More Fellowship Extras: A photo of the topiary outside of the Family Circle Tennis Center at this year's Family Circle Cup. Scroll to the end for details.
Monday, May 20th:
I was asked by Manager of Archival
Services, Aaron Spelbring to monitor the reading room and provide reference
service to a patron researching the family papers of DeCosta-Seabrook, Sterrett-Hodge
and Graves for a book she’s writing. I have mostly performed virtual
reference up until now, so this opportunity gave me a chance to employ my in
person reference service skills to engage the researcher in a polite and
friendly manner—as well as suggest other collections she might be interested in
viewing, inform her about Avery’s policies concerning the reproduction of
collection materials and make her overall visit a pleasant and enjoyable one. The patron explained that she was from Idaho, but had lived in Charleston at
one point. She also told me about a Charleston high school she had learned about from Harlan
Green, Director of Archival
and Reference Services at College of Charleston, which was
integrated in the 1930s (thirty-three years before Rivers High School of Charleston became know as the first racially-integrated high school in the state of South Carolina). She learned from prior research at the Post & Courier archives that the school
was once located at either George or Society Street; so as part of her research at Avery, she was looking for documents to confirm the school’s true location.
Tuesday,
May 21st - Wednesday, May 22nd:
On Tuesday morning I participated in an IMLS
Fellows Conference Call with The HistoryMakers to discuss final reports, paychecks,
employment plans/job offers, and the 2013 SAA Conference. It was great
hearing from all the fellows regarding their completed or nearly completed work
(*smile*) and their plans following the fellowship. I found what Woodson
Regional Library’s (Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American
History and Literature) IMLS Fellow, Skyla Hearn and the Mayme A. Clayton
Library & Museum’s IMLS Fellow, Chaitra Powell had to say particularly
interesting. Ms. Hearn explained that she was in talks to do some consulting work
at Northeastern Illinois University
for the Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies Archives. Also Ms.
Powell will be presenting next week at “Never the Same: Symposium on Grassroots Archiving” at the University of Chicago’s Logan Center for the
Arts. After the meeting, I spent the rest of the day labeling and arranging
folders from the Virginia Geraty Papers’ and was able to complete the
collection series containing educational and instructional material.
On Wednesday, I e-mailed images of myself
and from two collections which I had recently processed (i.e., The St. Mark’s
Episcopal Church Records and Friendly Union Society Records) to Associate
Director, Deborah Wright for inclusion in Avery’s newsletter.
Thursday,
May 23rd:
At
11AM I met with Mr. Spelbring and Processing
Archivist, Georgette Mayo to discuss archival staff updates and my departure
from Avery in conclusion of the fellowship. Afterwards, I continued labeling folders
from the Virginia Geraty Papers’ notebooks sub-series with the help of Avery
Scholar, Jada Brown and Front Desk Receptionist, Emma King. At 4PM I attended
and participated in The HistoryMakers’ last monthly professional development conference
call with the Head
of Collections/Technical Services at Indiana University’s Archives of African American Music and Culture (AAAMC), Brenda Nelson-Strauss. During the call, she
discussed the many challenges of: acquiring collections from popular musicians
and music artists, preserving and storing large music collections, and
digitizing older audio formats. I also asked her about: the AAAMC’s collection
strengths, their providing workshops to musicians on how to create and maintain
personal archives, and the status of their grant program--funded by the GRAMMY
Foundation--to digitize interviews from Rhythm & Blues pioneers. With regards to the Rhythm & Blues pioneers
digitization project, She noted that Indiana University and Northwestern University were
currently working together to code and load audio and video interviews from the
project for online access using an open source discovery interface they created
called Avalon Media System.
Friday,
May 24th:
I continued labeling and arranging folders
from the Virginia Geraty Papers’ notebooks sub-series with the help of my two
volunteers, Ms. Brown and Ms. King. Our combined efforts brought the total number
of completed boxes from the collection to nine out of eleven. I also posted an
audio clip from my interview with Associate Professor in Arts Management at the
College of Charleston, Dr. Karen Chandler to Black in the Lowcountry’s Tumblr page. I’m really proud of how well the page
turned out. :)
Fellowship Extras Continued:
Fellowship Extras Continued:
I got tickets to the final tennis match of the 2013 Family Circle Cup between Serena Williams and Jelena Jankovic!
Williams and Jankovic preparing for their match, which Williams won in three sets.
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