At the West Virginia & Regional History Center, student internships provide meaningful, hands-on experiences that allow students to apply their knowledge while contributing to the History Center’s mission. Working directly with historical collections, interns gain practical skills, deepen their understanding of the past, and often discover new ways to interpret and share history with the WVU and Morgantown community. One of those ways is through digital preservation to make archives and special collections more broadly and equitably available.
As part of the effort to expand access to important historical resources and materials, the academic year 2025-26 WVRHC Rare Book Intern, Bonnie Martinez, created an online research guide of rare books in the WVRHC collection that contain themes of race and racism, the African diaspora, Black culture, and more.
“I think it’s very important to make these materials more visible and accessible. The preservation of history, especially Black history, is crucial because we need to know the full truth of history so we don’t repeat the same mistakes we’ve seen happen before,” said Martinez.
Martinez, a junior English major minoring in Art History with an emphasis in professional writing and editing, learned about the Rare Book Room through friends who had positive experiences also working with the History Center. As someone who has always loved libraries, Bonnie was drawn to the Rare Book Room and channeled that curiosity into their capstone project.
West Virginia & Regional History Center Rare Book intern, Bonnie Martinez, looking through archives with a Rare Book Room visitor.
Their project consisted of cataloging and organizing materials related to Black history, creating an annotated bibliography of around 100 books, and developing a research guide that combined the bibliography with digitized materials. Bonnie’s inspiration for their project came from two places. One was to highlight the rare book collection and showcase the fragile materials that people might be nervous to interact with physically. That inspiration was further shaped by their experience viewing the Uncle Remus Collection.
Bonnie Martinez holding a magazine during their capstone presentation, showing it to a crowd.
“I was familiar with Splash Mountain and Song of the South, so it was interesting to connect those to the extensive Uncle Remus collection, which inspired the direction I took with my Black history capstone,” said Martinez.
Martinez’s project secured the "Top Poster" spot at the Professional Writing and Editing Capstone exhibit. Martinez's poster was entitled "Physical to Digital in the WVRHC Rare Book Room." The judging panel consisted of Writing Studies alumni, and presenters were graded on layout, readability, and their oral presentation. Martinez's poster outlined their process of creating a research guide using rare books in the WVRHC collection.
Bonnie Martinez standing beside their poster at the Professional Writing capstone exhibit.
Winning best poster showed me just how vital the work that I did was, and that there is still a lot of care for the preservation of history. Bonnie Martinez
Martinez plans to pursue a Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) after graduation and hopes to work in archives and special collections. Their experience working with WVU Libraries has provided them with both technical and interpersonal skills, including learning how to use the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classification systems, as well as developing collaboration and project leadership skills.