Amanda J. Carter: Week 7 (July 16-20, 2012) @ the HistoryMakers

This week we worked on An Evening With special collections in groups of two.  Cynthia Lovett and I have paired up.  We thought it might be a great idea to start with a smaller collection because being able to complete one quickly might encourage us to fly through the others.  We chose An Evening with Richard Parsons because there were only a few binders to file.  Of course, things never seem to work exactly according to plan.  Yes, we were informed about files in cabinets in the back.  Yes, I should have checked them, but when we had gone back there as a group and looked through them I did not recall Parsons being included.  So when we finished quickly and I happily reported it to Julieanna Richardson, her reminder to check those cabinets barely registered.  I checked them, anyway, just to be thorough and found that there were two drawers full of files to be included.   Great…

Appearances can be deceiving...

As we were working through these files, the fellows had been emailing arrangement questions to Julieanna and she would reply to us all so that we were all clear on her preference for the arrangement of our files so that they would be consistent across the collections.   Some of the responses indicated a difference in the arrangement from how we had arranged Parsons.  Namely, we had arranged all thank-you letters together since they were in a binder all together, but Julieanna indicated that all sponsor materials, including thank-you letters, should be filed under sponsor information.  This resulted in our going back through the thank-you letter files and pulling out all of the sponsor thank-you letters and placing them with the other sponsor information.  While it was a fairly direct process, it took hours and further delayed our completion of the collection.  It also caused us to further question our understanding of the logic behind the organization scheme since we all seem to interpret the categories slightly differently.  So when the archivist, Dan Johnson, returned the next day we had more questions for him.  This resulted in a conference call to Julieanna to clarify the arrangement scheme.  She had not realized the extent of our rearrangement based on her decision so we learned that should we have any major rearrangements in the future, we should first discuss them with her to determine the best (i.e. the most logical yet time considerate) approach.  By the end of the week we had finished Richard Parsons and we are now 95% complete with An Evening With Colin Powell.  While we were expected to have three finished by the end of the week, I think that considering our delays nearly two collections is not terrible.  Now that we better understand the process and the logic behind the process I can see us completing the rest of the collections with fewer delays.

This week we also had our usual archival instruction with Dr. Cecilia Salvatore.  The topic was listed in our schedule as reference services, but we mostly discussed information behavior theories rather than the reference interview.  I always enjoy discussing theories, so I will definitely look into the book she was using for the discussion.  Dr. Christopher Reed joined us on Wednesday to discuss the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Chicago Renaissance.  Since I love to write, I also love to discuss others’ writing, art, and creative outlets so this was a great discussion for me. 

We were also honored with Dr. Jacqueline Goldsby’s presence.  She is such an inspiration!  Not only did she tell us about her adventures with creating Mapping the Stacks, a website that links many of Chicago’s “hidden” African American archives so that they are more accessible, but she also advised us to consider how we might make use of grants and collaborative efforts among archives, university faculty, and others to further promote African American archives.  Since I am going to be working at an HBCU, I am particularly interested in thinking of ways to make this happen so that HBCU archives can be more readily available for future research.  I greatly admire what she was able to accomplish and I hope that one day I might be able to contribute to these archives in a similar manner.    

Dr. Goldsby enlightening us with her knowlege.

Next week we get to go on a Chicago Black History Tour and take a field trip to the Center for Black Music Research.  What fun!

Until next week…

Amanda J. Carter

Franklin Library, Fisk University

2012-2013 The HistoryMakers IMLS Fellow