Week 31 at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

The launch of MCLM new online database is tomorrow! I am very excited for this event as I will be giving demo on how to use the database.  The database launch coincides with an event MCLM is hosting entitled Africa Speaks, American Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times.  This free event is a celebration of Jazz Appreciation month featuring a discussion with Dr. Robin Kelly, the Gary B. Nash Professor of American history in the UCLA department of history, who will be discussing his book Africa Speaks America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times.

Last week volunteers completed to detailed inventory of the James Jefferies collection. Inventories are an important part of any processing procedure.  I find that a basic inventory allows me to look at the entire collection quickly, and then decide how to move on to processing at a folder level or cataloging at the item level.

Alyss Hardin
The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum
IMLS Fellow, MLIS

Week 29 at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

Last week, I was given the honor of accepting an award on behalf of The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum.  The award was posthumously presented to Dr. Mayme Agnew Clayton for being a champion of Black History & Museum Founder. The event, hosted by The Museum of African American Art, focused on African American women in honor of  Women's History Month.

The next day, MCLM hosted a disaster preparedness workshop.  This type of workshop occurs in many locations and is funded through a NEH grant. Westpas, a preservation assistance service, is the grant writing agency.  The event opened my eyes to the amount of planning that must go into preparing for a disaster, especially earthquakes. 

On the collections side of events from last week,  I have assigned a group of volunteers to inventory the entirety of the James Jeffery,  Jr. collection. James Jeffery's Jr. was a Southern California based artist, he also served on the advisory board of The Western States Black Research Center.  This collection consists of photographs, prints, and some mixed media paintings. Once the inventory is complete it will be pushed into the database.     

Alyss Hardin
IMLS Fellow, MLIS
The Mayme A. Clayton Libray & Museum

Week 28 at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

Last week marked the final training session for the new OPAC. There were about ten volunteers who attended the training ranging in age from 21-65.  The document I created to help the volunteers through the cataloging process was well received overall, but I felt there were some improvements that could have been made. The first thing I would change on the document is the font size, a larger type (greater than 12 point) allows the volunteers to easily read the text.  Another feature of the document I would change is using circles to highlight important parts of the screen instead of arrows; arrows have a tendency to get lost in the text. 

Last week, I began creating the finding aid for the Khalid Kwame Collection.  This jazz collection consists of about 10,000 machine readable artifacts (e.g. CDs, Tapes,and Albums), 7,000 pieces of textual documents and a few pieces of AV equipment.  While working on the finding aid I wrote a biography on the Kwame by pulling information about his life from business cards, wills and donor forms.  While writing his biography, I began to understand the importance of keeping and up to date file on all donors so that information about them is readily available.  

Alyss Hardin
IMLS Fellow,  M.L.I.S. 
The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

Week 27 at The Mayme A. Clayton Libary & Museum

Last Saturday I gave a presentation/training session to the volunteers about how to catalog a book. For the training session I put together a detailed workflow. I was surprised by the amount of time it takes to successfully construct a receptive workflow. The features of a successful workflow are; being detailed , use arrows and circles to emphasize the important areas of the screen and make the steps bold.

The second part of the training session was focused on pulling Library of Congress Subject Headings. Every item that is cataloged must have at least one subject to facilitate in the retrieval of information through a search. The item I used as an example to pull subject for was a Kwanzaa Kufi Bear. Kufi bears are teddy bears that adorn a Kufi Hat and often have Kente Cloth clothing and/or accessories. MCLM has two Kufi Bears in their collection, and one that is Kwanzaa themed.

Alyss Hardin
The Mayme A Clayton Library & Museum
IMLS Fellow, MLIS

Week 26 at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

My database management skills were on full display last week.  The desktop database has officially migrated over to the full online catalog.  Post-migration there are some things left to do before the database is available for the public. 

In order to jump start our volunteer staff MLCM is holding two training days in the following weeks.  I will be heading the training by teaching a diverse group of volunteers how to catalog a book.  The basic procedure for cataloging books can then be applied to catalog any number of items. Currently, I am developing a workflow that will easily lay out this new procedure. 

Besides database management, I have been working with a volunteer in the writing of a NEH grant.  The grant will bring funding to MCLM to help preserve our vast collection of scrapbooks and photo albums.  Most of the scrapbooks were put together by Dr. Mayme A. Clayton while others were purchased.  An impressive item we have in our collection is a Lena Horne scrapbook.  It is believed this is her personal scrapbook, containing personal information about breaking her leg in 1942, a little known public fact.

Alyss Zohar
The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum
I.M.L.S Fellow, M.L.I.S

Week 20 at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

All of the cataloging goals that were set have been met or exceeded.  All the inventories are complete and I have volunteers working on the inventorying of ethnic ads and other recent accessions.  The ethnic ads we have are interesting, ranging from can labels to post cards.  Most of the ads date from the early 1900’s to the 1940’s.  The inventorying process is necessary so all the materials within our collection are accessible.  

The access to MCLM's collection will be improving with the launch of our new database.  I have become the acting database manager and I'm very excited to see the new database launch successfully.  I believe that this online, searchable database will greatly increase MCLM's presence as an African American library and museum.

 

Alyss Hardin
IMLS Fellow, M.L.I.S.
Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum