Louisa Demmitte ’09 took this photograph on Lake Auburn on Oct. 3, 2008, at 6:54 a.m., about 15 minutes after sunrise during an Outing Club “sunrise paddle.” The 10 or so students who joined the paddle found a slightly roiled lake, thanks to a southerly breeze, and a misty scene, thanks to the 40-degree air against the warmer water. In this canoe are Rob Friedman ’11 (bow) of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., Hannah Porst ’11 (middle) of Madison, Wis., and Naima Murphy ’10 (stern) of Chicago. Watching the day begin from a canoe on a lake, says Demmit, of Columbia, Md., helps center her. “Everything starts fresh when the sun first hits the water,” she says. “What happened yesterday doesn’t matter.”

During a pre-orientation trip in late August, new ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students and their trip co-leaders dive into the calm waters of the Basin on the New Meadows River near Bath, Maine. To get this photo, trip co-leader Lincoln Benedict ’09 (second from left) rigged his camera to the mast and tripped it with a remote control he’s holding in his left hand. Known as AESOP, the Outing Club–run orientation program offers around 40 trips annually and is one of just a few nationally that students alone oversee. From left: co-leader Emily Chandler ’09, whose family shared their Vineyard Vixen 34 sailboat for the AESOP trip; co-leader Benedict; and first-years Ben Williams, Stephen Wright, Erin Pinover, and Monica Rodriguez. Standing near the stern is Maria Rouvalis.

Director of Muskie Archives and Special Collection Library Kat Stefko; ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½' Muskie Oral History Project recently won the Elizabeth B. Mason Major Project Award, from the Oral History Association, for excellence in an oral history project. The Muskie project comprises some 400 interviews.

Asked to describe her job as an archivist, Katherine Stefko’s stock reply is, “I’m paid to read other people’s mail.” The joke is revealing. Director of archives and special collections at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, Stefko oversees the delicate work of gathering documentary materials that reveal the details — sometimes very personal — of history.

The houses nationally significant holdings relating to the late Ed Muskie ’36. You’ve called him the hero of the 1968 presidential campaign, running with Hubert Humphrey.

It was the first time a presidential candidate advertised himself as having chosen a VP who could step up and be president. There was this fabulous political ad that Humphrey put out with the image and sound of an electrocardiogram and the line, “Who is your choice to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?”

We have film showing Muskie inviting a heckler to the stage. Muskie basically said to him, “I’ll give you 10 minutes to tell people your ideas, but in exchange your group has to be quiet and listen to my ideas.” He was extraordinarily genuine in wanting to understand everyone’s opinions before formulating a policy.

By extending that respect, he really gained a lot of ground with the antiwar protesters. Many political observers speculate that had the election been even a week or two later, Humphrey and Muskie would have come from behind to win.

You recently had vice-presidential scholar Joel Goldstein at the archives researching a book.

By necessity, archivists have to be generalists, so having somebody there with dedicated time to read through and make connections within the Muskie Papers has been incredible.

He has become a huge fan of Muskie, and wrote a lot of op-eds during this election year drawing parallels between the ’68 and 2008 campaigns. Goldstein has been particularly impressed by Muskie’s ability to inspire and sustain civil discourse.

You have a broad collecting mandate, between representing Muskie and other ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ people, and then officially documenting the College’s history.

We collect externally and internally — that’s important to realize. External to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, that’s usually me. I spend quite a bit of time working with alumni, their families, and other donors.

It’s always better if you talk to a person about their papers, because nobody can tell a story like the person who lived it. Also, giving one’s papers to an archives is not necessarily an easy thing to do — “Here’s my mail, make it publicly available.”

I talk to people about the historical importance of their materials. And I try to foster confidence so they understand that as an archivist, I’m ethically motivated to do the right thing, balancing the privacy needs of our donors with the research interest of our patrons.

What’s the on-campus process?

Internally, Pat Webber, the College archivist, works with people on campus to make sure that their records of historical value are preserved in the archives. We are authorized to collect from College offices, but there are other records being created at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ with permanent value. So he goes to student-organization meetings in the evening to talk about the importance of their records.

The Outing Club, for instance, is celebrating its 90th anniversary in 2010, so they and their adviser, Judy Marden, have been thoughtful, with Pat’s encouragement, about their records. Last summer we received all their historic records.

How else do you interact with alums?

We get quite a few casual visits during Reunion and Homecoming Weekend. We’ve offered a historic film festival where we’ve shown old films from the collection, and those have been quite popular.

Whenever possible we try to instill in alumni that we really want material that tells the personal side, the unofficial version of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ history — scrapbooks, letters home to Mom and Dad expressing what it was like to adjust to college in Lewiston. These are the types of materials that support cultural and social history, and they can make the past seem real to today’s students.

Who laid the groundwork for the collections of College records?

Harry Rowe ’12, who worked at the College for about half a century, was the unofficial College historian. Bursar Norm Ross ’22 was a diligent record keeper. And he passed the baton to Bernie Carpenter as treasurer. They did a great deal to make sure that early records survived. We’re extraordinarily lucky to have as extensive a historical record as we do.

How is technology changing what you do?

The speed of obsolescence creates monetary challenges. Where a piece of paper, even a black and white photograph, can live happily on a shelf for 500 years, an 8-inch floppy drive is already obsolete.

We’re constantly thinking about getting things into a stable format — by today’s standards — and then developing a strategy to deal with it when that format becomes obsolete.

And something I’ve been thinking about is that kids don’t keep diaries anymore — they keep blogs. How can we thoughtfully collect and preserve blogs? I don’t have an answer yet, but I know it’s something that we need to do.

Interview by Doug Hubley, photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen

According to Philip Andersen, a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ sophomore from Camden who is coordinating the trips, Peaks Day is held annually to encourage participation in Outing Club activities and promote appreciation for the outdoors. All trips will leave the Outing Club headquarters by 8 a.m. for New Hampshire’s Mount Washington and Carter Dome, as well as several over 4,000-foot peaks in Maine, including Old Speck, Bigelow, Saddleback, Sugarloaf and Abraham.