80's Randomness :)
Tuesday,
January 22nd:
I began developing oral history interview questions for
members of the Phillis Wheatley Literary and Social Club, as part of the
project I am working for Women’s History Month in March. I also continued
drafting and editing the finding aid for the St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
Records. As part of my descriptive work on the collection, I needed to perform
a Google search for a folder containing notes and financial material pertaining
to renovations completed on a home located at 128 Tradd Street in Charleston.
My search led me to a book entitled, Men of 1914—published by the American Publishers' Association. The book was
published annually during the early part of the 20th century and
provided biographical profiles on “prominent men from all walks of life who
have achieved success in their chosen vocation.” From it I was able to
ascertain that the residence on Tradd Street belonged to Dr. Edward F. Parker, a
physician born in Charleston. Furthermore, using Google I was able to locate
the gravesite of one St. Mark’s benefactors, Louise E. Condol. Condol was also
a Charleston native and there is a photo of her as a young woman in the collection
that identifies her as a patron of the church.
Wednesday,
January 23rd:
In continuing my research on the topic of women’s clubs
and the women’s club movement, I performed a ProQuest database search using the
keywords: “women’s clubs, black women’s clubs and Charleston women's clubs” and
e-mailed a list of search results to Processing Archivist, Georgette Mayo. I
also responded to Manager of Archival Services, Aaron Spelbring’s request about
e-mailing him examples of digital photo archives from cultural institutions and
artists. At our last archives meeting, Mr. Spelbring asked me to show him
examples of digital photo archives from other institutions and individuals, so that
he could get a better sense of the functionality and feasibility of my Black in
the Lowcountry: Digital Photo Archive project idea.
Thursday,
January 24th:
By Thursday morning, I had completed my finding aid
draft for the St. Mark’s Episcopal Church Records. In order to get feedback on
the draft, I printed copies of it for both Ms. Mayo and Mr. Spelbring to review
and comment on.
In the afternoon, I was introduced to Avery Research
Center’s new undergraduate assistant, Destiny Brice— who will be working on various
assigned tasks in the Center’s archives. Ms. Mayo asked me to identify and
provide her with small jobs to execute, so I instructed Ms. Brice in how to label
and organize folders for the St. Mark’s Episcopal Church Records. I am glad to
have Ms. Brice working with me to complete processing on this small but complex
collection and appreciate her help greatly. At 4 P.M. I participated in The HistoryMakers
Monthly IMLS Fellowship Professional Development Conference Call with Director
of African American Programs at the Senator John Heinz History Center, Samuel
Black. I enjoyed listening to him speak about his academic and professional journey:
from art student and football player to African-American studies graduate; and
from archivist to curator to program director at the illustrious Heinz History
Center—the largest history museum in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. His
insights concerning curatorial work and interpreting the black experience for
public consumption were also particularly fascinating.
Friday,
January 25th:
I met with Addlestone Library’s Digital
Scholarship Librarian, Heather Gilbert, regarding the Black in
the Lowcountry: Digital Photo Archive project. She showed me examples of
different hosting sites I could use for the project like Tumblr, Flickr and
Kapsul; and provided me with some great tips on digitizing images in order to
decrease the risk of copyright infringement—which is a significant concern of Ms.
Mayo’s. From there Ms. Gilbert and I entered into a conversation about all the wonderful
endeavors the Lowcountry Digital Library is undertaking with regard to making
the tangible and digital assets of its partner institutions available on the
web. Ms. Gilbert was friendly and knowledgeable; and I look forward to
conferring with her in the future as I move forward with implementing the
Black
in the Lowcountry: Digital Photo Archive project. At noon, I attended the Avery
Research Center staff meeting, where we discussed NEH grant funding and
frameworks for the potential summer institute the grant will fund. Each of the
frameworks had in common the use of Avery’s existing oral history and archival
collections with which institute participants will conduct research on.
Framework topics included: protest and activism, the Black Freedom Movement,
and social justice; after reviewing each framework option Avery staff members
voted on the one they thought was best.
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