During Spring 2015, I volunteered with the ExxonMobil Historical Collection (housed at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at UT Austin) in order to gain more experience working in corporate archives. I was curious how a non-media company collected and preserved their audiovisual assets! I assessed hundreds of film, video and audio reels (mostly commercials and internal training videos) and created a workflow for future volunteers with less moving image knowledge to sort through the various types of assets and ExxonMobil ID numbers. I cataloged posters from Mobil’s sponsorship of Masterpiece Theatre and other PBS titles. I also assisted in setting up a small internal exhibition of historic ExxonMobil photos and logos. My supervisor, Shannon Keith Costello, was always willing to lend a hand, especially with 50lb + boxes of film! So grateful to her for this experience!

https://www.cah.utexas.edu/feature/exxonmobil/index.php

https://www.cah.utexas.edu/collections/exxonmobil_video.php