Ardra Whitney: Week 31 @ Avery Research Center

Monday, April 1^st:

With Monday being April Fool’s Day, I took to Twitter posting a link to Google Nose BETA, which I had read about in an online article from the Huffington Post. I thought it was such a well thought out; well executed and hilarious practical joke, and I really enjoyed the premise of it. Throughout the rest of the day I continued working on the Virginia Geraty Papers—processing the collection’s biographical and professional material series.

Tuesday, April 2^nd - Wednesday, April 3^rd:

I began the day by reblogging photos which I had collected for the Black in the Lowcountry: Digital Photo Archive project. I was really pleased with the outcome and look forward to perhaps receiving more submissions to post to the projects Tumblr page. On Wednesday, Graduate Assistant, Daron Calhoun II and I shared our thoughts on the inaugural undergraduate essay contest submissions. He explained that the announcement for the winners would be going out at the end of the week—and so I should finalize my decision by Thursday.

Thursday, April 4^th:

By the end of the day, I completed processing two more series from the Virginia Geraty Papers: correspondence and drawing/illustrations. Additionally, I reviewed and ranked essays provided by Assistant Professor, Jon Hale for Avery’s inaugural undergraduate essay contest and e-mailed my decision to Manager of Archival Services, Aaron Spelbring. While waiting for my bus home to arrive, I received a call from Thomas McTeer, son of J.E. McTeer, a famous Lowcountry Sheriff and Witch Doctor. He was returning my call about visiting him and also answered my question about the best way to get to his home in Beaufort, SC.

Friday, April 5^th:

I had been planning Friday’s trip to Beaufort since March, in order to conduct research for my SAA poster presentation on the African American folk magic tradition of Hoodoo. Renting a car from a nearby Avis, I drove in the morning to the beautiful and culturally rich town of Beaufort—my first stop was Mr. McTeer’s home. Mr. McTeer was very nice and had a free copy of his father’s memoir, Fifty Years as a Low Country Witch Doctor, waiting for me; along with a small collection of his father’s belongings. The collection included a medium sized tin containing roots his father had removed from people who had been hexed, a carved mandrake root which symbolized his father’s power and potency as a witch doctor, and scrapbooks containing news clippings his father collected during his work as both a local sheriff and Hoodoo practioner.

After speaking with Mr. McTeer about his father’s collection, he graciously directed me over to my next stop— the Beaufort County Library (BCL). There I met with librarians Grace Cordial and Charmaine Seabrook of the Beaufort District Collection, who brought out several vertical files, books, correspondence and news clippings on the practice of folk magic in the Lowcountry for me to look at and take notes on. I am planning a return trip to the BCL, so that I can review its collection of scrapbooks from J.E. McTeer, as well as literary productions on microfiche pertaining to the topics of Hoodoo and African-American folk magic.

Electric Limbo: Alex Champion's Week 10 Blog Attempt

This blog comes late partly because Microsoft Word 2007 and Dropbox colluded to rob me of my precious prose. On Sunday night I transferred my two page blog about the Society of American Archivists conference in San Diego to Dropbox only to see on Monday that it no longer was there. “Hmm…” I thought, “perhaps the transfer didn’t complete after all.” I opened Word and selected the “IMLSblogWk10” only so read that the document file path no longer existed. Having frequently attempted to open Dropbox documents from Word before this error was not new. This time however I had correctly checked Dropbox first and THEN Word. I finally checked the original file’s location and—Huzzah!—located the shortcut! But, wait, oh no, the file path isn’t working…

My file is in the limbo of the hellish PC and the Dropbox in the clouds with litters of unbaptized babies—or so my 21^st Century Catholic upbringing compels me to believe.

Since I didn’t close Windows without saving, I can’t auto recover. Since I don’t back up my computer every three hours, I can’t pull it from my external hard drive. Simple searches for the exact title of the blog in Dropbox and the PC yield nothing. Nothing in my recycling bin, nothing in my temporary files, nothing, nothing, nothing. Frequent readers of my IMLS blog (there must be some, no?) will understand that I pour my heart and soul into these. They are an expression of my deepest feelings through the universal sieve, winnowing the coarse granules of life from the digestible, nourishing bits that give us reasons to live. Except for week nine’s blog—I had a serious case of "writer’s blog"© and phoned it in. You wouldn’t expect me to repeat the same anguish and heart for another post, would you?

Instead here are some bullet points:

• ·         San Diego has a lovely downtown and its homeless population is plentiful but non-aggressive. Very much representative of California as a whole I suppose.

• ·         I appreciate every opportunity The HistoryMakers provides. On our first night we dined with previous THM fellows and a fortunate sequence of events landed me next to Kelvin White of the University of Oklahoma library school and IMLS administrator Kevin Cherry. Kelvin explained the depths of the LIS Ph.D. programs and Kevin, a sweet, sweet white man from North Carolina who shares my love of plaid shoes, bowties, and urged me to enter the Ph.D. academic-verse. There is a lot of colorful nuance to this story, most of which concerns his delightful sense of humor and a our rapport, and it’s obvious that Cherry wants more blacks in the information business. In the world of archives connections are currency and right now I feel rich.

• ·         Every conference I attend increases my ambition by 50%. This immediately drops by half of that, approximately 1/8^th of the totality of my ambition. Doing the math that means my ambition is now 304%--just over four times-- where it was in March 2010 before I attended the Midwest Archives Conference. I feel like I could conquer the entry-level archives world! The fellows will try and piece together a panel or poster presentation as our experiences merit and hopefully SAA and the regional archival associations will see a lot more of me in the future!
•  ·         Sessions were a mixed bag. I mostly attended the technology minded or K-12 outreach panels. I see digital curation as an important (obviously!) development in archives and K-12 education is important for my placement at the Maryland State Archives.
  
  Below are some pictures of my adventures.

Planes fly dangerously close to the cityscape, threatening the masts of nearby barques

Packers lose a pre-season game to the Chargers, whose stadium is not noticeable from my hotel room. Petco Stadium, home of the Padres, disappoints. I approve of the Chargers victory.

Panel discussion on "living archives" composed primarily of THM fellows

The USS Midway

A model of a contemporary prop plane engine

The captain's bunk on the Star of India at the Maritime Museum

A non-contemporary sign designating the modern chamber pot

Porthole view of a Soviet sub from the bathroom. I will not say where I am standing relative to the the toilet

A mock-up of the HMS Surprise, as used in "Master and Commander"

The Star of India from the Surprise's bow

Sleeping quarters in the Surprise

A B-39 Soviet submarine

Planes fly dangerously close to the skyline

Nate Sowry is co-winner of the Gerald Hamm Scholarship. A UW-Madison student, Nate is an exceptional representation of the school and its values. 'Nuff said. The last Hamm Scholarship winner was also from Madison but did not bother to show up to accept the award. Odd, since SAA last year was in Chicago--just a four hour bus ride--and Nate traveled half0way across the country...