Casey's Patch Collection

The National WWII Museum (formerly the D-Day Museum)

Warning: you may see a similar post in the future on this same topic. I actually have two different patches from the D-Day / National WWII Museum in New Orleans. Each was acquired on a separate occasion. 

I acquired this patch several years ago at the D-Day Museum in New Orleans. The D-Day Museum opened in 2000 on the 56th anniversary of D-Day, and in 2003, Congress designated it as America's National WWII Museum. Since then, the museum has expanded its scope and collections to cover not just the D-Day battle, but all the contributions of the United States from its entry into the war through the Allies' victory in Europe and Japan. 

You might be wondering why the National WWII Museum is located in New Orleans, Louisiana. The city is certainly well known for its tourism but not really its significance to 20th century military history. When the museum opened in 2000 as the D-Day Museum, New Orleans was actually a pretty natural fit for its location. I'm sure you have seen the iconic photographs of marines exiting the boats onto the shores of Omaha, Juno, Gold, Sword, and Utah beaches. Those were called "Higgins Boats," named after Andrew Higgins, the New Orleans native who designed, built, and tested the boats at his company, Higgins Industries, during the war. One is on display in the museum's lobby.

My most recent visit to the museum was with my SLISters while on a repository tour. In 2011, about 35 archives and library students from SLIS at LSU took a day-long trip to New Orleans. Our first stop was the Amistad Resesarch Center, followed by the National WWII Museum. At both repositories, the staff gave us behind-the-scenes tours of their repositories and collections. The Oral History Curator at the WWII Museum even took us into his recording studio, where he interviews veterans of the war to add to the museum's oral history collection. It was a great day. We learned so much from the archivists who were willing to spend their Saturday giving us a glimpse into two really amazing archives.

Ok, now that you're done reading this post, check out my post about my trip to Normandy!

Louisiana State University

Today I'm posting a patch that to me represents my other home in this world - Louisiana State University, and specifically the School of Library and Information Science at LSU.  I spent two years studying in my master's program at LSU, and I call it home because in the program I met everyone in this world who means everything to me.  I met my very best friends and mentor in SLIS.  

I moved to Baton Rouge after working for a year in Jackson, Mississippi after I graduated with my BA in History from the University of Southern Mississippi.  At that time, I was only moving two hours from home, and I could have never imagined ever moving 1,500 miles from home.  It was a difficult move for me because I knew no one in Baton Rouge and I was stepping into territory that I knew nothing about.  To be honest, I sort of fell into SLIS as a career choice - I had no idea what information professionals really did.  It just seemed like it could be a good fit, and indeed it was.

While in SLIS, I decided to focus my coursework in archives, and specifically access, outreach, and instruction in archival settings.  And as you all know, I'm not actually even working in an archive in my new job at 'GBH, but I feel that everything I learned in SLIS influences the decisions I make in my job everyday.  It's definitely relevant to everything we learn in SLIS, and the work I am doing is so awesome and I am so happy to be doing it.  

Outside of my coursework in SLIS, I will always have fond memories of spending time with my dog Romsey at the dog park in Baton Rouge, enjoying Cajun cuisine and going to festivals across Louisiana with my friends, tailgating at LSU football games, and working for the Archival Training Collaborative.  And as I try to think back about everything I loved about living in Baton Rouge, there isn't anything or anyone not somehow related to the SLIS life, or "SLife" for those who know the "SLanguage," that comes to mind.

My friend and current president of the LSU chapter of the Society of American Archivists gave me a vase on graduation day that I have sitting on my windowsill.  The words that she painted on it could never be more true about my life at LSU: "Home is not where you live but where they understand you."