Her Story
About Morgen
Morgen Clements is a Special Collections Assistant in the Special Collections and Archives Department at Sam Houston State University's Newton Gresham Library, a role she has held since 2021. Based in Montgomery, Texas, she oversees the full lifecycle of the department's holdings, from inventory and preservation to arrangement and description, ensuring that materials remain accessible to students, researchers, and the general public. Her work spans a wide range of collections, most notably Texana materials and an extensive archive from German psychiatrist Dr. Vladimir Eliasberg, a project of more than one hundred boxes documenting sociology, psychology, and propaganda from World War I through the 1960s. Using tools such as ArchivesSpace and CONTENTdm, she builds finding aids, manages digital metadata, conducts preservation assessments, and welcomes visitors to the Thomason Room, offering them insight into the collections she helps steward.
Clements's path into archival work grew out of an early love of puzzles, reading, and storytelling, interests that first took shape through volunteer work at a women's resale center and a college course on Civil War history. She went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature from Sam Houston State University in 2019, followed by a Master's degree in Library and Information Science with a focus on archival studies from the University of North Texas, where she graduated first in a class of 570 and completed a Certificate in Archival Management. Along the way, internships with the UNT Summer Archives Institute and the McFaddin-Ward House Museum, together with mentors such as Morgan Gehringer, Barbara, Trent, and her colleague Rainey, helped shape her understanding of the field and the many paths within it. Today, she extends that same guidance to others, mentoring student assistants and training interns in processing and preservation.
Beyond her daily responsibilities, Clements is an active voice in the broader archival community, participating in the East Texas Historical Society Association, the Harmful Description Practices Committee, and her library's Accessibility Committee, and holding membership in the Golden Key Honor Society. She remains a longtime supporter of the Montgomery County Women's Center, where she once served as a volunteer assistant and continues to donate her time and resources. Guided by a belief that archives serve as spaces of connection and catalysts for progressive change, she approaches her work with an emphasis on inclusive access, thoughtful stewardship, and a genuine curiosity about the stories historical records have to tell.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Morgen
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to my curiosity, the hands-on experience I gained through my internships, and the guidance of supportive mentors and supervisors who gave me practical direction and meaningful opportunities along the way.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I've received was to understand what I can and can't do, and to do the best I can with the resources available to me. I was also given valuable guidance on the different career paths and specializations available within the archival field.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I'd tell them they need to have a strong conviction that this is truly what they want to do, along with a substantial amount of curiosity, because that curiosity is essential for navigating the work. This job can become quite monotonous at times, but it is ultimately a very rewarding career—working with historical artifacts and helping people connect with their genealogy makes it worthwhile.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
One of the biggest challenges I see is the variation in budgets and resources across institutions, which directly affects preservation work. At the same time, I see real opportunities in improving outreach to our communities, expanding accessibility, and updating our descriptive standards to be less harmful and more inclusive.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Curiosity, community service, and stewardship of history are central to who I am. I care deeply about accessibility and making the most of the resources available to me. My love of puzzles, reading, and stories is what originally led me to pursue a career in archiving historical documents, and that same curiosity continues to shape how I approach my work today.
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