2012 IMLS Summer Immersion Program: Week 1

June 3 - June 8, 2012

I could not be more excited to start my fellowship at The HistoryMakers this summer, where I can truly say, where much is given, much is expected. Let’s go over the terms of this agreement, I work ten hour days, submit enormous amounts of paperwork, process three program collections, and produce thirty, fifteen page (highly descriptive) finding aids. In exchange, I receive lectures from Archives and History professors, visit Chicago archival repositories, a trip to the national conference, all the while building a professional network, and a practically guaranteed opportunity for permanent employment at the conclusion of the program. Since African American History is of special interest to me, and working in Archives is such a professional passion for me, (so much, that I have been doing it for free, for the past two years) this sounds like the deal of a lifetime. I intend to take full advantage of it.

 This week, I had the incredible opportunity to learn about Encoding Archival Context-Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families from Dr. Katherine Wisser (Simmons College). Dr. Wisser was the Chair for the SAA sponsored committee who developed this encoding standard. The basic premise is finding a way to standardize, contextualize and ultimately link together, the primary subjects of our collections. The Historymakers is one of the first repositories to utilize these conventions and our data will be used as EAC-CPF is continuously improved and distributed. Dr. Wisser’s last slide which used North Carolina politician, Terry Sanford as an example, showed how an EAC-CPF record could connect Sanford’s materials across four different repositories. Researchers would benefit enormously from an implementation of this standard. Dr. Wisser spent two days lecturing and while we learned a lot about archival encoding standards, we also had an opportunity to get to know her personally and hear about her professional journey in archives. Her words of advice were very encouraging and reinforced that we had everything we needed to achieve similar levels of success, namely a passion for what we are doing.  

 This week at the The HistoryMakers, I met everyone on the staff and was introduced to office protocols. I also began the arduous task of producing finding aids for the oral history interviews. Our first example was for Sylvia Waters (dancer) and I went on to the first individual on my list, Hon. William “Bill” Shaw, an Illinois Senator and the mayor of Dolton, IL. Dr. Reed lectured on Africa, The Middle Passage and Blacks in Colonial America.

Chaitra Powell

IMLS Fellow 2012-2013

Mayme A. Clayton Museum and Library (Culver City, CA)

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Upon my arrival to The HistoryMakers office in the South Loop on June 3^rd, 2012, I readily observed the high degree of professionalism that emanated from every department. More than a digital archive, The HistoryMakers are a heritage organization of outstanding professionals who efficiently and effectively work to celebrate African American history and culture. Every conversation, every interaction, and instance with the staff—but especially with executive director Julieanna Richardson and archivist Dan Johnson—impressed me all the more as they explained their organizational and personal history, accountability policies, and explored the technologies and applications they used.

After introductions and administrivia my fellow HistoryMaker Fellows were introduced to the video oral history evaluation guidelines and forms by outgoing project leader Jessica Levy, we looked over the server and applications such as FileMaker Pro and Moyea, which we will use to generate Web Clips and encoded finding aids based on our interview evaluations. Some of the information was review since we were all previously exposed to the methods at stage one of the vetting process--but the workflow context substantiated a lot.

Our first evaluations were performed concurrently on the same oral history video. This provided a reference points for each fellow’s work but also, through discussion with the director and archivist, revealed gaps or inconsistencies in our content. I began working on my second evaluation, a Civic and ReligionMaker named Wyatt Tee Walker, with greater confidence.

Also during this week we were given a special lecture and workshop. The Wednesday morning lecture was given by Dr. Christopher Reed; he discussed the role of archivists and archives in his work as a historian but also the origins of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Thursday and Friday were given entirely to Dr. Katherine Wisser of Simmons College. She talked about Encoded Archival Description’s theory and practice, explaining it in the most informative manner I ever encountered. Dr. Wisser also covered Encoded Archival Context for Corporate bodies, Persons, and Families, for which she co-chairs the working group, and used a real-life HistoryMakers EAC-CPF example to explain concepts, execution, but also provide frank opinion about our local use. I am pleased to say the overwhelming majority of her comments were positive, several of them glowingly so.
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