Well, do it the way you think is most eﬀicient. And then Martin [Elzy]”—who was the deputy director—”he'll go over everything with a fine-toothed comb when you're finished, anyway. ” And so thatʼs what I did, and Martin had to admit to Bob, “Well, you know, she did a damn good job, and I couldn't find any errors, as far as what she should have closed [for security or privacy reasons]. ” So basically, that was that. And then I asked Bob, I got frustrated—there was no electronic stack inventory. So every time we got a new accession, Martin would make me type up 16 pages just to add that one in the middle. [Laughs] So I said it was kind of weird, because I came from the region where we'd already electronically done all that. And there, they had done nothing. They were still doing typewriter folder labels. We hadnʼt done that in years at the region. We had Avery, the laser labels. Weʼve been doing that for a long time. So when I got there, I brought that up to Bob, and, I guess there was pushback, some new person comes in saying, “Oh, why canʼt we do it this way?” Right? But, yeah, eventually we did sort of go to all the electronic stuﬀ, they did let me do a whole inventory, I spent time going through, stack level by stack level, and putting it into the inventory.

Daria Labinsky: So that was the stuﬀ that was unprocessed, as well as the processed stuﬀ?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Yes, it was, but mostly it was the unprocessed that I had to work hard on. And thatʼs how I kind of got to know the records inside and out. And then, as you recall, there was the at-risk survey that came along, and nobody had looked at those unprocessed records, ever (ugh). So I was assigned that, of course, and that took a long time to do. I really just got to know a lot of the records that nobody looked at.

Daria Labinsky: So you did a lot of processing?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Oh, yeah. My first processing was the anti-inflation adviser, Alfred Kahn, records. I went from there to doing the very first of the First Ladyʼs Oﬀice, and that lasted years, before we even got to the end, or close to the end, of that. And then I just did whatever processing I could—DPS [Domestic Policy Staﬀ], I did almost probably everything I can think of, every collection, I did one or two series in.

Daria Labinsky: Wow. So what was your favorite part of the job?

Mary Ann McSweeney: At the library?

Daria Labinsky: Yeah.

Mary Ann McSweeney: At the library, I think that once I got involved in accessioning, doing the inventory. I liked the fact that I didnʼt have to process all day, but I could do two hours here, I could get up and move around. And I really enjoyed that, moving around. And once I was in that part, I was a lot happier. Iʼm just not the type of person that can do processing eight hours a day. I just canʼt do it.

Daria Labinsky: Was everybody doing that, was everybody on one task?

Mary Ann McSweeney: I think for the longest time, I canʼt remember the exact years, but at some point it was just me and Youlanda processing, because they put everybody in the vault. They just left the two of us.

Daria Labinsky: Oh, wow.

Mary Ann McSweeney: Yeah, so like Keith, Chuck Stokely, Betty, all of them, they had a huge staﬀ down there, because they were so far behind. And I knew nothing about their processes, I didnʼt really pay it much attention. But, yeah, eventually there were just a couple of us upstairs. Even, yeah, James Herring went down to the vault. And they werenʼt happy about it, but, you know.

Daria Labinsky: But who was doing the Research Room, then? Did everybody split that up?

Mary Ann McSweeney: The Research Room was rotation. I think it was on a daily thing, actually, like, on Tuesdays, I would do it—yeah. And then they switched to Keith and somebody else, Chuck Stokely, maybe, splitting it. And that was really great. [Laughs] And then it was Bert Nason—he was there, by the way, I didnʼt think about that. But Bert started doing it full time. And when you were in there, you would, if you were full-time Research Room, you did all the requests, researcher requests, while you were sitting there.

Daria Labinsky: But somebody else had to do the pulls?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Yes. So there was a pull person, and a person in there, and I canʼt remember. But I think thatʼs how it worked. Like, if my day was Tuesday, then somebody else did the pulls on Tuesday. And Keith and somebody else had Wednesday, etc., etc., and then later we switched to weeks, and then stuﬀ like that.

Daria Labinsky: So how many supervisors did you have at the library? Can you remember, can you think about it? Supervisory archivists, I mean, direct supervisors.

Mary Ann McSweeney: [Counts] Four.

Daria Labinsky: Oh, thatʼs pretty good. I mean, you were there a long time, so thatʼs not that high of a turnover.

Mary Ann McSweeney: It was Bob, and then Dave, and then Sara [Mitchell], and then back to Dave, and then Aisha [Johnson-Jones].

Daria Labinsky: So Dave was a supervisory archivist for, like, most of the time you were there?

Mary Ann McSweeney: I canʼt remember. It depends, because Jay Hakes was the director…first when I got there, Don Schewe was the director and I canʼt remember exactly when he left and Jay came. And when Jay came, Bob was promoted to deputy director, right? So then Dave came in and took his place. And Iʼm sure it was at least five or so years, yeah, for Dave to be the supervisor. So if you count Brittany [Parris, who had just become supervisory archivist at the time of the interview] then thatʼs six. [Laughs]

Daria Labinsky: Thatʼs true. How has the library changed over the years? Positives and negatives?

Mary Ann McSweeney: [Thinks] Well, to be honest with you, Iʼve always told everyone about a year after I started, I had a lot of diﬀerent things that I could do. The first year, I just wanted to leave and run away, because I was so bored. But after that, I would tell everyone for the next probably 10 or 12 years, that I had the best job in the whole world. And I really enjoyed working there. We had these great Christmas parties, there was good feelings among people, there was good cooperation. And I donʼt know what really changed, just little by little, with the new director or with diﬀerent things going on, I just—. Of course, electronic social media came into play, which was diﬀerent, but—yeah, there was a time where I was so happy, for 10 or 15 years, and then I was miserable to the point of ridiculous, basically.

Daria Labinsky: Wow.

Mary Ann McSweeney: I mean, I was literally miserable, because we had new people come in, there was a lot, there was a conflict, and it was really, really diﬀicult.

Daria Labinsky: But you still enjoyed the work, right?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Oh, yeah, Iʼve always enjoyed the work. Iʼm sort of anal retentive. I love to organize and go down to the detail level. So, yeah. I like what I did, and I just wish I hadnʼt gotten involved in the other political aspects that came into play.

Daria Labinsky: Right. Which you canʼt, you know, you canʼt really help, right? They come, things change.

Mary Ann McSweeney: Things change, and I tried to make the best of it, I did go through the, what is it, the—

Daria Labinsky: RESOLVE?

Mary Ann McSweeney: RESOLVE program, trying to help out, and that helped quite a bit. We got some things settled at that point. But yeah, I just wish that had never happened.

Daria Labinsky: Right. So, what are some of your favorite collections that youʼve worked on?

Mary Ann McSweeney: I think that my favorite collection was the unprocessed, pre-Presidential Carter Family Papers. That was stuﬀ from his gubernatorial era and also his state Senate [career], and you got to see him before, as he was moving through politically up the ranks. More candid, more annotations, more handwriting, a whole diﬀerent period. And I think also, after that it would be the First Ladyʼs Oﬀice, that was pretty good, too.

Daria Labinsky: Did you work personally with Mrs. Carter, Rosalynn?

Mary Ann McSweeney: I would see her when I first started doing the papers, I probably met with her, like, maybe like three times, maybe once a year. And she would tell me things that she was worried about being seen, and I assured her that I had not seen those, and that I would take it into consideration. Of course, not open them. So thatʼs how that went.

Daria Labinsky: And then you worked a lot with her assistant, right?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Yes, Melissa [Montgomery]. Because we started getting into the post-Presidential [papers]. I donʼt know how they slopped that on me, but one day they said, “Oh, now youʼre the Carter Center post-pres liaison. ” I was like, “Really?ʼ So that was a whole mess. And I did as much work on it as I could. Because itʼs not our records [i.e., not accessioned], so I didn't really feel like we should be spending a ton of time. Itʼs courtesy storage, as far as I was concerned.

Daria Labinsky: But I guess the idea is that eventually, that will become part of the library, is that right?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Correct. And to this day, I donʼt know the status of that. I've asked many a time. Iʼve even talked to Phil Wise [Carter Center vice president of operations and development], I said, “Hey, you can hire me as a contractor when I retire, for, you know, maybe one day a week, and Iʼll come in and start processing that stuﬀ on Floor Two. ” And when I told him what my salary was, he said, “No way. ” [Laughs] We didnʼt go further than that, it was sort of like a joke, you know. At some point, thatʼs going to be a huge to-do over there, because we are now closing all Presidential handwriting, correct?

Daria Labinsky: Right.

Mary Ann McSweeney: Well, if you see whatʼs down there, itʼll be a disaster area. Thatʼs going to be, really—if they continue with closing everything, I donʼt know. Itʼs going to be hard, really hard. Thereʼs going to be a lot of decisions to be made, basically.

Daria Labinsky: Can you talk a little bit about how description has changed, since you started there? Well, even before that, starting, when you were at the Atlanta archives, how—not just electronically, but also like, at the library, you have paper finding aids, etc.

Mary Ann McSweeney: Yes. The paper finding aids. Then they went online. The worst part was, every supervisor had a diﬀerent format. So, the format, we finally had a big committee, where we came up with the final format, probably in 2007, somewhere around there. But that was a problem—every supervisor had a diﬀerent format of how they wanted description done. So that caused a problem in the legacy finding aids that theyʼd done before I ever got there. Everything was so much diﬀerent, and we had to switch everything over to the new format, electronically, and then print them out, put them back in the notebooks. And it was very labor intensive. And I was always wanting to collaborate with other libraries to see what they were doing, but I was told not to do that, and did not do that.

Daria Labinsky: And then, of course, now theyʼre trying to standardize it across all the libraries.

Mary Ann McSweeney: Oh, they are?

Daria Labinsky: Yeah, well, processing. Yes, a recent memo came out, and itʼs pretty much—standardizing processing is what itʼs about. Thereʼs not a lot of detail yet, but thereʼs a thing about basic and augmented processing.

Mary Ann McSweeney: Right.

Daria Labinsky: Was there an electronic archives before ARC? A catalog, I mean, before ARC?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Yeah, that was NAIL [NARA Audiovisual (later NARA Archival) Information Locator].

Daria Labinsky: Thatʼs right. I heard about NAIL.

Mary Ann McSweeney: First it was NAIL, and thatʼs why I did my training, and then that stayed in for about four years and then five and then went to ARC, and so on and so forth.

Daria Labinsky: Do you have a preference over those, which one you liked working with the most?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Oh yeah, I think ARC was so much better and easier than DAS [Description and Authorities System], which we have now. It just was. And the printouts in the catalog from ARC were so much easier, better, they were more concise. It was so much easier. Yes.

Daria Labinsky: I think what I was impressed with NARA, with the ARC program, when they rolled it out—was they actually had a team of archivists—theyʼd have one archivist from every region and one from every library. And for a solid year, before they came out with the platform, and how it was going to look, and the input system, they collaborated, right? And I think thatʼs what made ARC work so well, is because you actually had input from people who were going to use the system.

Right.

Mary Ann McSweeney: And so with DAS, I donʼt think there was any input, it just—boom, they were working on it. And then we just rolled it out. And to me, that shows how important it is to talk to the people that use the system every day, and what researchers want, and what they want, right?

Daria Labinsky: Yes.

Mary Ann McSweeney: So, yeah, ARC was definitely much better.

Daria Labinsky: So do you like working with researchers?

Mary Ann McSweeney: I did, for a while. [Laughs] I think the older I got, the less I wanted to be interrupted. So it was fine with me, if people [other staﬀ] were in the research room. I couldnʼt care less about going back in there [post-pandemic]. Uh. I donʼt know, it just wasnʼt my thing.

Daria Labinsky: So how has the library building changed?

Mary Ann McSweeney: You mean the structure?

Daria Labinsky: Inside, you know, the oﬀices?

Mary Ann McSweeney: We actually had more space when I first got there, and then of course, they had to make accommodations, and then we had the whole renovation. And I think a lot of people were a little upset over that, because there wasnʼt enough staﬀ input. And I canʼt think of many people that like the way itʼs arranged in Suite A [archival staﬀ oﬀice] now, because itʼs just, weʼre on top of each other, one right behind, and phone conversations and all of that gets skewed. Thereʼs no panels. Thereʼs no nothing. And I understand that that was the Google way to do it, but weʼre not Google. [Laughs] So, yeah, I think I even found out that Google is now going away from all that.

Daria Labinsky: Right.

Mary Ann McSweeney: Theyʼre actually going back to cubicles and such, for privacy.

Daria Labinsky: So before, you had more like cubicles with walls?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Yeah, they werenʼt cubicles, but they were, like, really full walls, wooden walls with a top. And they were about, I guess, they came up to just below my neck, so I could always look over and see the next person. But they were a much bigger area. And, yeah.

Daria Labinsky: So what are you going to miss about the job?

Mary Ann McSweeney: Iʼm going to miss a lot of not being able to control things [laughs], because I know where thereʼs a lot of errors in DAS, and in describing, and cubic footage, and Iʼll miss not being able to finish those kinds of things, you know, make it right.

Daria Labinsky: Yes, unfinished business.

Mary Ann McSweeney: Unfinished business. And I hope that moving forward, somebody will dig in, and be anal. and just say, “hey, ” you know, do it. You don't get paid extra for doing those things, but itʼs very frustrating to go to my series, and I have .504 cubic feet, DAS says I have .252. And Iʼm like, “Howʼd that happen?” And you start delving in and comparing those discrepancies. Itʼs really diﬀicult, and itʼs also detailed. We had that problem of people putting the same series in the same box, which has really caused a problem. So you have one series, “Subject Files, ” itʼs Box One through Seven. Then you started “Correspondence, ” but you put half of the Correspondence in Box Seven. Youʼre basically counting everything twice, which itʼs not that much cubic feet, but it does add up after a while.

Daria Labinsky: Yes.

Mary Ann McSweeney: Yeah. And I donʼt know really where they are, with how important that is, thatʼs my point. How important is it, is my thing.

Daria Labinsky: I know what you mean, weʼre still not using HMS [Holdings Management System], so thatʼs when you would think it would be important. I donʼt know.

Mary Ann McSweeney: But if you look at other libraries, theyʼre way behind us, you know, especially the older libraries. And I always wonder, you know, “Well, if theyʼre not enforcing certain things with this library, then why do they enforce it on everybody else?” I mean, to me, the most frustrating thing, working at the library, was the way everything was done diﬀerently at every library. Right?

Daria Labinsky: Right.

Mary Ann McSweeney: And at the regions, you had these forms, when you added cubic feet—I don't know, it was a 14044, or something like that. And you had to put it down precisely, it had to go up to somebody, you had accessioning forms when new material came in, you had a database. And all the regions, as far as I know, pretty much had to do it the same way. And then when I went to the library, I said, “Well, where's your loan database?” or “Where's your this?” And they had nothing. And that part is weird, strange.

Daria Labinsky: Yeah, I mean, for the regions, theyʼre federal forms right? Theyʼre actually, yeah, part of the federal record to have these oﬀicial forms. But they don't have those at the library, or didnʼt. I guess they might have some more now than they did before.

Mary Ann McSweeney: I think for even loans that we took out to other libraries, I donʼt even think everybody was using the same loan form back then. And I said, “Well, how do you record when nothing comes back, if it's not dated somewhere?” You know, there were just diﬀerent things that were really diﬀerent. Because [in the region] we could get in big trouble, like putting the wrong amount of cubic footage on a form. And maybe thatʼs because we had the agency records. And if the agency wanted something, and you couldnʼt find it, well, then you were in a lot of trouble.

Daria Labinsky: Yeah, yeah.

Mary Ann McSweeney: And so maybe with the library, itʼs all donor deed, at least in our library. And maybe things are more copasetic among the PRA [Presidential Records Act] libraries. I donʼt know, I havenʼt worked there, so Iʼm not sure.

Daria Labinsky: Is there anything else you'd like to talk about, as far as work?

Mary Ann McSweeney: No, Iʼm just going to miss a lot of my work. And as I told Brittany, Iʼm not a winter person. So maybe when itʼs raining, and freezing cold, and Iʼm bored, Iʼll come in and do some crap work. And nobody has to train me.

Daria Labinsky: That's true. Youʼre ready to get started.

Mary Ann McSweeney: [Laughs] Yeah. And then, like I said, the biggest problem with volunteers is having to train them—or interns. And at least if I come in and do something, I donʼt need any of that.

Daria Labinsky: Thatʼs right, thatʼs right.

Mary Ann McSweeney: So Iʼm hoping everything goes well for the library moving forward.

Daria Labinsky: Well, I guess the libraryʼs almost done with a lot of their collections, right? How much still needs to be processed?

Mary Ann McSweeney: And thatʼs going to change a lot of what you guys are doing, of course. The most stuﬀ left is that Presidential Personnel Oﬀice [Collection], which is probably pretty boring and a lot of Social Security numbers. And then, if thatʼs done, I mean, youʼre pretty much, I think itʼs only like a thousand cubic feet that are left to be processed.

Daria Labinsky: Yeah.

Mary Ann McSweeney: So thatʼll change what everybodyʼs focus is, and Iʼm sure it'll be going back to checking mistakes previously and stuﬀ like that.

Daria Labinsky: And maybe doing some rehousing of stuﬀ thatʼs in older boxes.

Mary Ann McSweeney: Yes, thereʼs some problems with that. But again, as when I came from the region to there, that part was the country club. The way the records [in the region] were stored in the most horrific FRC boxes and all over the place. That was nice, to come into that environment where everything was in a little Hollinger box.

Daria Labinsky: Right, right.

Mary Ann McSweeney: So moving forward, I think thatʼs kind of the way itʼs going to go, yeah.

Daria Labinsky: OK, I can shut oﬀ the recording now. Nice talking to you.

Mary Ann McSweeney: Thank you. Iʼm just a little nervous about being retired, but thatʼs OK.