Week 12 at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

The inventory of all identified photos is complete! MCLM’s collection of processed photos consists of 13,485 photographs that range in date from the mid 1800’s to the early 2000’s. These photographs account for 2,579 folders of different people and places. Successfully completing this task allowed me to utilize my organizational and people management skills.

Every fourth Saturday of the month MCLM hosts a movie event called Black Talkies on Parade featuring a vintage African American film.  This month the movie was The World, The Flesh and The Devil featuring Harry Belafonte.  In preparation for this event I helped put together a one case exhibit.  The items that were pulled for the exhibit pertained to Harry Belafonte and Black Hollywood. 

Week Twelve at the Alabama Department of Archives and History

Hello and greetings from Montgomery! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

Here at the Alabama Department of Archives and History, I am still inventorying the Charles Morgan collection and scanning the remaining negatives from the Peppler collection, in addition to the three programs I am working on. At the moment, the tentative dates for these programs are January, February, March, and April,  so it looks like I will have a very busy Spring! I really don't have anymore to add, except that next week I will be attending a photo preservation workshop at Trenholm College.

Until next week!!!!

Cheylon Woods
IMLS Fellow
Alabama Department of Archives and History

Week Twelve at the Maryland State Archives

Last week I gave my first presentation to a class of undergraduates about the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland project and using the records of the Maryland State Archives. The students, history majors at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, were very engaged and asked interesting questions. The professor appreciated that I showed them (digitized) primary sources, something that even history majors don’t always have a chance to work with frequently. I spent the rest of the week record stripping U.S. census records and Maryland State Colonization Society records for the mdslavery.net database. My work with the Colonization Society focuses on two counties, Kent and Queen Anne’s, of Maryland's Eastern Shore, a heavily agricultural area where slavery maintained a stronghold even while the institution was phasing out in other (less agricultural) areas of the state. I've come across only a few manumissions in Kent County but haven't yet encountered any emigrants from Kent County to Liberia, and I look forward into delving into the reasons why. 

Krystal

Week 11 at the Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

Lately I’ve been working on inventorying MCLM’s extensive collection of sheet music.  Inventorying is a step that occurs at MCLM before processing.  This is a necessary step because the museum needs to establish control over each item in the collection. The Society of American Archivists defines inventorying as “A listing of the contents and condition of a collection made before processing.”  The items that are being inventoried are the aforementioned sheet music, photographs, art work, and movie posters. 

This week I also gave a presentation to The California African American Genealogical Society.  My presentation went over preservation practices for paper and photographs. CAAGS was very receptive and I was excited to field their questions. 

Lastly,  be sure to look out for MCLM in Carter Magazine, we are going to be a featured institution!

Alyss Hardin
IMLS Fellow, M.L.I.S.
Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

Week Eleven at the Maryland State Archives

Last week was pretty low key. I continued record stripping of the manumission records in the Maryland State Colonization Society and prepared a presentation to give to undergraduate history majors at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. I also attended a meeting of the Maryland Hall of Records Commission, an advisory body to MSA.

While prepping for my presentation, I came across a curious committal notice in our database. A suspected runaway slave, “a Negro man, who calls himself Mary Ann Waters,” was detained, leading the sheriff to advertise a committal notice in newspapers. The committal notice describes a well-dressed person wearing garments of satin, velvet, and fine wool, who had “been hiring out … as a woman for the last three years.” The only other record linked to this person in our database is for a release from jail four months after the committal. This advertisement raises some fascinating, and likely unanswerable, questions in the field of gender studies.

Week Eleven at Alabama Department of Archives and History

Hello and greetings from Montgomery!!!!

This week has been full of meetings and follow up phone calls! There has been so much going on around here as of late, with the planning meetings,  budget meetings and board meetings, but it is always wonderful to see progress in a state archive, especially in light of the current budget situation. As always, I am still diligently working on my three workshops for the year and I am also helping a couple of local organizations plan oral history and ethnography projects, as well as preparing a National Register Nomination, a museum interpretation plan, and inventorying the Charles Morgan Collection.

earlier this week the radio interview I did aired on local radio stations and online. This interview was done by the Alabama Arts Radio group. I was also interviewed by for the Archive's newsletter, which will come out in January.

For more information about my work in Alabama, visit:  http://cheylonkwoods.wordpress.com

Here is the link for the radio interview if you are interested: http://arts.state.al.us/actc/1/listserverindividual/20111113cheylonwoods.htm

Well, that's all for now.

Have a wonderful week and explore your surroundings!!!!

Cheylon Woods
IMLS Fellow
Alabama Department of Archives and History

Week Ten at Amistad

Last week was all about processing and planning of future projects at the Center. I continued to work diligently on processing the John O’Neal papers (now approximately 37 linear feet) and participated in Amistad Research Center’s Staff Planning Day. We discussed our organizational goals for 2012, including innovative and effective utilization of the repository’s resources to make them available for use and how to help engage and empower new and existing researchers. I also look forward to curating an exhibition for the first quarter of 2012 and other digitization projects.

Until next week!

Felicia

Week Ten at Avery Research Center

This week I have been busy getting my public program proposal together to submit to Dr. Williams-Lessane. Last week the Avery staff watched a documentary called Woke Up Black, which followed five African-American youth in the Chicago area. The film talks about a variety of issues that impact African-American youth including education, media representation, family life, sexuality, identity, etc. The film will be shown here in Charleston in February to at least three different schools and the director Mary Morten and the person who runs Black Youth Project (BYP), which is also out of Chicago, will talk to these students. However, while I was talking with Dr. Chase, Avery’s Public Historian, we began thought about maybe using the film as a starting point for having a Woke Up Black Charleston edition, where students can either be interviewed by a Avery staff person or they could submit their own interview (visual art, written, etc). The purpose of this would be to understand what it means to be an African-American youth in Charleston. This is not something that is evident in the current collections that we have here at Avery, so it would fulfilling a need and document a community that is not being documented. Nothing is set in stone, but I hope that it all works out.

In the hopes that this will come to fruition I have created sample questions that the students may answer, as well as investigating what types of sites would I use for my interface. I originally thought about doing a Wordpress blog, but then that got complicated about what types of permissions people would have and if people would have access to edit or delete someone’s story. Other platforms I have been investigating are Google Sites, Weebly.com, and Wikispaces. Some of the elements that I am looking at are the upload size, total storage size, possibility of having people upload their own material, but not being able to touch other people’s stuff. This is still a work in progress, so if you have any suggestions please let me know!!

To learn about my other project and about an important loss to the Charleston community, visit my blog.

Aaisha Haykal

IMLS Fellow

Avery Research Center

Week 10 at the Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

This week The California Library Association Black Caucus honored the Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum.  The certificate was presented to Cara representing MCLM by a former volunteer, who is now working for Los Angeles Public Libraries.  MCLM was also presented with two books; the first was a signed copy of the children’s book Jemmie’s Big Day and a reference book entitled African American Librarians in the Far West.  The children’s book is a wonderful addition to our collection and will hopefully become apart of the children’s summer reading program MCLM is hoping to implement.  Also, this week at MCLM I began digitizing images that will be included on our website. I saved the images as TIFF files at 600 dpi, the archival standard for digital images.  

Alyss Hardin
IMLS Fellow, M.L.I.S.
Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

Week 10 at Fisk University Franklin Library

Hello all. I am continuously working on the Smith collection here at Fisk. Specifically, I aim to complete section 1: Julius Rosenwald related by the Christmas holiday break. Next week is the Thanksgiving break week break. I will visit the Atlanta University Center Archive for personal research and will let you know how it goes in my week 12 post. I wish you all well.

Aisha Johnson
Archival fellow
Fisk University

Week Ten at the Alabama Department of Archives and History!

Hello and greetings from Montgomery!!!!

Last week was a pretty uneventful week. I spent most of my time inventorying the Charles Morgan collection and scanning negatives from the Peppler Collection and worked on my ATC workshop, which seems to be causing a lot of buzz around here. I, personally, am very excited for this opportunity, and I am having a great time planning it! Last sunday the radio interview I did with the Alabama Art Council was aired. I have gotten alot of good feedback from it, so that has been a wonderful experience. Here is the link to the interview if you are interested in hearing what I said : http://arts.state.al.us/actc/1/listserverindividual/20111113cheylonwoods.htm 

Here are some other links to the organization's website and other interviews they have done: alabamaartsradio.com

Have a great day and a wonderful week! Until next time!

Cheylon Woods
IMLS Fellow
Alabama Department of Archives and History

Week Ten at the Maryland State Archives

Last week was another busy week! I started out by observing LOSIM* staff give a presentation on the division’s history and research to a group of about 60 juniors at a local school. Later in the week, I participated in Higher Education Day at Martin Luther King, Jr., Middle School in Beltsville, MD. I spoke to three classes of about 25 students about college life, careers in archives, and LOSIM’s research. I finished out the week by joining a contingent of MSA staff at Morgan State University’s Founders Day, where Congressman John Lewis was the keynote speaker. The culmination of the day was the unveiling of a permanent exhibit which described Morgan State students’ role in the Civil Rights Movement. Staff of the Maryland State Archives researched many of the exhibit’s photographs, helping bring it to life. It was great to see these foot soldiers and pioneers honored while they are still living and to see them inspire current students. It was a very exciting week, and I enjoyed getting out into the community more.

Krystal

*LOSIM=Legacy of Slavery in Maryland

Week Nine at Amistad

Last week, I was consumed with the mission of processing series two of the John O’Neal papers at the Amistad Research Center. Series two, community arts organizations, comprises documents from arts associations that were mainly located in the South, including Alternate ROOTS, Southern Black Cultural Alliance, the Art Council of Greater New Orleans, and Voices of the New Orleans Movement. Of note are correspondence from Oretha Castle Haley (1939-1987), the cofounder of New Orleans’ Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and an activist for women and human rights. Later in Haley’s career, she established the New Orleans’ Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation.

As I continue to process this large collection, I am sure I will find other documents about community arts organizations and interesting facts to share.

Felicia

National Archives' Citizen Archivist Dashboard

Dear Fellows:

Im certain you have heard about the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) plans to launch the Citizen Archivist Dashboard. In your opinion, does this effort signal a democratization of the profession? How does it re-conceptualize the work of an archivist? Access? (See the link below)

http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20111107_7329.php

I can't wait to hear your opinions regarding this matter!

Brenda Tindal, IMLS Fellow
Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library
Princeton University

Week 9 at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

This week MCLM hosted two events, the closing reception for The Get on Board exhibit and Nothing but the Chicago Style Blues.  The turn out for the closing reception for the Get on Board exhibit was phenomenal!  This event featured a panel discussion with Freedom Riders Robert Farell, Robert Singleton, Rita Matinson and Woodrow Coleman.  The second event at MCLM this week was Nothing But the Chicago Style Blues.  This event featured The Legendary Melvin Eddy Blues Band.  Mr. Eddy sporadically comes out of retirement to perform, he was amazing!  Along with this blues event MCLM sold food tickets as a fundraiser for the institution. A busy week, but I definitely learned a lot about how to manage multiple events in small amount of time.  

Alyss Hardin
IMLS Fellow, M.L.I.S.
Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

Week Nine at the Maryland State Archives

It was quite a busy week! Collaborating with another staff member, we completed an updated brochure for the Legacy of Slavery project. In addition to my record stripping of Maryland State Colonization Society records, I attended several events. I attended the opening of the Maryland State Archives exhibit, Flee! Stories of Flight from Maryland in Black and White, at the Banneker-Douglas Museum. At the exhibit reception, I met historian Dr. Ira Berlin. Commissioner Theodore Mack, and Commissioner and anthropologist Dr. Cheryl LaRoche. Later in the week, I attended an OCLC webinar about ArchiveGrid, an archival discovery system. It’s meant to be a one-stop shop for researchers to search for archival collections around the world. To end the week, I attended a forum on social media and the government at the National Archives in D.C. For more details on these events, please visit my blog.

Krystal

Week 9 at Fisk University Franklin Library

This week, I continued to process the S.L. Smith collection. Smith was the Director of the Julius Rosenwald Fund's Southern Office. As you can imagine, there is a lot of items pertaining to the Fund. Consequently, the Smith collection will be divided into two (unequal) sections. The first section is the Julius Rosenwald "related" section and this is what I am currently arranging. I plan to have this section completed by Christmas break. The second section is strictly the Smith section including papers of many organizations he was involved with. I look forward to the entire process. I am still having an amazing time here at Fisk.

Aisha Johnson
IMLS Fellow
Fisk University John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library

Week Eight at Amistad

During week eight, I was a “busy bee.” I finally completed the civil rights organizations series for the John O’Neal papers and composed a series description (yeah); attended a digital projects meeting to discuss metadata guidelines; participated in a collection development meeting; and joined fellow co-workers to a book signing on Tulane’s campus.

I decided to process O’Neal’s community art organizations series as my second adventure! So far, this series encompass files of art and local community organizations in the Southeast and New Orleans, including committee minutes and agendas for Alternate ROOTS (Regional Organization of Theaters South)...click here for more information.

Felicia

Weeki Nine at The Alabama Department of Archives and History

Hello and greetings from Montgomery!

This week was a short week for me, because we had a big geneological workshop and I had to go to back to Jackson for a second round of training. The workshop went over very well, and we had 80 participants. I enjoyed my three day training in Jackson, Mississippi, and got to meet other ATC trainers across the tri-state area. Everyone was so energetic and full of ideas! I am continuing my work inventorying the Charles Morgan collection and scanning the last book of the Peppler/ Southern Courier photo collection. Other than that, everything has been pretty calm around here.

Until next week!
Cheylon Woods
IMLS Fellow
Alabama Department of Archives and History

Week Eight and Nine

The past week and half has been low key, so I am just going to combine them.

I have been putting the finishing touches on my collections that I have done so far here, the Lecque Family Papers, the Humane and Friendly Society, and Prince Hall Chapter No. 41 Order of the Eastern Star. In addition, I created the finding aids for them using Notetab, overall the process has been easy (with a few frustrations).

On Wednesday, November 2^nd, Ms. Mayo and I led a workshop on what are archives, the benefits of them, what supplies are needed, online/virtual exhibits, and on LibraryThing, a personal library catalog for the Ravenel Caw Caw Interpretive Center. An employee there, Erica, who is the cultural interpreter formerly worked here at Avery and asked if we could come out and talk to her colleagues about the benefits of an archive for both the institution and for them. The Ravenel Caw Caw Interpretive Center, is both a nature and history interpretive center. The land that the Center is on “was once part of several rice plantations and home to enslaved Africans who applied their technology and skills in agriculture to carve the series of rice fields out of cypress swamps.” Unfortunately, we did not have time to tour the site, but hopefully before I leave I can go back there and do a tour and/or participate in one of their group activities. The workshop went really well and the staff was receptive to what we had to say and I think that they began to see the value in the need to document, preserve, arrange, and describe what they have their collection (books, papers, and artifacts). 

Read more here

Aaisha Haykal

IMLS Fellow

Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture

Week 8 at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

Last week at MCLM I met with a graphic designer to develop brochures for two fund raising initiatives the museum is enacting.  In order to develop a collection of images for the brochure, I raided the vault to find items that would be a good sample of MCLM’s collection.  The museum’s collection is diverse so I found myself pulling items ranging from Beloved movie posters to black and white images of Stepin’ Fetchit’ to signed editions of Toni Morrison’s Tar Baby. 

Week 8 at the Alabama Department of Archives and History

Hello and greetings from Montgomery!




This week I started 2 of my scheduled big collections, the Charles Morgan Collection (which consists of 77 cubic foot boxes) and scanning the remaining negatives from the Peppler/Southern Courier collection. At the moment, I am inventorying the Charles Morgan Collection, and this is an interesting experience in itself. In one box...no, in one folder there was so much information on how the southern office of the ACLU was run and some of the cases it worked on...it was awesome and overwhelming at the same time! I am really excited to see what else is in this collection, and I am already taking notes on some interesting documents and cases that are still very pertinent today, especially with the current political climate and stances on human rights. I also started working on my public program and workshop! I have been able to identify two venues for my basic exhibit design workshops, which will be held in January and the spring of 2012, and identified 2 communities from the Peppler collection.



Well, that is all that I have for now. Have a wonderful week and happy learning!

Cheylon Woods