Ardra Whitney: Week 36 @Avery Research Center

It's gettin' to be that time...

Monday, May 6^th:

With the conclusion of the fellowship approaching, I was asked by Assistant Director, Deborah Wright to submit an essay on my residency experience at Avery Research Center for inclusion in the Center’s newsletter. I spent the weekend reflecting on my growth and development from these past eight months at Avery and reviewing old blog entries and monthly reports, so that by Monday I was able to submit the requested article to Ms. Wright—along with two brief announcements on recent collections I had processed.

Tuesday, May 7^th - Thursday, May 9^th:

Throughout the week, I continued foldering collection materials and labeling folders from the Virginia Geraty Papers. By Friday, I had completed roughly four and a half of the collection’s nine boxes. Also, in preparation for finalizing processing on the collection’s educational and instructional material series, I asked Processing Archivist, Georgette Mayo about retention rules governing student work in South Carolina. The series contains Gullah language exercises completed by former students of Geraty, so I wanted to confirm whether or not I would have to separate these items for restriction in accordance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), which protects the privacy of student education records.

Friday, May 10^th:

On Friday morning, Ms. Mayo and I walked over to the College of Charleston’s Addlestone Library to attend a presentation on managing 21^st century academic archives from Bobby R. Holt—a prospective candidate for the library’s Head of Special Collections position. I enjoyed Mr. Holt’s points about needing to change students’ perception of archives, as well as the importance of implementing aggressive outreach initiatives to draw students in, and building relationships with other academic libraries and archives through partnerships. After Holt’s presentation, I returned to Avery and posted photos from the C.A. Brown High School yearbooks, which had been scanned at Trident Technical College - Palmer Campus, to Black in the Lowcountry’s Tumblr page.