Humans of Southwestern: Archivist Rebecca Macomber

By Cordie Troxell

For most, the path through university is never a straight line; most change their majors, swap colleges or change their entire path. Rebecca Macomber started as a pre-med at Southwestern Adventist University in 2003 but returned to the heart of the campus where it all began.

Rebecca Macomber, Archives and Special Projects Librarian at Chan Shun Centennial Library.

Today, Macomber works as Archives and Special Projects Librarian at Chan Shun Centennial Library, having stepped into the role a little under a year ago. Macomber started at SWAU in 2003 as a pre-med science student. From there she graduated with a history degree and a master’s in library and information science from the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa. Now, she is the custodian of the very history she once studied as an undergraduate. However, her journey to the archives started in a much different department.

"I ended up switching majors," she recalls, reflecting on her early days as a freshman here at Southwestern. "I switched over to history because I loved it."

However, that transition didn't mean abandoning her scientific curiosity. While she followed her passion for history, she maintained a minor in biology. A combination that allowed her to experience all the university’s unique curriculum.

Macomber reflects that her five-year undergraduate experience felt very hands-on. Instead of just reading about the past, she was out in the world experiencing it. One of her most vivid memories is the "Dino Dig," a hands-on field experience in Wyoming she still recommends to every student she meets.

Being back on campus now as a professional, Macomber now focuses on ensuring those same historical records are available for the next generation. Tucked away in the library, she describes the archives as a "hidden gem" full of stories waiting to be rediscovered.

Does being an SWAU alumna change how she approaches the archives and views it? Macomber believes it could have a serious effect on how one may approach it, but she points out that even if she were not an alumnus, she would still put in the same dedication and effort. Even explaining how she has worked at other libraries and still put the same dedication into them.

“But it does maybe give me knowledge and experience, because I’ve been here before…” Macomber points out, “I know some of the terminology that would happen which I might not know somewhere else because I attended here.”

The archive and heritage room is somewhere most students on campus do not know about, a small area on the second floor of the library. This is where all SWAU’s history lies: the Mugshot books, Mizpah yearbooks, and many old textbooks and information from the start of SWAU.

While the most interesting artifact in the archives may be the bullet that shot and wounded a soldier in the Civil War, the most important for Macomber is the SWAU yearly Mugshot, a mass-produced book containing the names, photos, and contact information of every student, faculty member, and staff member at SWAU each year. Macomber explained that these are the key things that can help in the archives: being able to connect their names to faces so that in years ahead, we can still have all the pieces.