The HistoryMakers Fellowship, Mentoring, Training and Placement Institute: August 2012

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Chaitra Powell: Week 11 @ The HistoryMakers

This week at The HistoryMakers, we worked diligently on our special collections. We finished pulling the staples out and organizing the files for Diahann Carroll, John Rogers and Denyce Graves. Next week, we will be working on folder lists and finding aids for all of our special collections. I was supposed to present on Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum on Tuesday but we cancelled when we learned that Mr. Larry Earl was in the hospital. Mr. Earl had suffered a mild heart attack and Cara was very busy running the museum on her own on Tuesday. The news was unbelievable as I had just met and had lively conversation with Mr. Earl at The HistoryMakers reception in San Diego. Cara gave me some feedback on my presentation and we re-scheduled for Friday. I had some technical difficulties when the embedded video clip did not play during my presentation. I don’t think that a 13 page script was the best strategy for me. By the middle of the presentation I was adlibbing from the content of my slides. I received a lot of positive feedback but I know that I have better presentation skills than I displayed on Friday.

Dr. Salvatore discussed exhibit planning and project management. After last week’s feedback session with Dr. Salvatore and Julieanna, this week was jam packed with information. I was grateful for the resources on exhibit planning. I plan to put them to use at Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum. At one point, I asked Dr. Salvatore if it was common for archivists to design complex exhibits that account for public safety and structural soundness. She said “absolutely”, most institutions cannot afford to pay people who curate exclusively. I’m surprised that my head has not grown this summer as I keep cramming more information into my brain. We all gave Dr. Salvatore our contact information and I hope that she stays in touch. While I was considering what to do professionally when I moved to Chicago, Dominican’s cultural heritage archival certificate program was a highly favored option of mine. I feel like I tapped all of the information from one of my potential professors and we are closer than I ever would have been to her in a class of 25 students. In this case, waiting served me very well.

Dr. Reed concluded his role as summer institute history professor with a page from the new book that he is writing. In the passage that he copied for everyone, he explains how materials found in the archives led to the conclusions discussed in his book. Dr. Reed also talked about hip hop movement and black studies programs in colleges and universities. He conceded that they last chapter in the textbook is very speculative but it did generate some discussion among us, especially on the topic of hip hop. My comments related to the dramatically different ways that we experience music from one generation to another. Hip hop may have its roots as rhythmic, spoken word reaction to the hegemony’s disdainful treatment of people in under-resourced Black communities in the late 70’s, but it has evolved. Through the internet, my 13 year old niece listens to underground South Korean rap which probably communicates some sort of protest to their living conditions. On the other hand, there is commercial hip hop that misappropriates the origins of the genre and perpetuates grotesque stereotypes about Black women and men. At the end of our time with Dr. Reed for this summer, I can say that I have a re-affirmed my framework for African American history. I would have liked to talk more about our personal experiences and understandings than just re-iterating what the authors of the textbook think.

Skyla and I had a chance to sit down with the new university archivist at George Washington University, Bergis Jules. Bergis was in the process of concluding his time with the Black Metropolis Research Consortium at The University of Chicago. We talked about potential career paths and the benefits of getting involved with SAA. Bergis sparked a light for me when he mentioned his plans to pursue an MBA in the near future. He believes that it will help him be better qualified for administrator positions in libraries and archives. When I thought about my desire to run my own archives consulting company, I imagined that an MBA would give me the tools to build the business from the ground up. The next step would be to find an organization that would help me pay for it. I know that a lot of other pieces would need to be in place before I began another graduate program but it is something for me to consider.

Cynthia Lovett: Week 11 @ The HistoryMakers

This week we are wrapping up our work in special collections as the summer training institute part of the fellowship comes to a close.

We have spent many days preparing special collections documents for scanning. Along with my special collections processing partner, IMLS Fellow, Amanda Carter, I removed staples from the An Evening With Earl Graves collection (12 boxes) and the An Evening With Colin Powell collection. Both of these collections are fully processed and have received the stamp of approval from our Executive Director, Julieanna Richardson.

We also created folder lists in MS Excel for the four collections we have processed so far. In addition to the two just mentioned, we've also processed An Evening With Della Reese and An Evening With Richard Parsons and printed out labels for the archival boxes of all four collections.

Amanda and I also tackled the EADs for these collections which range from 20-30 pages. Our digital archivist, Dan Johnson created some scripts to pull necessary data from FileMaker Pro. Once that is done we must add the container list from our Excel document with the name and number of each folder. There are also other data that must be included such as the production team, committee members, and other odds and ends.

We also attended the presentation of IMLS Fellow, Chaitra Powell who will soon be heading to the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum. We learned that although they have a small staff, they rely heavily on about 30 or so very dedicated volunteers.

Amanda J. Carter: Week 10-11 (August 06-Aug 17, 2012) @ the HistoryMakers

The last few weeks have been particularly busy. During week 10, Sunday was the only day we were not working or traveling so I spent most of the day recuperating from the trip to San Diego, CA, to attend the Society of American Archivists annual conference. The conference was a great, but somewhat exhausting, experience. Thus, I do hope you understand why I did not post a blog detailing the experience. I will try to add more about the conference at a later date. I took many photographs and notes of the presentations.

However, week 11 also reduced my personal time to one day: Saturday. As I write this blog on this lovely Sunday afternoon, I do so from the office where I have been finalizing a template for the EAD-encoded finding aids for our special collections. I was also able to complete a revision of an evaluation I completed a few weeks ago. Hopefully, this means that when I return to work tomorrow, Cynthia and I will be able to concentrate wholly on our final two collections: An Evening With Russell Simmons and A Conversation with Henry Louis Gates. Julieanna has requested that we have everything completed by Wednesday so that she has time to review it before we leave. I hope this will be the case, although we will have some other meetings including two fellows' presentations and a tour of Chicago State University's archives. Otherwise, I am fully confident we will have them completed by the end of our final week here.

If I weren't so exhausted from our schedule and stressed about planning my move back to Nashville, I would write more. My hope is that by the time I have figured out how to get myself and my cat from Chicago to Nashville, my car and belongings from two different places in East Tennessee to my apartment in Nashville (Middle Tennessee), and tie up all the loose ends such as switching utilities from and to my name, and budgeting for rental cars, U-hauls, and possibly movers, then I will be able to blog about my overall experience in this summer immersion program. Although at this point, my main goal is to finish all aspects of the projects we were originally assigned.

Until next time...

Amanda J. Carter
Franklin Library, Fisk University
2012-2013 The HistoryMakers IMLS Fellow

Chaitra Powell: Week 10 @ The HistoryMakers

The 2012-2013 IMLS fellows traveled from Chicago to San Diego to attend the Society of American Archivists national conference. An estimated 1500 archivists converged in San Diego to discuss and learn about the most pertinent issues in our profession. The following is a summary of my experience at the conference.

My first session was Metadata and Digital Object Roundtable. The first presenter was from Case Western University, discussed social networking and content analysis with a case study, an Iowa writer’s workshop. The second presenter was our old friend, Dr. Katherine Wisser from Simmons College. She discussed EAC-CPF, using a social network analysis of 19^th century writer’s correspondence. She used the data to create pictorial graphs which demonstrate the many ways that those writers were connected to one another. Cory Harper from New York University discussed using metadata in the study of prospography, an aggregate group narrative or storytelling. Lastly, a presenter from Stanford University described her process for adding metadata quickly and efficiently to born digital photographs. Her choice of affordable software was “Camera Bits” and the schema was IPTC Core which is a popular for professional photographers.

The next session was the Archivists and Archives of Color business meeting. Many of the updates and announcements were foreign to me because I am not on the listserv. I was glad to see that the group of a strong advocate for giving funds to multi-ethnic individuals to pursue archival education. The initiatives that intrigued me the most were contributing to the AAC Newsletter and participating in the Speaker’s Bank. The meeting concluded with a presentation from the Collaborative Archive from the African Diaspora from the staff members of University of Miami Libraries and Special Collections. Their presentation detailed a successful venture into community informatics. The way that they were able to show the collection’s relevance to students, community members and the administration is a welcome departure from an exclusive appeal of archives to serious researchers.

For the evening, we had The HistoryMakers reception Vela restaurant inside the Hilton. All of this year’s and last year’s fellows attended along with some representatives from host repositories, and other individuals interested in the success of Black archivists and Black collections. I spent the majority of the night sitting across from my new supervisor, Mr. Larry Earl, the executive director of the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum. Mr. Earl asked questions about my background and my plans for moving to the west coast. He also shared information about his background and his views on the importance of Black archives. He expressed his need for innovative and creative people in the MCLM and how they were stretching the boundaries of a traditional museum. One example was the plan to put MCLM archive exhibits in a storefront at Baldwin Hills Mall. Cara Adams was also at the dinner but we did not get a chance to talk because she was at the other table. Introductions to IMLS program officer, Kevin Cherry, Dr. Randall Burkett and Dr. Kelvin White were also highlights of the evening.

In the morning, I attended “106: Connecting to Collections: Improving Collections Care Through Statewide Collaboration”. Laura K. Saegert from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission spoke about the preservation efforts in Texas to save endangered court documents. They provide workshops and a call in service to help smaller counties address their paper concerns with the experts. Since the library school at the University of Texas has an emphasis on preservation, there is a lot of support for the state’s preservation initiatives. Gregor Trinkaus-Randall from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners spoke about disaster preparedness. He explained how every building in every region is at risk for something and we need to be ready when the time comes. His emphasis on building relationships with emergency personnel before the disaster strikes was a new idea for me. Lastly, Julie Page from the California Preservation Program, she mainly described the pocket preparation guide that has been implemented in museums, archives and libraries throughout California. It is a template of a disaster plan that can be folded into the size of a credit card, which can be placed in a pocket or near an ID badge of all staff members. The plan could include maps indicating the location of priority collections, telephone numbers or step by step instructions. I introduced myself to Julie after the discussion and she explained that she was very well acquainted with MCLM. She had recently hosted a disaster preparedness workshop for the staff and left them with a plan.

My next session was 203: To the Community and Beyond: Engaging Users to Interact with Participatory Archives. Carolyn Runyon from The American University in Cairo discussed her role in documenting the Arab Spring phenomenon which took place in Egypt in early 2011. They are collecting photographs, oral histories and content from Al-Jizarah, Facebook and Twitter. They have developed a biographical dictionary of activists and politicians from the area. So far the university has not had to any participants fear retaliation or persecution as result of their involvement, but it has the information backed up on American servers and the plans to shut the program down if that became a problem. Lisa Pozas from the University of Southern California discussed “L.A. as Subject”. This is a program that seeks to identify and digitally display all of the archives in southern California. I recently learned that Avery Clayton was on the board for this organization before he died. The website works to give more exposure to the archives and manifests in the Archives Bazaar, where all the archival institutions set up booths and share their collections with the general public. Noah Lenstra from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign is a PhD student who talked about helping the under-resourced black community in Urbana to the college campus to learn how to use computers and other tools to preserve their own personal archives. Natalie Milbrodt from Queens College spoke about the Queens Memory Project. This is an oral history project that encourages new and old members of the borough to contribute stories, and pictures to the website to document the changes in the community. Lastly, Jamie Seemiller from Denver Public Library gave a presentation on the “Create your own community” initiative through the Western History/Genealogy Department. People are encouraged to contribute their own photos to the website, and give them tags that will connect them to other materials in the digital collection. This library has reached out to high schools primarily to encourage the contribution and they will take the scanning equipment to the homes of people who do not have the technology to upload their older photographs. The entire session was very interesting for me, there is no limit to the ways that communities can enhance or even create amazing archival collections.

We spent the rest of Thursday eating (Fish tacos), walking around the exhibit hall, and eating (SAA reception) some more.

On Friday morning, we woke up early to attend the “Write Away Breakfast” at 7:00 AM. The facilitators encouraged all of the attendees to start contributing to SAA publications. We learned about writing books, articles and book reviews. I was impressed to know that even if I just had an idea, the editors would help me expand on it and help me revise it along the way. From there, we went to the SAA bookstore and I found a copy of DACS: Describing Archives, a Content Standard for ten dollars, so I bought it to build on my archives library. We all attended session #309: Rules of Engagement: The Politics and Pleasures of Living Archives. This session was put on by former fellows, Aaisha Haykal, Aisha Johnson, Alyss Zohar, and archivist from Avery Research Center, Georgette Mayo. Each speaker took a different angle but they all spoke to the importance of getting accurate documentation on the transfer of collections and facilitating open and honest communication with living donors.

Next, I attended session #405: Contesting History in Archives. This session was not nearly as dynamic as it could have been. It started with Huma Ahmed Ghosh who discussed the establishment of a women’s studies department at the University of San Diego. Ghosh’s presentation sounded more like a college orientation session complete with scholarship opportunities and study abroad opportunities than anything related to archives. Afterwards, two scholars read their research papers about little known, yet important historic women. Professor Mary Elizabeth Perry talked about how she went to Spain to research a 16^th century slave woman. Dr. Karen Mason discussed her work with the Iowa Women’s Archives to bring more materials into their collection. I applaud the work of these women but I had hoped that they would have spent more time talking about how the administration of archives could work to improve access to underrepresented groups, documents which could contest the history.

We spent the rest of Friday eating and exploring the Gas Lamp District. When I got back to the hotel, I met my aunt and uncle in the lobby. The three of us went back to their home and spent the evening catching up with one another.

On Saturday, my first session was #503: Favorite Collaborative Tools in Preservation, which was presented in the lightning format. The first speaker was Scott Reinke from the University of Miami, he discussed condition surveys. Scott used random sampling and Excel to analyze his data and make smart processing decisions based on his conclusions. Daria D’Arienzo from Williamsburg Public Library gave a sentimental talk about how small libraries and museum should not be shy about eliciting collaboration in their preservation pursuits. Aimee Primeaux from National Archives and Records Administration using software from the Image Permanence Institute to generate data logs. These systems can also secure and back up their data. Alix Bentrud from Lyrasis discussed the push in Pocket Response Plan, primarily being stewarded by the Council of State Archives. Greg Schmidt from Auburn University talked about the use of Google Docs to make the disaster preparedness documents (phone lists, protocols, maps, etc.) widely accessible. Veronica from Tufts University discussed the resources for disaster preparation in Massachusetts and shared the cultural resources inventory form which can be accessed at heritagepreservation.org. Brittany Turner, who runs her own consulting company, discussed the importance of security in archives. Kara from the University of Virginia presented on audio and data calculators that can help archivists figure out how much server space we will need when working with vendors. Dave Rice from the City University of New York gave a very dense presentation about FFMPEG, an open source program that reverse engineers a variety of file formats. The last speaker introduced me to basecamp.com, project management software that provides a forum to track progress and generate productivity data. Perhaps 50% of this session provided leads on free and relevant ideas for me to follow up on and implement in my host repository.

At 12:30, we headed over to session #606: Documenting Beyond our gates: Exploring new and diverse collecting activities of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Howard University’s archivist, Joellen Elbashir spoke about the topical and biographical strengths of the collections. They are committed to promoting their international and diaspora materials, including records from Haiti, Madagascar, and Ghana. Rebecca Barnard from St. Philips College spoke about the balance of maintaining a historically black college tradition and also being relevant to a 50% Latino student body. She reaches out to alumni, students, staff and the community in attempts to make the archival collection as reflective of the diversity as possible. Lastly, Andrea Jackson from Atlanta University Center talked about the HBCU libraries digitization initiative from 2005. By 2009, there were over 16,000 selected institutional images from the public domain available online. The latest initiative from this group is an oral history project that documents the experiences from the Council of past HBCU presidents.

My last session from the 2012 SAA Conference was #710: Coloring Outside the Lines: Tattoos as Personal Archives. The session began with Terry Baxter reading his essay on the history and legitimacy of tattoos as archival records, with a PowerPoint scrolling through images of very diverse quotes and actual tattoos. Next we were treated to the treat from Verne Harris who works for the Nelson Mandela Foundation in South Africa, as he discussed, “Deconstructing the tattoo”. He argues that tattoos are just like typical archival records in that for whatever reasons, we have deemed something worthy of preservation. His complex language could be reduced to a common plea to think outside of the box when determining what an archival record and what is not. The last speaker was Libby Coyner from Arizona State Archives, and she talked about inclusiveness in archives. This session was very interesting as all the speakers and many people in the audience had tattoos, I could tell that people were straining their ears to hear all of this talk which gives their personal style choices some academic validation.

After this session, we all gathered our bags and headed to the San Diego Airport for our long flight back to Chicago. Overall this conference was an enormous wealth of information for me. When I compare and contrast this experience from the one 12 months ago in Chicago, I am very proud of my progress. In San Diego, I was able to attend sessions which pertained to my work as a fellow which kept me attentive and receptive for every speaker. As I am trying to determine where I want to work in the future, I am willing to ask more questions of more experienced archivists. I ran into people that I met when I was volunteering in Arizona, others from my outings with the Chicago Area Archivists, and The HistoryMakers alums were visible throughout the entire conference. I was very shy and overwhelmed at the conference in 2011, this year I was confident and outgoing. I hope that my fellow fellows will continue to join me at these conferences and my network will continue to grow. It was an amazing experience.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Ardra Whitney: Week 11 @ The HistoryMakers

Monday, August 13^th: I continued processing special collection: “An Evening With Andrew Young” and submitted three processed boxes to Julieanna Richardson for review. I also completed my Camtasia training video on how to create EAD/EAC-CPF finding aids using FileMaker Pro and XML Editor. In addition, I began removing fasteners from special collection: “An Evening With Quincy Jones” and received documents belonging to the collection from IMLS Fellow, Amanda Carter. I e-mailed Bradley Morgan to ask how to create labels for the archives boxes the special collections are housed in and he e-mail me back with the label format and DYMO label instructions. After receiving back a couple of the finding aids I had submitted to Ms. Richardson, I made revisions to the FileMaker Pro record for Suzanne Malveaux’s interview based on Ms. Richardson’s edits.

Tuesday, August 14^th: I corresponded with Dan Johnson on how to improve my LOC subject headings for Suzanne Malveaux’s oral history interview finding aid. I put web clips into FileMaker Pro for interviews with Russ Mitchell and Zenobia Washington. I also completed processing special collection: “An Evening With Andrew Young”. At noon, IMLS Fellows, attended Dr. Cecilia Salvatore’s archives seminar on Exhibit Planning and Project Management, where we discussed:

Planning exhibits from concept to opening (i.e., requirements for exhibition space; functional design criteria; codes, regulations and standards for exhibitions; display cases, public safety, accessibility, budget concerns and resources)

Establishing communication objectives and means of expression for exhibits

Creating a storyline and choosing artifacts and objects to display in exhibits

Digital Archives Specialist (DAS) and Digital Asset Manager (DAM) certifications

Guidelines for conducting and transcribing oral histories

Recording equipment, audio management programs and formats, transcription software and oral history resources

Appraisal, selection and processing decisions concerning archival material inventoried from the Historical Society of Forest Park

Wednesday, August 15^th: I put web clips into FileMaker Pro for Suzanne Malveaux’s interview and started removing staples and consolidating folders for the special collection: “An Evening With Quincy Jones”. IMLS Fellows also attended Dr. Christopher Reed’s African American History lecture, where we discussed:

Chapter 24 of Hine, Darlene Clark, et. al, The African-American Odyssey (Comb. Vol.

W.E.B. Du Bois’ question of whether African Americans could expect resolution of their sense of a “double consciousness”

Blacks losing their claim to being the nation’s largest minority and the challenges in regard to federal and other governmental spending in the wake of this consequence

Maturity within the ranks of Black Studies and its production of four strong currents: Afrocentricity, inclusivity, gender/class, and internationalism/diasporan

An increase in the income level of African Americans that produced an expanded middle class, counterbalanced by an increase in the number of struggling and impoverished blacks

The Hip-Hop Movement and how it fits into the course of black history

Religion’s ever increasing role in black life

Thursday, August 16^th: In the morning, I met with Julieanna Richardson to review my processing for the special collection: “An Evening With Andrew Young”. I also corresponded with Business & Operations Manager at The HistoryMakers, Zhu Sun and Georgette Mayo to schedule a new date for my participation plan presentation. I attended IMLS Fellow, Amanda Carter’s participation plan presentation for her host institution, Fisk University’s John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library. Ms. Carter gave a wonderfully concise and informative presentation on both her host institution and the Meharry Medical School Special Collections. Moreover, it was pleasure learning about master builder, Moses McKissack and his family—as well as McKissack and McKissack, Tennessee’s first black (and oldest) architectural firm. Throughout the day, I worked on completing revisions to processing for the special collection: “An Evening With Andrew Young”, i.e., removed fasteners and consolidated folders; printed box labels; and created a folder list for the collection using Microsoft Excel. Additionally, I continued removing staples and consolidating folders for the special collection: “An Evening With Quincy Jones” and finished four out of eight boxes by the end of the day.

Friday, August 18^th: I completed processing the special collection: “An Evening With Quincy Jones” and met with Zhu Sun for an exit interview. I also attended IMLS Fellow, Chaitra Powell’s participation plan presentation for her host institution, The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum (MCLM). Not only does the repository house “the largest and most academically substantial independently-held collection of objects, documents and memorabilia on African American history and culture” but it also rents its facility for film shoots—because the museum is now housed in what used to be a court house. In fact, the MCLM is featured prominently in the film, “Lincoln Lawyer”, starring Matthew McConaughey.

Sunday, August 19^th: IMLS Fellows, Cynthia Lovett, Amanda Carter, Alex Champion and I will meet with Julieanna Richardson to review all of our processed and completed special collections.

Ardra Whitney (Counting It Down: 5 Work Days Left)

IMLS Fellow

Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture

Thursday, August 16, 2012

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...

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Cynthia Lovett: Week 10 @ The HistoryMakers

This week we continued working on special collections and then headed to San Diego for the Society for American Archivists conference. I attended a number of sessions during our three days there.

The first panel I attended was the Metadata and Digital Objects roundtable and learned about how relationships between creators can be mapped to reveal social networks within the correspondence of an archival collection. Viewing these social networks can allow us to visually discover connections through documented material that might be difficult to recognize with other methods. Our EAD/EAC-CPF workshop leader, Katherine Wisser also gave a presentation in this seminar. I also attended the meetings of SAA groups such as the Archivists Roundtable of Color, Oral History, and Recorded Sound. There as an interesting session on the preservation and access of 16 mm, 8 mm, and Super 8 film called "Small Frame Big Picture and another workshop on open source video archiving solutions. In that workshop they discussed a video codec called ffvl and a preservations system called Archivematica.

In addition our director, Julieanna Richardson moderated a panel on African American's in archives and we also attended the presentations where our predecessors discussed donor relations and living archives.

Ardra Whitney: Week 10 @ The HistoryMakers

Monday, August 6^th: Executive Director of The HistoryMakers, Julieanna Richardson made a surprise visit to my office to review my work on the special collections, “An Evening With B.B. King” and “An Evening With Andrew Young”. After our very helpful meeting, I revisited my initial arrangement and description of collection materials and began making revisions based on her recommendations. For example, I consolidated folders with the same heading; removed post-it notes attached to folders; capitalized the letter “w” in “An Evening With”; and removed fasteners from all documents. Unfortunately, some of Ms. Richardson’s suggestions, left me having to re-do the arrangement of documents and records that had already been properly arranged in folders —specifically with regards to folders with the same headings. Thankfully, it did not take too long to fix what had been undone. In fact, in some instances it actually allowed me to improve my initial arrangement of certain foldered materials. Later that morning IMLS Fellows met with Ms. Richardson, as well members of The HistoryMakers staff, which included Marta Grabowski and Bradley Morgan to discuss arrangement and description of special collections material; the updated process fellows devised for completing interview evaluation forms; and travel, transportation and what to expect at the 76^th Annual SAA Meeting. As the day progressed, I continued working on my special collections processing and got half way through my Camtasia training video on how to create EAD/EAC-CPF finding aids using FileMaker Pro and XML Editor.

Tuesday, August 7^th: I began my morning with the processing of the special collection: “An Evening With Andrew Young”. However, my work was momentarily interrupted when IMLS Fellow, Cynthia Lovett told me that Mrs. Richardson and Dr. Cecilia Salvatore were meeting with the fellows to get our feedback on Dr. Salvatore’s weekly archives seminar. During the meeting I expressed to Dr. Salvatore that her seminar was one of my favorite classes—I even enjoyed it more than some of my graduate courses from days as a library school student. One of the main reasons why I liked Dr. Salvatore’s seminar so much, (besides the warm and welcoming spirit in which she brought to each of her classes) was that at almost every lesson she invited us to practically apply the archival topics we were learning and discussing in her seminar through an exercise or activity. For example, during her week four seminar on the topics of selection and appraisal, Dr. Salvatore had the fellows devise documentation strategies for collections in each of our host institution repositories. Furthermore, as part of her week six seminar on collective memory, she asked each fellow to share a person or event in our lifetime that we thought would present a dilemma of competing collective memories, particularly if a display or exhibit was created about them. Towards the end of the day I met with the other IMLS Fellows as a group, to discuss the various programs, events and sessions we were interested in attending at the 76^th Annual SAA Meeting. I was also able to complete a rough cut of the Camtasia training video by the end of the day.

Wednesday, August 8^th: After a four hour plane ride, fellows arrived in sunny San Diego, California for the 76^th Annual SAA Meeting: Beyond Borders. Our first order of business was to attend the Archivists and Archives of Color’s (AAC) Roundtable meeting and presentation of “Building Collections Through Collaboration: A Collaborative Archive from the African Diaspora” by panelists Beatrice Skokan (Special Collections Librarian University of Miami), Yolanda Cooper (Deputy University Librarian at University of Miami), and Jameatris Rimkus (Former Librarian Assistant Professor, Libraries, Education and Outreach, University of Miami and current Assistant Professor of Library Administration at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). AAC Roundtable’s activities also included listening to reports from the membership– like Dr. Kelvin L. White (Assistant Professor, School of Library and Information Studies, University of Oklahoma), who discussed the Emerging Archival Scholars Program – as well as officers like Junior Co-Chair, Stephen Booth (NARA); Senior Co-Chair, Courtney Chartier (Assistant Head, Archives Research Center at Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center, Inc.); and Outgoing Council Liaison, Deborra Richardson (Chair and Chief Archivist, Smithsonian National Museum of American History and Author of Treasures at the Museum). The Harold T. Pinkett Minority Student Award and Mosaic Scholarship winners were also introduced at the meeting and I finally got to meet my host institution supervisor: Processing Archivist at the Avery Research Center, Georgette Mayo, who was in attendance at the AAC Roundtable meeting. That evening the IMLS Fellows from this year and last year, along with host institution supervisors and partners of the Increasing African American Diversity in Archives: The HistoryMakers Fellowship, Mentoring, Training and Placement Institute, met for dinner and a presentation at the Hilton Bayfront Hotel’s Vela Restaurant.

Thursday, August 9^th: I viewed and asked questions about poster presentations from Andrea Bottom and Caitlin Pollock: “A Gallery for the Outlaw: Archiving the Art of the Iconoclast”; Lori Birrell and Melissa Mead from the University of Rochester: “Bridging the Gap Between Analog and Digital: Conversations Among Nineteenth Century Revolutionaries; and 2011-2012 IMLS Fellow for the Alabama Department of Archives and History, Cheylon Woods: “What They Captured and What We Remembered”. I loved looking at the images captured by Ms. Bottom and Ms. Pollock for their poster session. These images pushed societal norms by removing art from the exhibition space and placing it in the context of everyday life. Moreover, I liked how they succinctly addressed the advantages, challenges and limitations involved in creating a digital catalog and/or collection of “outlaw art”. In addition, I appreciated learning about the strategies and technologies staff in the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections & Preservation at the University of Rochester’s River Campus Libraries used to “recycle on-site success into resources on-line” – by digitizing their Post Family Papers (a 2,000 item 19^th century manuscript collection) to meet the growing demand for digital content. Lastly, I thought it was ingenious the way Ms. Woods chose to think outside the parameters of online social networking, by using radio announcements to enlist the help of older audiences in identifying photographs from the Jim Peppler Southern Courier Photograph Collection (1965-1968). With the support of local senior citizens, the Alabama Department of Archives and History was able to gain more contextual and biographical information about local social environments and the people present at the time photographs from the collection were taken. Additionally, through this project, the repository was also able to increase the general public’s awareness of its archival holdings. At noon I attended “Forum: African Americans and the Archival Profession: Evolving Perceptions of Diversity”, chaired by Ms. Richardson, with panelists Randall Burkett (Emory University, African American Collections) and Kelvin White (University of Oklahoma, School of Library and Information Studies). Mr. Burkett made a great statement about how perceptions of excellence based on race affect hiring decisions in the archival profession. Also thought-provoking was Mr. White’s discussion of the difference between multiculturalism and plurality and his study of how traditional recordkeeping’s inherent exclusivity marginalizes underrepresented people and undermines the growth of such collections. Though, one of the most poignant comments of the program came from an audience member who stressed the importance of getting people of color into key positions of influence; so that they would have the power to create jobs and therefore diversity within the archival profession. I liked his comment very much and made sure to tell him so.

Friday, August 10^th: In the morning I attended Session 309: “Rules of Engagement: The Politics and Pleasures of ‘Living Archives’” which was chaired by Georgette Mayo and included a panel of last year’s IMLS Fellows: Aaisha Haykal (Avery Research Center), Aisha Johnson (Fisk University), Brenda Tindal (Princeton University), Alyss Hardin (Mayme A.Clayton Library and Museum. As expected, I found the panel to be very informative. It was nice listening to Ms. Hardin discuss the difference between donations and deposits, and the importance of expedience when communicating with donors about the status of their accessioned collections. Equally brilliant was Ms. Haykal’s observations on how communities define themselves; how archival institutions and communities can work together in order to preserve the unique records communities produce; and the rewards and challenges of working in community focused archives. For me the highlight of the program was Ms. Tindal’s discussion of the policies and procedures governing access to research papers dealing with studies on human subjects – as well as the ethical and legal concerns regarding such documents. Friday was also my day to get out of the hotel and see a bit of San Diego (take in its sights, sounds, attractions and what not). After the panel, I went to the San Diego Zoo. I was super excited about my visit, because since I was a child, the San Diego Zoo has always been a place I wanted to visit. It was a hot day and the zoo was crowded– but it was fun. I got to see lots of colorful and exotic birds; not to mention different types of monkeys, such as baboons, gibbons, capuchins and bonobos. I also observed the gorillas in their enclosure and even got to see a hippo for the first time in my life. The hippo has been one of my favorite animals since doing a mini report on it in the seventh grade, as part of a larger project on the African country of Togo. I just think they are so cute; however, with enough jaw pressure to crush an entire watermelon with one bite, I also know that they are very dangerous. In addition, I was really intrigued by the Galapagos giant tortoise, African spurred tortoise and the snapping turtle which looked like a huge, massive prehistoric rock, sleeping in its water filled tank. I did not get to see the pandas because the line was way too long and the sun was way too hot. However, I did get to see some Grévy's zebra, koalas and elephants. In fact, I got to see one of the injured elephants being fed by his zoo kepper; apparently there was an issue with the elephant’s nail bed, which was causing him discomfort. In the evening, I joined Ms. Richardson; Digital Archivist, Dan Johnson and the other IMLS Fellows for a stroll through San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter and dinner at Tabule Restaurant Bar.

Saturday, August 11^th: On our final day at the 76^th SAA Annual Meeting, I attended “Documenting Beyond Our Gates: Exploring New and Diverse Collecting Activities of Historically Black Colleges and Universities” paneled by Joellen ElBashir (Howard University, Manuscripts Division), Rebecca Barnard (St. Phillip’s College) and chaired by Andrea R. Jackson (Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library). This panel provided a wonderful departure from earlier panels which dealt with the underrepresentation of people of color in the archival record. It was such a pleasure to learn about the Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC), which is “recognized as one of the world's largest and most comprehensive repositories for the documentation of the history and culture of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and other parts of the world”. I was also fascinated to learn about the archival staff at St. Phillip’s College development of Hispanic collections in response to the college’s growing Hispanic student population; and the digitization initiatives and information advocacy of the Historically Black Colleges and University Library Alliance. I also attended “Coloring Outside the Lines: Tattoos of Personal Archives”, which I absolutely adored! The panel included Terry Baxter’s (Multnomah County [Oregon] Records Program) presentation, entitled “Mementos: Records, Authenticity, and Constructed Social Memory in the Inked World”; Verne Harris’ (Nelson Mandela Foundation) presentation, which dealt with deconstructing the tattoo, and Libby Coyner’s (Arizona State Archives) presention on “Sailors, Prisoners, Bikers, and … Archivists? Tattoos from Stigmatized to Mainstream”; and was chaired by Stephanie Kays (Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Panelist discussed how humans have been recording a variety of information on their skins for some 3,000 years and drew similarities between tattooing, tattoos and archival record keeping. For me, the most interesting idea explored during the panel was Ms. Coyner’s discussion of how recognizing the tattoo as an archival record can one, work to redefine what an archival record and two, alleviate certain biases inherent in archival theories of appraisal and selection based on strict western definitions concerning format and authenticity, and the binary thinking they reinforce. Ms. Coyner also pointed out that by redefining what an archival record is, archival professionals would have more flexibility and opportunities for creativity in how and what they collect. This idea tied into what Mr. White said at his panel regarding how traditional archival practices restrict or prevent inclusion of records created by underrepresented groups, communities and cultures.

Ardra Whitney (Counting It Down: 10 Work Days Left)

IMLS Fellow

Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture

Monday, August 6, 2012

Skyla S. Hearn: WK9@THM

Grand Verbalizer, What Time Is It?

Saturday, August 4 We, the IMLS Fellows, are in the final stages of our immersion training at The History Makers. We have diligently worked on two major projects: HistoryMakers Interviews, which include but are not limited to the creation of evaluation summaries, EAD/EAC-CPF finding aids, and PB Core records for the unprocessed HistoryMakers interviews and HistoryMakers Special Collections, which includes traditional processing of the An Evening With..., A Night With... or A Conversation With... events papers then later the creation of EAD finding aids for the collections. The latter project initiated Special Collections Processing Teams who would be responsible for completing six Special Collections. To my benefit, I was partnered with Chaitra Powell, who has become my compeer throughout the course of our time as IMLS fellows. We were asked to review our, what we thought to be complete, Special Collections and agreed to do so this past Saturday. Honestly, we didn't know what to expect but I anticipated a short discussion of our process, possible re-ordering of some papers/folders which should have taken a few hours. However, I was WRONG and was dismayed by the actual tasks that took an entire HistoryMakers work-day to complete. Throughout my initial agitation coupled with snarkiness, Chaitra and I pulled through laughing, listening to music and engaging in frequent conversations with Julieanna as she split her time between us and three other co-workers who were also 'sacrificing' their Chicago Summer Saturday. Not that I'm advocating for working on the weekends (because I'm not) but the results were beneficial for the unification of Special Collections processing procedures, the IMLS Fellows Team and stronger camaraderie between staff.

Food & Fellowship

Friday, August 3 We began the day with a field trip to NARA (National Archives and Records Administration), which included a presentation on the organization, a video highlighting the benefits of discovering and utilizing 'untapped' information housed within the NARA archives, and a tour of the facility. The tour was definitely the most memorable aspect of the Field Trip. I have an affinity for ephemera which, at times, speaks louder than the written words found in monographs, manuscripts and other text-related rare materials in archives. I fell in love with two pieces: A letter from a 16 year old extortionist who attempted to imitate gang behavior in order to strong arm merchants into giving him money; and a hand-written letter from "a black man" Bobby Seales to the United States government detailing the horrible treatment he endured from prison guards, the injustices of the US government and the brutality of the Chicago police while a prisoner on trial for the Chicago 8 trial. I plan to make numerous trips back to NARA. Later that evening, we rewarded ourselves with dinner at Ras Dashen, an Ethiopian restaurant, and a movie, Beasts of the Southern Wild--my second screening of the independent film!!!! I feel it is just as important to recognize the benefit of personal connections made during interpersonal gatherings as it is to benefit from the combination of gains from graduate school, internships, fellowships and on-the-jobs trainings.

Thursday through Monday This was the first week at The HistoryMakers where each week day symbolized an 'instantiation'. Since June 4, the weekdays have merged into weeks and the weeks into months. On many occasions I have forgotten the day of the week, etc. So I'm proud to share the highlights of each day from last week. Thursday, Chaitra and I spent the day processing A Night With John W. Rogers, Jr. I lied about limiting my conversation since I feel my chatter slows us down but its SO hard not to engage in an office of about five other people including my lively processing partner. Despite my inability to shorten my long-windedness we completed the collection. Wednesday, we discussed our individual professional aspirations, conference etiquette and overall professionalism with Dr. Salvatore, Archival Seminar Lecturer. ...I'm patiently waiting to discuss the effects of remembrance exhibitions as curated by archivists and librarians in our upcoming archival lecture. Tuesday, we engaged in another intense conversation with Dr. Reed, African American History Lecturer. Monday marked the beginning of the week's journey.