Ardra Whitney: Week 12 @ Avery Research Center

(Another great tune from my collections processing playlist)

 

Monday, November 19^th:

Reference Librarian, Deborah Wright mentioned developing a Wikipedia page for Avery Research Center and asked me to follow up with Public Historian, Dr. Robert T. Chase about the idea.  Subsequently, I began researching how to set up a Wikipedia account and shared some of my notes with Dr. Chase when I met with him.  After speaking with Processing Archivist, Georgette Mayo and Manager of Archival Services, Aaron Spelbring in weeks prior about how to correspond with donors regarding materials outside the scope of a collection, I drafted letter to the donor of the W. Melvin Brown, Jr. Papers to let them know that the collection has been processed and to inquire as to whether they wanted materials that were weeded out of the collection to be returned to them. In addition, I started preparing box labels for the Hollinger boxes containing the W. Melvin Brown, Jr. Papers, printed a label for the collections’ finding aid folder and uploaded images taken by Education Outreach Coordinator, Shelia Harrell-Roye of the field trip to Drayton Hall.

Tuesday, November 20^th:

I started thinking about a contingency plan for the Story Corps’ National Day of Listening post on Avery’s Facebook page after Ms. Mayo alerted me to the fact that we did not have a release for the foodways interviews we wanted to feature.  I also spoke with Mr. Spelbring and Ms. Wright about a post I prepared the night before for Avery’s News, Events and Activities blog, regarding National Day of Listening.  I had planned to post an edited version of a letter Dr. Chase had sent out via e-mail regarding Story Corps interviews conducted with Avery’s participation; however, Ms. Wright said that I didn’t need to worry about that because Dr. Chase was preparing an article about the Story Corp interviews to include in the upcoming issue of the Avery Messenger.

By the afternoon, I had completed my printing of box labels for the W. Melvin Brown, Jr. Papers and spoken with Ms. Mayo about developing a Wikipedia page for Avery.  She provided me with some informational material to use in the task. I also did my first posting on Avery’s Facebook page about the center joining Lowcountry Africana as a sponsor of Story Corps’ National Day of Listening. 

Wednesday, November 21^st:

I completed encoding the finding aid for the Edwina Harleston Whitlock Papers in EAD using NoteTab and acorresponded with College of Charleston Multimedia Consultant/ Online Video Producer, Michael Heagerty, about video editing software I’ve used on different audiovisual and media related projects.

Thursday, November 22^nd and Friday, November 23^rd:

On Thursday, I started my interview evaluation for veteran civil rights attorney; activist and educator Julius L. Chambers, and continued working on my responses for the IMLS Quarterly Survey. Chambers became the first intern of the new NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF) in 1963 and subsequently, opened his own practice in Charlotte, North Carolina in June 1964. Together with lawyers of the LDF, Chambers helped shape civil rights law by winning benchmark United States Supreme Court rulings, such as the famous decision of Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. The decision led to federally mandated busing, which helped integrate public schools across the country.

On Friday morning, I did a second post on Avery’s Facebook page for Story Corps’ National Day of Listening, featuring an interview from Mary Moultrie.  I found her interview on the Lowcountry Digital Library after Ms. Mayo told me that we did not have clearance on the interviews I was planning to use. Moultrie was among the leaders of the 113-day Charleston hospital strike in March of 1969. In her interview, she speaks about the working conditions and employee relationships at the Medical University of South Carolina before and after the strike, and details the racial tensions that led up to it.