Week 24 at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

The Southern California Edison Day of Service was a success! About 40 people came ranging in ages from 15-65. The volunteers helped inventory posters, a record collection, newspapers, the Marilyn White Collection, blue prints, and the Dianne Watson collection. The volunteers also pulled Library of Congress numbers for a recent accession to MCLM, The Khalid Kwame (Buchanan) Collection.

With this many volunteers the blue prints and posters are now completely inventoried! The work that would have taken months to complete was essentially done in 4 hours, this is monumental and exciting!

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

February 6 - 10th, 2012 @ Fisk Franklin Library

Hello all!! This week was very busy, but, focused strictly on the Smith collection. So, I was able to get a lot completed. All items in the unprocessed boxes were sorted into the respected decades (I posted pictures). Next, I focused on the "collected" category of the collection. This category includes things collected by Smith, but, not authored by Smith and/or does not have a date on it. I arranged, processed, and boxed the collected and photographs (no date) categories.

Then, on to the dated categories. The first dated category is 1867-1919. After arranging and processing this section, I realized how small it was and did not feel the need to waste so much box space. I decided to combine the first two dated categories into one (1867-1929). I ended the week with 16 processed boxes. The following week (2/13-17/12), I plan to complete this dated category. Wish me luck!

Aisha Johnson

Week Twenty-Three at the Maryland State Archives

The highlight of last week was attending a Black History Month program across the street at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. In a packed conference room, Tuskegee Airman William Broadwater spoke about his goal of being a pilot from the age of ten, his experiences in the military, his love of flying, and his post-war career as a high ranking official in the FAA. At eighty-six years old, Broadwater is one of the youngest Tuskegee Airmen and a member of one of the last classes to be trained during World War II. He was a very inspiring speaker, vividly describing the early days of black aviation in Philadelphia, where he grew up. To view a photo of Mr. Broadwater, please visit my blog. It was also a great opportunity to meet other state employees.

I spent much of the rest of the week continuing my research and writing of case studies for the Liberian emigrants from Maryland.

A couple of weeks ago, I spoke about the fellowship to a reporter from The Wave, a community newspaper in Los Angeles. The article is here.

Krystal

Week 22 at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

Last week, MCLM welcomed the South Los Angeles Chapter Jack & Jill. There were about twenty children, ranging in ages from 6-17. The children partook in three separate activities. First, the Jack & Jill members learned about the methods of nonviolent protesting. The children then sang songs of freedom and made protest signs. The event was a huge success and MCLM looks forward to again welcoming the South LA chapter as well as other chapters of Jack & Jill.

There were a few new volunteers that began this week as well. One volunteer began an inventory of machine readable items. The other new volunteer completed an inventory of the Sarah Agnew Sheet Music Collection.

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

January 30th - February 3rd, 2012 @ Fisk Franklin Library

HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH!!!



This year's national theme is black women, so, be sure to learn about or teach someone about many of the great black women of black woman in history. The theme I chose to deal with black women and civil rights from various eras; slavery to the Civil Rights Movement. I created a PowerPoint of ten prominent black women discussing their achievements, efforts, and importance to black history. This ppt is projected everyday for the month of February. I also have two displays of books about/authored by black women and their civil rights efforts during the respected times.

Another busy week! I am currently working on section II of the Smith Collection. It is large and needs strict attention to detail. I created the arrangement for the decades. I am going to treat them as though they are individual collections, similar to what I did for section I (Rosenwald). Sometimes the hard work it takes to process the collections is not thought of, so, I decided to document this journey with pictures as well. It is under the S.L. Smith tab. I will update it as I go. Time is flying by!

Aisha Johnson

Week Twenty-Two at the Maryland State Archives

Last week, I completed case studies of 6 slave holders, whose slaves fled in a mass escape of 28 people from Dorchester County. These are now on our website. I began working on case studies of emigrants to Liberia from the 5 counties that we’re studying under the U.S. Department of Education grant. A reporter from The Wave, a community newspaper in Los Angeles, interviewed me about the fellowship. The next few weeks are going to be extremely busy, so I’ve been preparing for some upcoming presentations. I had a good conversation with the deputy director of special collections about giving presentations to elementary school students. She gave me some great tips to help keep them engaged. 'Til next time.

Krystal

Week Twenty-One at Amistad

During week twenty-one, I lead a tour of Amistad’s processing department and gave a presentation about my current and future processing projects to the Atmospheric Science Librarians of Alaska. (Yes, Alaska). The group belongs to a larger international professional organization, The Atmospheric Science Librarians International (ASLI), dedicated to communication and dissemination of information among libraries and educational institutions involved in atmospheric science research and scholarship. The director of the Center briefly described the layout of the processing area, and afterwards, I explained the importance of the value of archival materials by showing them a few documents from the O’Neal’s papers, particularly documents about the Free Southern Theater. They appeared intrigued and asked several questions about how to access the collections located at the Center after the papers are processed.

Felicia