A production of the South Carolina Educational Television Network.

♪ Hi, and welcome to another session of the Job Ma >> I'm Bill Terrell, >> and I'm Adrian Hayes And boy, do we have a special treat for you today.

A visit to New York City's famed Schomburg Center for Research into Black Culture Terrell> You're right.

The Schomburg is known worldwide as an invaluable resource center for Afro American history.

Also, the Job Man Caravan will investigate what careers as a court reporter and as an accountant can offer.

Our entertainment.

comes from Shalamar.

Terrell> But first, let's take that trip to New York City The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a division of the New York Public Library, houses one of the world most extensive collections for the studies of all aspects of Black culture.

In 1926, the New York Public Library acquired author A. Schomburg Private Collections Cultural Treasures.

At that time, the collection included over 5000 books, 3000 manuscripts, 2000 etchings and portraits, and several thousand pamphlets.

In 1932, author A. Schomburg headed the Library's Negro Literature, History and Prints Division, which contained his collection.

He worked in that capacity until his death in 1938, when that division was renamed in his honor.

Today, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture contains over 80,000 volumes of rare books and manuscripts, including works of the Harlem Renaissance writers, sculpture, paintings and prints from the earliest Black artist to today's artists.

Over 75,000 photographs and the Photography Collection, a music collection with 10,000 records and an oral history collection of taped and filmed interviews with the noted Black leaders, authors and performers.

The Schomburg Center, with its wealth of information on Black culture, serves as an unparalleled research source for the scholars from all over the world who wish to explore the meaning and diversity of the Black experience and heritage.

Jean Blackwell Hudson is a former curator at the Schomburg Center.

She tells us about her experiences at the center while she served as curator.

>> I came as a comparatively young librarian who had had experiences in the branch libraries of the New York Public Library and found that in the Schomburg Center, there were answers to many questions which had been asked of me, and that these answers were in the Schomburg Center and not known to other libraries.

And in the years that I have been in the Schomburg Center, it seems to me that we have played an important role in increasing the publications that make this knowledge available.

I'm thinking, for example, that two editions of Who's Who in Black America, where most of the work was done in the Schomburg Center and, the groundwork of a couple of encyclopedias and particularly the one volume Negro Almanac.

We have played an important role in bringing about the publication of reference books that make this little known history of our people available to others.

I think the most outstanding event that I can recall was the celebration of Dubois 90th birthday.

Dr Dubois had moved into a very nice neighborhood in Brooklyn, and his neighbors came and said they'd like to give him something meaningful for his birthday, and they were going to commission a statue.

>> The Schomburg Center's photographic collection consists of over 75,000 photographs.

The photographs are largely.

We have a large 19th century collection, starting with the earliest photograph, which is a (indiscernible) type, and we have amber types, stereographs and cabinet cards.

We also have a number of photographs that are in categories such as, organizations from the 20s and 30s in Harlem, and we have street scenes, Harlem, a lot of street scenes of the South during the former Security Administration.

We also have a large entertainment collection, including musicians, dancers, chorus line, and artists.

Julia Hilton> The art prints and photographs section of the Schomburg Collection involves the visual arts, which have been an integral part of the Schomburg collection from its earliest beginnings.

African art, as well as art created by Black people living in America and other parts of the world, constitute the collection.

We are fortunate to have a wide array of works by Black and other Black Americans and other Blacks from throughout the world in the collections.

We have one of Romare Bearden earlier works.

A piece from that from, The Iliad series is a watercolor which is very rarely seen now, since Mr. Bearden tends to work in other media forms.

We also have works by Norman Lewis, who unfortunately died a couple of years ago, but whose work is now very well known and very much appreciated throughout the art world.

The Schomburg is also fortunate to have on loan, a contemporary sculpture by an American sculptor, Beau Walker, of Frederick Douglass.

The piece is most appropriate to the collection, since we have many of Frederick Douglass written works, and the piece symbolizes his interest in Black freedom and the symbol of what the Schomburg is interested in relative to Black culture and history.

Robert C. Morris> The department, which I had rare books, manuscripts and archives, consists of exactly those headings as their major, ingredients.

The rare book collection dates back to 1573 and up to the present.

The manuscript collection, which I would like to emphasize, is a very large and important research collection that consists now of approximate 200 major groups and measures approximately 2000 shelf feet of material.

Those collections begin in the colonial period, not only in the United States, but in the West Indies and in Africa, and are covered those periods by the collections that we deal with.

Early material includes the records and manuscripts that were developed by Arthur Schomburg in the first place, and then added to over the years, to the large and important collection that we now have.

The collections are divided largely into personal papers and organizational records.

The personal papers are of great importance and include the papers of Robert Weaver, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Lyndon Johnson, and come into literature.

Including important rare manuscripts of literary works, including Paul Laurence Dunbar and Richard Wright.

The organizational records, span a large number of groups that revolve around New York, but extend nationally as well.

It's an important collection that we are now trying to make as available to researchers as possible through guides and other, finding aids that will let people know exactly what and how important this collection is.

>> The conservation of Schomburg Center is very important because we have valuable documents.

Some of them are very brittle and need the acidification fumigation.

We do before any treatment, We do the examination with a microscope.

These microscopes help us today identify the inks.

The kind of fungus we can find in the paper.

Or, if the ink is, very soluble.

So we tell us, how to trace the document before any restoration.

After that, we do the examination with a microscope, we pass for the dry cleaning and also the washing and the acidification tool.

So we have a document.

We are going to immerse in this solution.

We use magnesium bicarbonate or the barrel system for the acidification.

After that we remove the document for washing.

And acidify we pass to this step.

That is the main thing.

And the relining of the document I did here.

We back with a Japanese paper, where we are going to fill it out, the missing parts, and after we can encapsulate the document or we can make a portfolio for them.

Here is a portfolio made.

And this is the encapsulation that we can use this encapsulation protects the document for further damage.

The saga continues.

My friend and I would like to introduce the next segment coming up on the Job Man Caravan, Shalamar.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Hayes> For those of you who are just joining us, we continue our Job Man Caravan report on the Schomburg Research Center in New York.

>> The audiovisual section of the Schomburg Center has a responsibility of collecting, maintaining, and preserving, all audiovisual materials, to include 10,000 records, phonograph records, about 5000 hours of oral history tape, five, 600 films and videotapes, and, about 50, film strips.

The recorded music includes not only Afro-American music that is blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, Blacks and classical music, etc.

it also includes a wide variety of, Black music from the Caribbean and from Africa.

This means, not only the traditional musics from Africa and the Caribbean that people expect to find, but also the contemporary music.

That is, you can not only hear traditional, reggae and, Jamaican music, but you can hear the contemporary reggae, you can hear the old calypso, you can hear the new soca from Trinidad, so forth and so on.

And the same with the, African musics, you know, history.

We have, several recordings of conferences, lectures, conducted at various universities around the country and around the world.

We've got, radio programs back in the 40s, there were two positively oriented Black radio programs.

One of them WMAQ out of Chicago called Destination of Freedom, another called New World coming on WMCA here in New York.

The importance of those is that during the 40s, most Black radio programs were like the...Amos and Andy type, which portrayed the stereotypical, views of Blacks.

So that's another aspect of our oral tradition, here in our audiovisual section.

In addition to that, we are initiating our own oral history video documentation project in which we bring in, the Giants, Black people, many of whom who were born around the turn of the century and who have incredible stories to tell to give our researchers, not the second and third hand information that they get in books, but the first hand, face to face information they can get from these giants, by way of our own video cameras here at the Schomburg Center.

>> We would like to broaden our image and not just let people in New York or on the East Coast know that the center does exist.

But to make it more of a national and international hub bub of activity.

The Schomburg Center, like I said, it's New York based.

But we in keeping with our mission, I tried to highlight the efforts of Blacks throughout this country, in the world.

And our mission is to, document and have available for the scholars research is what have you just for the the man in the street, the kinds of material that people are seeking to know more and more about Black culture.

Terrell> If you're interested in or need the services offered by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, write the Schomburg Center, 515 Lenox Avenue, at 135th Street, New York, New York 10037 or call area code 212-862-4000.

♪ Does the legal profession intrigue you, but being an attorney is not your goal?

Well, how about the job of a court reporter?

♪ Make no mistake, the job of a court reporter carries a lot of responsibility.

Often, what is placed in the record of a trial or a court hearing will determine whether people have received a fair day in court.

>> The responsibility of a court reporter is to record verbatim that that's word for word, court proceedings.

And there are a couple of methods of doing it.

Stenographic machine is the method that I use.

And the steno machine, produces notes.

And these notes are then transcribed.

And this becomes the official record of what has transpired in court.

And this is, what an appeal may be based on to the Supreme Court.

Or you may have to have a deposition taken where, witnesses, testimony may be needed at another hearing.

Maybe there may be a contradicting statement that, you know, witness say it or so.

Hayes> So accuracy is very important?

>> Oh!

Accuracy is of utmost importance.

And the quality of the transcripts has to be neat in appearance.

And of course, you have to have, proper spellings of names and grammar and punctuation.

And all that's very important.

for transcripts.

The court reporter, is almost what you call the silent person between the bench and the bar.

We're sitting there.

We're very quiet, However, our task is, is just vital to, you know, court to the court system.

The attorneys, will need the transcript in order, as I say, to appeal a case if they are, unsatisfied with the judge's decision.

As far as the relationship between judge, and the court reporter.

Hayes> I mean, do you just sit there?

You just take down everything, they say?

>> Everything word for word.

There's no editing or shortcutting.

It's just taking down exactly what's said.

Terrell> Sometimes court cases can get heated where the 2 or 3 people the judge, attorney or witness end up talking at the same time.

It's at this point that a good court reporter's training comes into play.

>> The average person talks in the in the area of, I'd say 200 to 250 words a minute.

There are times when the attorneys are really getting into a heated argument, and it really gets fast.

And and that's when the real skill and expertise of a court reporter comes in, because you, you know, you have to get it.

There's no, ifs ands or buts about it.

And, there have been times where it just looks like that just straining but, you know, that's, you know, when the training really comes in, Terrell> Learning to become a court reporter, is not all that difficult.

Quality training can be found either at a technical college or a school specially designed to train court reporters In each place, students are taught not only how to use the stereograph machine, but to understand legal and medical terminology as well as court procedures.

Trials usually cover a variety of subject matter.

Hayes> Is there a large percentage of, Blacks in the field of court reporting, or is it not the case?

>> No, but that's not the case.

As a matter of fact, I only know of one other reporter, Black reporter in this area.

Hayes> Why do you think that's so that there are very few?

>> Well, I really don't know.

I could say this.

Maybe You know, I'm glad that there is such a program as this where, the Black community can be introduced to what court reporting is.

It's just one of those things that people oftentimes don't think about.

You see it on Perry Mason, and you see the person sitting there, but it's not something that you would ever really, you know, just pop up in your mind like you would a teacher or a doctor or something of this nature.

Terrell> Once you've learned court reporting techniques, is it easy to apply?

>> I'm not going to tell anybody that it's easy to learn.

It takes a lot of hard work and practice.

It's almost like, playing a piano.

It takes constant practice and perseverance and determination to do it.

Because if you if you really don't, you know, want to do it, it's going to be very difficult if you just trying to escape a job that you have or just going into it for, the glamour or the money, it's gonna be, you know, going to have a hard time.

Terrell> As for salaries, a new court reporter just starting out can make about $18,000 a year.

Seasoned reporters, depending on where in the country they are, can earn as much as 30,000 and above.

Hayes> Stay with us, there is much more on the Job Man Caravan.

Terrell> By the way, your letter poured in this week and the viewer wanted to know if you were any good at math.

Hayes> I get by, I get by,.

Terrell> Well getting by just isn't good enough, particularly if you have your sights set on becoming an accountant.

In preparing for a career in accounting, students need to develop certain skills and take certain courses that will enable them to succeed in this field.

>> Well, you need to get your basics such as English, mathematics and science.

Other fields, other courses that you should take in, In preparing yourself for a degree in Accounting would be bookkeeping.

If your high school offers courses such as bookkeeping or some high schools, offers a principal or an introductory course in accounting, you should try to get in.

And of course, such as bookkeeping or accounting and maybe an economics course and try to get as much math and trigonometry as possible.

Develop good study habits.

While you're in high school, you also need to learn how to discipline yourself.

You need to go ahead and get your basic background, like I said earlier for English and it's mathematical skills which you possibly can a lot of high school students don't take the S.A.T.

test seriously.

I found out this semester that a lot of the interviews, the recruiters who come on campus asking, how did you score on the S.A.T.

test?

So if you get a basic foundation in Math and English, do well on the S.A.T.

test plan ahead what it is that you want to get out of your college years?

That would be my personal advice to high school students.

Terrell> Pat Conway, a recruiter with Coopers and Lybrand CPA firm in Miami, Florida, held interviews at South Carolina State College, on the day that we interviewed Annette, we asked him what recruiters from public accounting firms are looking for in prospective employees.

>> Well, you know, we go to about 300 universities around the country and, we'll be hiring about 1500 people this year.

And we look for people who have, outstanding abilities in a number of areas, demonstrated leadership abilities.

Certainly strong academic qualifications.

But I think we look for people who have enthusiasm.

Spunk, because ours is a very difficult business because of the strain of time and the competition that's required in order for further academic accomplishment.

A CPA exam is required and you're competing against the best candidates in the country.

And so having spoke, the ability to get up after you, you know, you get knocked down.

It's very, very important because, you're dealing with very, very competitive people.

But it's a it's a very positive environment.

There are no negatives really.

An unusual opportunity to interact with people.

Most people think of public accounting as numbers.

It's really not.

It's it's public first.

And so you're always interacting with people.

Most of what we do is interviewing because we go into a client's organization, whether it's, AT&T or Ford Motor Company, Gulf Oil, and we sit down with the clients' people and try to gain an understanding what they do.

And it's very personal.

And oftentimes they can be threatened by the questions because you're maybe checking to see what kind of jobs they're doing.

So how are people interact with the clients?

People is very, very critical and important.

There are outstanding opportunities for women.

We have, just a tremendous number of women coming into our profession.

We probably are seeing at least, 30% of our new hires are women.

Hayes> Well, that's this week's show.

I'm Adrian Hayes, Terrell> And I'm Bill Terrell on behalf of the staff of the Caravan.

Until next week, thanking you for joining us.

♪ ♪ ♪