Week 16 at the Alabama Department of Archives and History

Greetings and happy holidays from Montgomery!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with their families and loved ones, I know I did :). Well, this week has been much of the same as the last couple of weeks. I am still working on my public projects, inventorying the Charles Morgan papers, and scanning the Peppler collection. Nothing new has happened, but the holidays always bring good cheer!


Have a wonderfully blessed and prosperous new year!

Cheylon Woods
IMLS Fellow
Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Week Fifteen at Amistad

In preparation for next week’s archival workshop and tour, I attended a webinar entitled “Building Bridges #2: Community Outreach.”  The webinar focused on the importance of building and maintaining strong community partnerships and explains why these partnerships are integral to outreach and success.  Collaborations not only help us gain more outreach opportunities, but also help us operate more efficiently (save money) and communicate more effectively. The presenters introduced other benefits of partnerships, which include tapping into community assets/strengths; enabling knowledge and vision sharing; using technology for outreach opportunities; and most importantly, increasing respect for diversity. The webinar concluded with tips of how to find creative ways to be resourceful and how to drive partnerships with purpose, passion, gifts, and without setting limitations.

After the workshop I will leave for the holiday break and take the next “midnight train to Georgia.”

Until next year! Feliz Navidad!

Felicia

Week Fifteen at The Mayme A. Clayton Libray & Museum

This week I had the opportunity to process a scrapbook.  The scrapbook featured letters and notes from Samuel Brown. Brown was an African American musician from the Los Angeles region.  The most interesting item I found was a rejection letter from a Baltimore university that bluntly stated “this [teaching] position will have to go to a white person.”

This week I also cataloged visual art materials. Everything from movie posters to art prints. The most important part of cataloging in a database is to remember to add subjects to the items.  The subjects are pulled from the LOC authorities and the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus.  The AAT comes into often when dealing with obscure art materials that the LOC has not encountered. 

Week 14: December 12- 16th

This week, I completed processing section 1 of the Smith collection. I also submitted my report, which was pleasing, with a complete and detailed outline of the entire section. I labeled each box and folder to reflect what it contains. When the year arrives, I will work on the precise wording for the labeling.        Of course, I am at an academic institution...thus, the end of the semester has arrived. I will be out from December 19, 2011 through January 2, 2012. So, I say to you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Weeks Thirteen - Fourteen at Amistad

Series two of O’Neal’s papers is finally complete! During week thirteen, I finished processing the community organization series and wrote the second series description of John O’Neal papers to enter into Archon. The series encompasses 2.5 linear feet of materials documenting O’Neal’s contribution as a member of several art and community organizations located in New Orleans and the Southeast, and collected records of over 50 associations.

Second, I met with the Director of Library and Reference Services to discuss two digital collection projects, the submission of the proposals for each project, and the review of metadata for entry into the LOUISiana Digital Library.  The projects will highlight existing collections at Amistad, including the papers of noted civil rights attorney A.P. Tureaud, (dated from circa 1798 – 1929) and printed ephemera produced by civil rights organizations and student groups, documenting several aspects of the civil rights efforts in the United States.

Lastly, I spent the rest of the week preparing for Amistad’s board meeting and preparing to co-lead a tour and archival workshop for the Westbank United Seventh-Day Adventist Church youth group.  We will introduce the youth group to the basics of using archives for effective research and guide them on a tour of the archives and a tour of  "The Revolution Will Not Be...": Print Culture of the Civil Rights Movement Exhibition.

Week fourteen began with Amistad’s board meeting, where all staff from each department reported highlights of their recent projects. We also discussed our upcoming acquisitions and processing plans for the Center.  I met several board members and discussed the importance of my fellowship and my involvement as an archival fellow at Amistad, and interestingly, one of the board members was my former undergraduate school history professor. She currently teaches African American Studies at Georgia State University. I never thought I'd run into a former professor at the board meeting...click here for more information.

Felicia

Week 15 at the Alabama Department of Archives and History

This week I continued to process the Charles Morgan Collection, scanning the last book of Peppler negatives and registering participants for my exhibit design workshop. I am excited because it is almost full! I can't wait to present it! I also met the Bracy sisters, who came to identify people and places in their family's photographs in the Jim Peppler collection. The Southern Courier reported on their family after their house was firebombed in Wetumpka, Alabama. Sophia and her older sister Debra integrated the all white high school in Wetumpka, and her sister was arrested for an altercation she had with a white student at the high school. This incident resulted in her being expelled for 3 months until the federal government stepped in. their story is very interesting and I enjoyed my day with them.

Until next time

Happy holidays

Cheylon Woods
IMLS Fellow
Alabama Department of Archives and History

Week Fifteen at the Maryland State Archives

I spent most of the past week record stripping from the Maryland State Colonization Society manumission and emigrant lists. I've highlighted a few potential case studies on my blog.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Krystal

“We Got Caught Up In the Movement:” Reflections on Princeton's Center for African American Studies' "Where Do We Go From Here?" Conversation

“We got caught up in the movement…I washed up on the shores of Mississippi [from the North]” proclaimed journalist and author Charles “Charlie” Cobb, as he discussed his organic entrée into the civil rights movement as a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) field secretary. Cobb’s sentiments were largely shared by the other panelists, which included Courtland Cox, Ivanhoe Donaldson, Larry Rubin, and Robert “Bob” Parris Moses—all of whom were northerners actively engaged in the herculean struggle for civil and human rights as it was waged by SNCC. During the classical phase of the black freedom struggle (ca. 1954-1968), SNCC emerged as one of the preeminent civil rights organizations, involving themselves in the era’s now iconic moments, such as the 1963 March on Washington and the student sit-in’s proliferating throughout the American South.

While these watershed episodes in history crystallized SNCC’s place within the pantheon of civil rights organizations, the aptly titled conversation “Where Do We Go From Here?” facilitated by Princeton’s Center for African American Studies (CAAS), urged its intellectual congregants to consider the quotidian struggles experienced by the architects of SNCC and the communities they served. This bottom-up approach to understanding the energizing force and relevance of SNCC, according to Professor Imani Perry, offers a “corrective” to the popular memory and historiography of the civil rights struggle and the tendency to privilege the movement’s heroes and its conspicuous victories. In other words, this community-centric rubric goes beyond expressing how the benevolent few rose to the mantle; rather, it demonstrates how communities of activists and community folks alike, were the real powerbrokers in the modern quest for civil and human rights.

Perhaps more salient than the trope of “getting caught up in the movement,” was the fact that these men lived to tell their stories. Their macabre tales of dodging death in the wilderness of the South’s most notorious states, stand as a testament to the physical and psychological costs of challenging systemic racism and inequality, a debt SNCC and its foot soldiers were all too willing to pay with their own lives. Their staggering display of courage—then and now—remind me of the stalwart shoulders on which this generation rests. In the midst of global socio-political unrest, the Occupy Wall Street campaign, and the troubling politics of the budding Voter ID laws, I wonder if we are up for the imminent challenges ahead? Are we capable of getting “caught up in the movement” in the same way that our foreparents did? Are we equipped to sustain this rich legacy of fearlessness in the face of adversity? How can scholars and archivists participate in the communities and movements that we seek to preserve in our scholarly and historical archives? Finally, to draw upon Courtland Cox’s appeal at the close of the conversation: Are you prepared to make justice your life’s work?

For more information on CAAS' programs related to SNCC, visit the following links:
http://www.princeton.edu/africanamericanstudies/events_archive/viewevent.xml?id=248
http://www.princeton.edu/africanamericanstudies/events_archive/viewevent.xml?id=236

Brenda Tindal
IMLS fellow
Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library
Princeton University

Week Fourteen at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

This week, the processing staff at MCLM had a meeting with Murtha Baca, the Head of Digital Art History Access at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. During this meeting we discussed what five broad categories to choose to catalog MCLM’s photograph collection. We settled on sports, entertainment, events, California and politics.  The Getty Arts and Architecture Thesaurus  was used to decipher which headings would be most relevant. 

This week I also attended a webinar, Digital Preservation: Fundamentals.  I believe that keeping current with the newest standards and technology in the archiving field is paramount to functioning as an effective archivist. Attending webinars and seminars is an convenient way to stay abreast of current standards in the archival profession.

Week 13 at Fisk Franklin Library

This week I continued to process section 1 of the Smith collection. I will be complete with it this week. It has three subsections: 1. Julius Rosenwald School Fund, 2. Julius Rosenwald Library Fund, and 3. Julius Rosenwald Memorial. I created the third section after finding so many correspondence and newspaper clippings. I found a letter signed by Mary McLeod Bethune, which was exciting. I also found statistical reports that direct linked Rosenwald Library Fund and the Carnegie Corporation working together on projects. I will do a report at the very end of the week for my supervisor on the process up to this point.
Of course, I am at an academic institution...thus, the end of the semester is coming I will be out from December 19, 2011 through January 3, 2012. So, I say to you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Week 14 at the Alabama department of Archives and History

Greeting from Montgomery!

This week has been a week of public programming! I sent out my first workshop invitation to almost 700 people and I have already begun to get very positive feedback! I am so excited for this opportunity! In addition to my exhibit design workshop, I also received a letter from SAA accepting my poster presentation! Again, I am so excited for this opportunity, but I am more excited for the museum I am partnering with to help host my Peppler event. The Tuskegee Multicultural Heritage Center and its staff has been so helpful, I cannot thank them enough! Well, that's all I have for now.

Have a great holiday season!
Cheylon Woods
IMLS Fellow

Week Fourteen at the Maryland State Archives

Last week was busy but quiet. I followed up with some people and ideas from the Bmore Historic Unconference. Thanks to one of the contacts I made there, I’ll be giving a presentation on African Americans in Maryland during the 1870s in the springtime at the Laurel Historical Society, which is in my own backyard. I’ve also been reaching out to different organizations that may be interested in having me give a presentation on careers in archives or on the work of the Study of the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland. I'm also drafting guidelines for social media use. Later in the week, I received training on the approval process for the MDSlavery.NET database and on creating cases studies. We also welcomed a new staff member, a dedicated programmer for the Study of the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland projects. 

Krystal

Week Eleven-Thirteen (or Twelve)

Sorry for the delayed postings, but things since the holiday has been very fast paced here and time to write a post has not presented itself.

So a few updates.

During the week of Thanksgiving, Avery staff and volunteers did some clean-up of our respective spaces. Ms. Mayo and I worked on the archives portion, where we organized some disparate collections and found collections that needed descriptions.

The following week I began working on describing these collections, fine tuning my public program, which is tentatively called Woke Up Black Charleston. The platform that we will probably use to develop this collection is the Omeka software and I am working with the library staff to make this occur. I will keep you guys updated about this. I am excited and the rest of the staff is too about this project and what it will mean for both Avery as well as for the students.

My time has also been spent working on the Avery website, which we hope to launch soon as well as the Avery blog updates. We changed the name from “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize” to “Not Just in February” and changed the image as well, from a picture of the Hospital Worker's Strike of 1969 to one of the Jenkins Orphanage Band.  

Read more here

Aaisha Haykal

IMLS Fellow

Avery Research Center

Week Thirteen at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

This week I enjoyed a site visit to California State University Northridge Oviatt Library.  The facility was very impressive housing the archives, special collections and stacks in one building.  Our tour of the facility was lead by Mr. Steve Kutay the digital specialist librarian at the Oviatt Library.  The most interesting aspect of the tour was the storage unit at the center of the library.  The storage unit spans two stories, is completely automated and houses infrequently used records and books. After the tour we went to a CSUN University Gallery to view Identity and Affirmation, Post War African American Photography. Being that MCLM is a museum it is important to stay abreast of current exhibits in the region. 

Week Thirteen at Maryland State Archivs

Last week was quite busy. I spent part of the week record stripping and conducting research of the Maryland State Colonization Society papers. On Tuesday, I led a portion of a teacher workshop in Prince George’s County. On Thursday, I attended a lunchtime lecture by local African American historian and genealogist, Agnes Kane Callum. I finished the week by attending Bmore Historic, an unconference on public history, historic preservation, and community development in Baltimore and throughout the state of Maryland. I liked this format as it was very conducive to networking and allowing attendees to share information. I led a session on social media, which was well attended and gave me some great ideas for implementing our social media initiative at the Maryland State Archives. For more on the week’s activities, please visit my blog.

Krystal

Weeks Eleven and Twelve at Amistad

I spent most of my time working on my processing projects and analyzing the content of the materials.  Based upon the many art AND community organizations I discovered in this series, I decided to change the name of the series from community arts organizations to community organizations in order to make the arrangement and series description of the materials easier for researchers. For this purpose, I will continue to identify, analyze the content, and describe materials in this collection deemed to have significant historical value.

Week twelve was a short week for me because of the Thanksgiving holiday. During the week I continued to process the O’Neal papers by arranging the second series, which is almost complete.  I plan to complete this series and write the series description soon.

Felicia 

Week thirteen at the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

This week has been pretty uneventful for me, but it has been very busy around the archives. Like always, we had a number of school groups to come visit, but this is also the week when we start to prepare for the volunteer's tea and the annual Christmas party! Because we have a smaller staff, everyone is doing double duty to make sure that all of the events go off nicely in addition to the previous assignments.


Well, That's all I have for now!

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

Week 12 at Fisk Franklin Library

Hello all,

This week was a very exciting week. My first publication came out and my proposal for the National Roswenwald School Conference was accepted.  I have continued to work on the Smith collection and I am aiming to have section 1 of the collection complete by December 15th. It is a more than interesting section with correspondence between Smith, Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and many other early influences in education. I am having a grand time processing this collection as well as learning different techniques. Fisk Archives does not use a technical program to process the collections like Archon or Archival Toolkit. So, it is interesting working first hand creating inventories and myself by hand. But, it is teaching my original processing techniques and given me a more keen eye to detail. I am thankful.