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

Weeks Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six at the Maryland State Archives

It’s been a busy past couple of weeks. I gave a couple of career day presentations at local schools. I was happy to learn that at all of the sessions, at least some of the students knew what archives were! The elementary school students were a bit more excited than the high school students but I felt that both sets came away knowing more about archives than they did before my visit. Last week, I was out of the office most of the time, attending conferences. I attended a symposium, African American Life and Labor in the White House Neighborhood, organized by the White House Historical Association. The symposium was great mix of expertise from academic historians and preservationists to family historians and descendants of blacks from the White House area.  

Later in the week, I attended a three-day, IMLS-sponsored conference called WebWise. In its twelfth year, the conference brings together librarians, archivists, museum professionals, programmers, and others to discuss new directions for sharing information digitally and online. The keynote addresses by LeVar Burton, David Isay of StoryCorps, and John Palfrey of the Digital Public Library of America were particular highlights. I also reconnected with some old friends and made new ones, including many archivists that I know from Twitter. Of particular interest was a presentation on ViewShare, an interface developed by the Library of Congress to help archivists and curators provide access to digital resources. I highly recommend attending future WebWise conferences.

Krystal

Avery Research Center Updates

It has been awhile since I have written, mainly because I have been working very hard to finish processing the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) collection. I am happy to say that the collection has been arranged, described, and the finding aid is completed. Yay!!! I am now working on a personal collection of a Miss. Lois A. Simms. 

We are still having trouble converting some EAD/XML records into PDF. I talked to some of the people in the College of Charleston’s Special Collections department and they sometimes have the same issue. However, no one is sure why it occurs. Thus, we are left to go through the code line by line to see if there is something that is wrong. This can be quite interesting and tedious. As of today, I have gone through that XML at least 10 times, but I still do not see what is wrong with it. One day I will be glad to report that this is fixed, hopefully sooner than later. Another project that I have been working on is creating MARC records for the collections. I am still tinkering and playing with the MARCedit software to get the record to come out correctly.

In order to celebrate the theme of Black History this year, which is African-American Women, I am working on an exhibit that highlights the contribution of Charleston, South Carolina, and Southern women to American History. I am using material from the archival and library collection to bring attention to the work that was done by these individuals.

Read more here.

Aaisha Haykal

Avery Research Center

Week 25 at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

Last week at MCLM we had our first annual Family Fun Day! This event provided an opportunity for parents and children to enjoy all that MCLM has to offer. The California African American Genealogical Society  provided their expertise in helping the older children and adults create family trees. The younger children enjoyed the Obama and Marie Dickerson Coker coloring pages. At two separate craft tables the children made aviation goggles (in celebration of the Tuskegee Airmen) and African shakers (similar to those used in Kenya).

Some amazing art pieces that were housed at MCLM went out on loan to The Museum of African American Art for a one week exhibit. This exhibition loan contained pieces from Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden and Richard Yarde.

Last week, MCLM also welcomed representatives from ArtStor. ArtStor is a digital library that gathers images from heritage institutions across the nation. Apparently, the number one request from their users is more African American images. I have yet to decide what items will be digitized but it will likely be a selection of magazines, sheet music and photographs.

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

February 20 - 24th, 2012 @ Fisk Franklin Library

Hello all! Another busy week. I completed the processing of subsections 1 and 2 (1867-1929). What a relief to be done with those areas. One thing...as I mentioned before the snag you can encounter while processing a collection can also help you to take a step back and review you arrangement order, which I did. As I started sorting subsection 3 (1930-1939), I have applied those changes to the arrangement order. Subsection 3 is rather large; 4 piles of documents at least a foot high. I plan to complete the sorting next week, prior to spring break (3/5-9/2012), and began the processing the week I return from spring break.

On Tuesday, a consultant from the Image Permanence Institute, Jeremy, visit with us. He discusses preservation in forms of environmental factors and HVAC systems. He also introduced me (and re-presented to others) PEM monitors. These monitors measure and track the temperature and relative humidity in a room in order to improve the preservation environment. You can also determine dew point with the system. II was able to ask many questions, which he pleasantly answered. I found this information extremely helpful and something I can use in the near future.

Week 24 at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

Last week was marked by the First Annual Volunteer Outing! A group of about ten volunteers, including myself and Cara, visited The California African American Museum.  We were guided thorough the exhibit, The African Diaspora in the Art of Miguel Covarrubias: Driven by color, shaped by Cultures, the items displayed were enthralling! Covarrubias, although Mexican, depicted many African Americans and Africans in his numerous art works, books, caricatures and collages. The most dynamic piece was the 12 x 24 foot collage that depicted the different cultures of the world.  The medium used for the piece was lacquer on canvas, but Covarrubias manipulated the lacquer it to make it appear as if it was colored pencil.


Last week, I also discovered an amazing piece of ephemera in the "secret room." It is the face of a mammy archetype,  measuring 1.5 x 1ft. It is possibly apart of a float or statue judging from the makeup of the face, some sort of papier-mâché.  In this same room I happened across a framed image of a slave sitting in front of her cabin.  Both of these items I selected to be digitally photographed and included on the new MCLM website, which is to be launched soon!


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

Week Twenty-Four at the Maryland State Archives

I spent last week working on several different projects. One of the most exciting was the launch of our Facebook page to commemorate Frederick Douglass’ 194th birthday! One of the featured images is the record of Douglass’ birth in 1818. You can visit our Facebook page here.

Early in the week, I gave a presentation about Black History Month and archives to an after school program at a local housing complex. The children ranged in age from six to about ten so visual aids (printouts of photographs, a runaway ad, etc.) were really helpful. I also showed pictures from a fabulous children’s book published by the Library of Virginia, To Collect, Protect, and Serve. Later in the week, we had an advisory board meeting for the Study of the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland to discuss our progress and to get feedback. They are a very supportive board, and it was great to meet them, especially Kate Larson whose book, Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero, I refer to quite frequently. I’m also researching William H. Butler, a 19th century Annapolis alderman and probably the first elected African American in Maryland. Born a slave and manumitted as a young man, Butler became one of Annapolis’ most wealthy residents. I’m also continuing to research and write case studies of Maryland emigrants to Liberia and am working on several upcoming presentations. Until next week!

Krystal