By Moe Belghith ’25

In my previous blog post, I compared my job at the Visual Resources Center (VRC) to operating a teleportation time-machine. Every slide I scan and color-correct transports me to another time and place—ancient art, the rolling hills of holy lands, or breathtaking mosques and churches. Through my work at the VRC, I’ve witnessed countless wonders. But as incredible as this experience has been, the past year has shown me the true heart of the project: the contagious passion of my coworkers.

Though our schedules vary and we don’t always overlap in the office, the hours I spend working alongside my teammates fly by. We discuss our favorite slides, the places Denis Baly visited, the collections that captivate us most, and our hopes for the Baly Project. It’s been two years since I joined, and I never imagined that my desperate search for a first-year summer job at Kenyon would lead me to find a second family.

Braeden, who helped me land this job as a freshman, is the mastermind behind the project. His contributions have been the most significant and influential. The recent exhibition was his brainchild, and the new website—baly.kenyon.edu—solves many of the issues Digital Kenyon faced in showcasing the Baly slides (or any artwork). What’s even more impressive? The site doesn’t store images itself but pulls them in real time from Digital Kenyon, maintaining our upload workflow while offering a smoother, more user-friendly browsing experience.

Annika handles much of the project’s organizational work, meticulously keywording and indexing slides. This system helps users who may not know exactly what they’re looking for—searching for “Roman bridge,” for example, brings up all relevant slides, narrowing the options. This process demands deep knowledge of art history and extensive research, especially since some slides lack location details. Annika doesn’t just identify monuments in Professor Baly’s slides; she uncovers their origins, locations, and even estimates when the photos were taken; a particularly difficult task especially when the slides lack indicators of time or place.

Though this is my blog post, I didn’t want it to be about me. Instead, I wanted to highlight the work culture we take pride in at the VRC. We celebrate each other’s achievements, encourage one another through challenges, and fuel our collective passion for the project—making us even more productive. If this sounds like a place you’d thrive in, we’ll be hiring next fall!