Annual Review: Finding their niche

Eli Kumin and Kaya Taylor didn’t sign up for a three credit hour course, but nonetheless received a graduate-level introduction in sigillography, the scholarly discipline dedicated to the study of seals historically used to authenticate documents. Kumin, a junior from Lenexa, and Taylor, a now-graduated senior from Wichita, spent the 2024-25 academic year as Sanders Scholars working with Digital Humanities Librarian John McEwan to improve search tools for Spencer Research Library’s medieval sigillographic collections. 

The Sanders Scholars program, created through a gift from William J. Crowe and his wife Nancy P. Sanders, in memory of her parents, provides funding for a paid internship for KU graduate or undergraduate students working with a librarian mentor. The program aims to provide an opportunity for students to learn about the evolving practice of librarianship and prospects for a career in the field, in addition to earning a higher pay rate than the typical student wage for their specialized work.   

Kumin and Taylor helped refine and build a catalog for KU Libraries’ collection of medieval seals, learning digital tools and archival cataloging standards, while centering the user experience, from researchers to patrons with no prior experience interacting with seals. That’s where they both were prior to starting the project with McEwan, who has published a book titled, “Seals in Medieval London, 1050-1300.”  Prior to joining KU Libraries as Digital Humanities Librarian in 2024, McEwan was a researcher in the Department of History and Welsh History at the University of Aberystwyth where he worked on the Seals in Medieval Wales project.  

“If you Google sigillography, he’s like the second search result,” said Kumin of McEwan’s expertise.  

In addition to being a top subject matter scholar,  the students explained McEwan  “has a gift of being a good teacher.” McEwan, helped the students learn technical, conceptual and ethical matters related to digital humanities, and gain a working knowledge of a suite of software packages used in preparing digital exhibitions and documentation.  

However, a key highlight of the experience was interacting with primary sources and learning about the seals themselves, which often survive as features of historic documents. KU is one of the few academic institutions in North America to have collections of medieval seals. Among Spencer Library’s hundreds of seals, the Sanders Scholars project focused on seals from the Abbey Dore Collection, associated with documents concerning land in Herefordshire, England in the 13th century. 

Kumin and Taylor were familiar with the libraries and each other prior to the experience, as both were employed as student workers at Spencer Research Library. They had spent time interacting with library users at the front desk or retrieving items from the closed stacks, but the Sanders experience gave them an opportunity to go deeper, gaining first-hand experience cataloging items and using digital humanities tools. They also developed a keen appreciation for the libraries’ conservation services, noting the care Special Collectors Conservator Angela Andres took while rehousing a number of the seals in recent years, as well as admiration for the breath of Spencer librarians’ knowledge and the interdisciplinary nature of library work. 

“The experience solidified my intention to become a librarian,” Taylor said. 

Taylor has already made plans to gain work experience in secondary education before exploring an opportunity at library school abroad. Kumin, who took a special interest in the Latin scripts on the documents and recreating visual representations of the seals, still has time at KU to consider his next steps.  

“This opportunity combined a lot of interests that I have,” Kumin said. “My mom always encouraged me to triangulate my dream job – this project combined my interests in classics, English and drawing.” 

“The variety of things we were able to do within the project made it really valuable,” he said, “being able to explore a niche subject and tangibly experience these documents and objects.” 

This content first appeared in KU Libraries 2024-25 Annual Review, a publication that reviews accomplishments of the past year and provides a glimpse of priorities moving forward. See this story and the full issue in the downloadable pdf.