Category: Cultural Heritage Professionals

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Meet Erin O’Malley, Art on on Campus Outreach Coordinator at Iowa State University

by Meghan Turney

Erin O’Malley currently works as the Art on Campus Outreach Coordinator at Iowa State University.  Erin has a background in museum studies and fell into archiving, considering the two fields are so intertwined. Erin earned her BA in anthropology with a minor in art history and has her MA degree is in history with a concentration and certificate in museum studies. While studying for her masters she focused on educational outreach and building and creating exhibits.

Erin’s introductory job into the field of museums and archives was as an intern at the anthropology museum on her college campus, which got her thinking about museums as a career. Her first full-time job out of graduate school was at the University of Texas-Arlington where she assembled exhibits from the archives and special collections and oversaw the art and artifacts collection. During her ten years at UTA, Erin says, is where she gained most of her professional training. Her favorite exhibit, she curated, was on American Western Art, one of her areas of study. Since UTA doesn’t actively collect fine art, it was nice to get the objects out of storage and displayed them to the public. The exhibit featured interactive elements as well, allowing the users to draw their own western art. For Erin, engaging the visitors is extremely important when creating an exhibit design. The exhibit can be found here.

For Erin, creating an exhibit is all about layers of information in a variety of formats. When asked why, Erin’s response was “visitors are so diverse and they are not going to go through an exhibit how you want them to no matter how well you’ve planned it. So, you just have to give them lots of opportunities to get your points and themes. Very hard to do, but fun.” Sadly, most institutions lack the adequate founding to properly put together exhibits and UTA was no different. In this case, Erin got create with the mounts she used, most of which were made by her, and allowed the pieces to have the proper support while on display.

At Iowa State Erin does a lot of educational work, exhibit wok, as well as maintenance and acquisition of public art pieces. She oversees the Art on Campus collection, which is all the public art on the campus, encompassing over 2,000 items. It is here, where Erin does her outreach, which includes educational programming such as tours and events. Erin is a constant advocate for art, working alongside the art acquisition committee and educating them on the public art and the process. Erin works with the committee to install the public art in their spaces, while teaching the educational value of the pieces. When it involves the public art collection, she and the head of education department work together to coordinate with faculty and students lessons about the art as well as getting it and the museum into the curriculum. Erin also staffs the museum, and handles any press or media that involves public art. Erin points out that although having a social media presence enables a lot of attention and funding from the community, not all archives and museums have the resources accomplish an impactful web presence.

One of her biggest achievements at Iowa State University is the traveling exhibit that is currently taking place and is state-wide and touring at five different venues. (which you can find here.) It is a portrait exhibit done by one artist and involves 39 portraits. To ensure the exhibit would be a success Erin created a lot of outreach and planning around it, including the logistics of transportation to the different venues. The president of the college is currently assisting in the outreach facet, where she’s been holding events at the venues across the state. In just under a year Erin accomplished the undertaking of a traveling, state-wide, exhibition.

When asked how Erin would define cultural heritage, Erin says, “at its core museums and archives are about preserving cultural heritage for future generations and use. Therefore, we always should think long term. Both in what we collect and how we preserve it and make it accessible.” Erin hopes that she can perform future exhibits, like the traveling exhibit, that will impact not only the students at Iowa State University, but the people of Iowa in general. For Erin O’Malley’s complete exhibit history, click here.

 

 

 

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Meet Lauren Goodley, Archivist at The Wittliff Collections

by Michelle Slater

Lauren Goodley is a professional archivist with The Wittliff Collections at Texas State University. She has been in her current position for five years, and has taken on various projects, responsibilities, and collaborations; as her role continues to change and grow. In her position as archivist, she processes analog/paper archival materials, and has spearheaded a burgeoning digitization and preservation program for the archive and its parent library.

The Collection that Lauren works with, the Southwestern Writers Collection, was founded in 1986 by Bill and Sally Wittliff, which birthed the broader special collections known as ‘The Wittliff Collections’ or ‘The Wittliff,’ that resides within the Albert B. Alkek Library at Texas State University. Their mission is to collect, preserve, and share the creative legacy of the Southwest’s literary, photographic, and musical arts, while fostering the region’s ‘Spirit of Place’ in the world. The Wittliff Collection has three ‘pillars’ in its collecting scope: Southwestern Writers, Southwestern and Mexican Photography, and Texas Music. The Wittliff is open to the public with free admission, and welcomes visitors, tours and classes. The collection is available to statewide, national, and international researchers, and is also frequented by the student body and local community. Lauren shares the responsibility of teaching and hosting class trips at varying levels of education to the archives, as well as making visits to classrooms on campus and appearing at community events.

Lauren has always been in conversation with local histories, having grown up in Texas and completed several intern positions at local history sites. Lauren’s background in advocacy and outreach has a large bearing on her current work within The Wittliff, tying into their mission of lifting up Texas’s creative profile and identity. She achieves this by creating access to materials in the archive, as well maintaining relationships with local communities and users. She has collaborated on several exhibits using archival material as a form of outreach, and provides materials to other departments of the library/archives for their outreach programs as well. Through her role as archivist with The Wittliff Collections, Lauren contributes to the proliferation and preservation of Texas’s rich creative culture, in perfect harmony with her interests in local community building and advocacy. She conducts reference work for researchers, students, and journalists, and recently provided reference services for journalists and production companies covering the 25th anniversary of an important local event. Lauren’s reference work directly effects advocacy for the archives, lifting The Wittliff’s public profile as a ‘remembering’ institution in the local community.

One of The Wittliff’s developing outreach projects is with the Austin Film Festival, to preserve their conference recordings digitally in the archives. This partnership has provided the archives with valuable community material, and in exchange, Lauren advised the group in establishing records keeping standards for their materials. The goal of this project is to digitally preserve these community materials, and create equitable access online- which Lauren works to improve, in junction with the Library Programmer.

With the Southwestern Writers Collection, Lauren developed workflows and archival standards for efficiently and effectively digitizing materials in-house. She first addressed inconsistencies in the archive’s digitization practices, and with a student worker, created an inventory identifying at-risk items in their holdings to be digitized. The inventory is updated with all new acquisitions, includes previously processed digital materials as well. The standardized protocol makes the task of digitization easier to delegate to student workers. Lauren supervises these student workers and interns, as she oversees quality control, workflow efficiency, and that archival standards are up to date. This stewardship in caring for digital archival records contributes to The Wittliff’s longterm goal of preservation, and creates equitable access to its materials.

Within the broader scope of the library, Lauren created the Digital Preservation Working Group (DPWG), which meets bi-weekly and consists of herself, the archivist from University Archives, and members of the Digital and Web Services department. This group works to assess use and access of the digital materials of the archive and library, and manages a plan for the Library’s digital asset management and preservation, adhering to the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) model. In forming this group, Lauren hopes to increase access as a means of outreach and advocacy, as materials are easier to find and use; and preservation, which ensures that access in ongoing. So far, the group has completed their digital preservation policy, which applies to all digital holdings of The Wittliff, as well as digital assets of the Library.

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Meet Lindsay Sprechman, Collections Archivist at Jewish Heritage Center at the New England Historic Genealogical Society

by Thera Webb

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Lindsay Sprechman, the Collections Archivist for the Jewish Heritage Center at New England Historic Genealogical Society. Sprechman became interested in archives during college when she was an intern at the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life, where she produced articles for the Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities. Her research utilized town and synagogue archives to trace the history of Jews in towns in the American south.

As an MLIS student at Simmons College, she interned at the UMass Boston Archives, as well as at the American Jewish Historical Society-New England Archives. Upon graduation she became the archivist at Temple Israel in Boston, where she worked as the sole member of the archives, handling processing, outreach, and records management, until being hired as a Processing Archivist at the Jewish Heritage Center, where she has worked for four two and a half years.

The Jewish Heritage Center (JHC), is in the midst of a unique opportunity – having rebranded in 2017, there are many opportunities for outreach within the organization.  For many years, the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS), the oldest ethnic historical society in the country, has had two archives—the national archive in New York City and another archive in the Boston area, known as AJHS-New England Archives (AJHS-NEA). In 2010, AJHS and the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) launched a collaboration when AJHS-NEA moved into NEHGS, first as an autonomous organization, and then as a strategic partner. In 2015, the collaboration was further strengthened when AJHS-NEA had its collections permanently deposited at NEHGS and officially became a part of the organization. In 2017, the Jewish Heritage Center was launched, with AJHS-NEA as its cornerstone, to engage historians, genealogists, youth, and the general public in programming and research to advance the study of the history, culture, and institutional legacies of Jewish families in New England and beyond by educating, inspiring, and connecting people through scholarship, collections, and expertise while serving as an archival and educational resource for other Jewish organizations and institutions. With so many changes occurring, outreach is especially important to raise awareness for the archives in order to attract patrons as well as to assist with fundraising efforts and acquiring collections.

With only four staff members, everybody on the team at the JHC plays a role in outreach and advocacy for the organization. Stephanie Call, the Manager of the Jewish Heritage Center, is responsible for overseeing the JHC’s core activities of archival preservation, family history, and educational outreach.  Kelsey Sawyer, the Reference and Photo Archivist, manages reference requests and assists researchers with navigating the archives, as well as handling a large-scale photography digitization survey. And Jessie Xu, the Digital Projects Coordinator, is the lead staff person on the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society- Boston digitization project, as well as all other digitization tasks. The team takes a three-pronged approach to outreach: exhibits, resource development, and social media.

Social media is, in many ways, the simplest but also the most challenging kind of outreach. Staying on top of regular posting can be difficult for a busy team with no specific communications administrator. To solve this issue, each member takes over social media for a month at a time, switching off throughout the year. Social media for the JHC includes not only Facebook and Instagram, but also Pinterest, Tumblr, and Historypin, as well at the main website. During her assigned month, Sprechman will go through archival items and create daily posts for the Center’s social media platforms. By taking turns, the team is able to stay on top of social media while still making headway on the day-to-day projects.

Exhibits are another tool for outreach. By hosting exhibits online, the JHC encourages web traffic to their site, which can lead to users exploring more online collections and coming in person to the archives. The JHC recently collaborated with NEHGS on the exhibit Voices of War: Americans in World War I, incorporating stories of the Jewish soldiers of WWI from the archives.

However, not all exhibits are online. Theeducation center at the NEHGS building on Newbury Street currently hosts a collection of ephemera and records from early Jewish doctors in America, focusing on the contributions made by Dr. Saul Hertz who pioneered the use of radioactive isotopes in treating disease. Programming is held in the education center, as well as in various venues around the city, as the JHC works with partners in the community to plan interesting and compelling presentations for people of all ages.

Resource Development is the third arm of their outreach program, focusing on making their collections easily accessible. While working on a huge digitization project of photos from the archives, the team at the JHC is also compiling subject guides for researchers. Currently they have two comprehensive guides online – for Labor History in the Collections, and for Music in the Collections. They are planning on creating guides for many other subjects, as well as a resource guide to Jewish Archives in other parts of the country and the world.

Being located on Newbury Street right by Copley Square permits the JHC to take part in summertime activities such as Open Newbury Street, and Free Fun Fridays, which help engage the community with hands-on activities in and around the archives.

Using a multilayered approach to outreach and advocacy, and driven by the newly rebranded JHC and it’s updated mission statement, Sprechman and her coworkers are creating multiple entry points to the collection for people from all walks of life and encouraging people from Boston and further to engage with the Jewish heritage and records they maintain.

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Meet Christina Shutt, Director of the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center

 

by Sacha Mankins

The Mosaic Templars Cultural Center of Little Rock, Arkansas, celebrates the history and culture of Black Arkansans, with special emphasis on African-American fraternal organizations and black businesses. I recently spoke over the phone with the Cultural Center’s director, Christina Shutt, a graduate of the Simmons Dual Degree program in Library Science/Archives and History. Christina caught me up on the history of the institution, its current projects, and the many ways in which the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center is a pioneer of cultural heritage outreach in the state of Arkansas.

The Mosaic Templars Cultural Center is housed in a building not far from downtown Little Rock, off Interstate 630. Christina explained to me that during the period of white flight in the 1960s, this highway was put in to help suburban white families get into the city without passing through black neighborhoods. The highway divided the museum’s building, formerly home to an African-American burial insurance association, from the bulk of the black business and residential community. The building lay unused until the 1990s, when it was scheduled for demolition. Concerned members of the community successfully petitioned the state to preserve it as cultural heritage landmark instead, leading to the creation of the Cultural Center as a legislated (state-owned) museum. After a 2005 fire that destroyed the original building, the museum was rebuilt and opened to the public in 2008.

As a museum, the Cultural Center mainly serves the black community of Arkansas and those locals who want to learn more about African-American history, but it also hosts family reunions for many black families who no longer live in the state, and has received visitors from all over the globe, especially tourists from Africa. The consul-general of Hong Kong even visited for a Martin Luther King day event while staying with the state governor! Although visitors come from anywhere in the world, Christina told me that many of those who visit are people who have roots in the community, who might catch a glimpse of their own parents or grandparents in the photos on the walls.

Christina has been director of the Cultural Center for about a year and a half, and in that time the museum has become a leader in cultural heritage outreach not just for the African-American community of Little Rock, but for the cultural heritage community of Arkansas in general. The Cultural Center hosts events concerts and other artistic events at its building, and runs educational programs on the black culture of Arkansas. As you might expect, for Black History Month in February the schedule is absolutely packed, with concerts, new exhibits, lunch lectures, and a special tour schedule.

I asked Christina what projects she’s most excited about, and she told me about two in particular, #inclusiveArkansas and “Arkansas Made, Black Crafted.” Under the project #inclusiveArkansas, the museum is currently working to make their events more accessible by providing earmuffs and weighted blankets for autistic children, magnified exhibit sheets for visually impaired guests and so forth. Not only is Christina happy with the way this project is going at her museum, she also provides workshops to other cultural heritage institutions on outreach and inclusion for patrons with disabilities.

The other project Christina described to me is the Cultural Center’s effort to work with and support black business owners in the community, “Arkansas Made, Black Crafted.” Last December, the Cultural Center and AMBC hosted a fashion show put together by local designer Korto Momolu (who has appeared on Project Runway and its spinoff series, after coming in as first runner-up on the show’s fifth season). Momolu’s work is also sold in the Cultural Center’s museum store. Christina has been sharing her experiences of this form of outreach with other cultural heritage professionals at museum conferences, explaining to other museums how they can integrate local business and local artists into their museum stores.

These two projects have made the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center into one of Arkansas’s most forward-thinking cultural heritage institutions. Alongside their other day-to-day projects they are working, as many others are, to make more of their collections available online, as well as pursuing accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums. Christina is clearly the kind of energetic, engaging personality a small institution needs to keep up with so many projects. If I’m ever in Little Rock, I’m definitely going to stop by for a visit.

 

Take a Virtual Tour of the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center

Visit the Museum on Instagram

 

 

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“Social Science” at the Science Museum of Minnesota

by Anna Faherty

The Science Museum of Minnesota

The Science Museum of Minnesota, located in downtown St. Paul on the Mississippi River, has been an important institution since its founding in 1907. Learn more about the museum at its website: https://www.smm.org/. At the science museum, various themed events are held every year. They serve to spark interest among diverse groups of people in the museum, its exhibits, and programs; and to highlight its commitment to education. Events like “Preschool Playdates,” that work to engage toddlers and their parents every Tuesday. “Behind the Scenes,” that offers visitors the opportunity to explore the labs and workshops where scientists and exhibit planners work. “Science Fusion” events, such as “American Indians in Science” and “African Americans in Science” allow the museum to partner with community groups, scientists and educators from ethnicities and cultures often excluded in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields. In spite of these interesting and varied programs, many people still think that the science museum is only for children. This is because of its focus on interactive exhibits and education for children interested in STEM fields. In order to counter this perception, a now popular event was created at the science museum: “Social Science,” a series of 21+ nights which occur every two months.

“Social Science” events are themed according to special exhibits, holidays, and more. Previous events in October have been Halloween themed, such as “Murder Mystery” and “Undead.” In February, events are often related to Valentine’s Day, with titles like “Sex and Love.” A popular Social Science theme is “Fermentation,” which teaches visitors about the process of making beer and wine, and was inspired by a Science Live Theater production, “Fermentation Demonstration.” In 2013, during the unveiling of the exhibit Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed, the event revolved around archeology and the culture and history of the ancient Maya. In April of 2017, the theme was “Play, Tinker, Make,” and focused on inventing and engineering. Whatever the theme, “Social Science” events incorporate hands on activities and the chance to meet with scientists and other professionals and learn more about the topic at hand.

“Social Science” events take place on Thursday nights between 6pm-10pm. The museum’s schedule on Thursdays is usually 9:30am-9pm, so on social science nights the museum closes to non-event visitors early in order to prepare. Bars serving wine and beer and a dance floor are set up, and adults of all ages are free to view the permanent exhibits, participate in event related activities, or dance the night away beside the dinosaurs. The omnitheater and regular in person theatrical performances at Science Live Theater are also available on a schedule throughout the night.

“Social Science” offers an opportunity for adults who might not otherwise be interested in visiting the museum to learn about what kind of exhibits, programs, and information it can provide. Partnerships with local businesses, universities, other museums and professionals also help to bring new visitors in the doors. For example, local breweries, the University of Minnesota, and Ecolab have sent representatives to “Social Science” events to talk about their products, programs, and scientific pursuits.

A typical “Social Science” event includes interactive activities, presentations by professionals, and special exhibits, all in connection with the theme. For example, during the “Murder Mystery” theme night, actors portrayed suspects; and visitors were encouraged to question them, test “evidence,” learn about DNA and blood spatter patterns, and make an accusation based on their findings. Experts in the fields of criminal justice and biology were present to discuss genetics, anatomy, statistics and more. Interesting to me, as a visitor, was the table run by the Ramsey County Coroner, who was there to talk about his job and answer questions related to autopsy and solving crime. It was fascinating to learn about a profession I had only heard about on television.

Inside the Science Museum

“Social Science” events help engage young adults and community and business groups with the educational offerings of the Science Museum of Minnesota. Interactive exhibits and activities are not only for children, and the museum endeavors to demonstrate this during “Social Science” events. Learning about different fields of science and the latest experiments and inventions from professionals helps adult visitors to the museum to understand the importance of science education and how the museum is contributing to these educational efforts. Learning about science is beneficial not only to school-children, but also to adults who are not professional scientists. Social Science events are a fun way for adults to learn more about science and the science museum, and to better understand the world around them.

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In Their Own Words: Librarians in Wartime

by Victoria Johnson

A member browses the stacks of the fifth floor reading room at the Boston Athenaeum. The Boston Athenaeum’s Conservation Lab works to preserve the books in this room and others. (JR 365 Photo/Madeline Bilis)

The Boston Athenaeum (BA) is one of the oldest subscription libraries in the United States. Founded in 1807 by prominent society gentleman, today the Athenaeum functions as a library and museum complete with its own archive. Each year, the library hosts numerous events each month, ranging from book talks to lively soirees. While these events, along with the library and art collections, are very popular with patrons, the archives of the institution are usually overlooked. This past September, however, the BA hosted a remarkable live performance event which would have been impossible without using the archive.

On the evening of Tuesday, September 19, 2017, the Athenaeum hosted “A Tale of Two Libraries,” a live event in which a cast of four actors read carefully curated correspondence between the Boston Athenaeum and the London Library. The correspondence was arranged to provide a chronological glimpse into the workings of these two institutions during two defining times, World War I and World War II. This temporal context added depth to an already outside-the-box event. A live reading of a bunch of old letters doesn’t sound all that exciting—and yet, imagine what it would be like to hear the words of four librarians working around bombings and the Blitz. What could have been extremely boring instantly became emotional, real—a good thing it did, too, because that was exactly what its creators intended. To understand how and why this event was so memorable, I sat down with Carolle Morini, the Caroline D. Bain Archivist at the Boston Athenaeum.

As it turns out, an event like this one takes approximately two years to plan. It all started in 2015, when the director of the BA received an inquiry from the London Library, who wanted to know if there was any history of a relationship between the two institutions. The London Library was pleased to learn that there was, indeed, a relationship, confirmed by thirty years’ worth of correspondence held in the BA’s archives. The existence of physical evidence led to a visit from both employees of the London Library, with employees of one of their supporting organizations, International Friends, in tow. In preparation for their visit, Carolle was asked to conduct further research so that she may answer any questions the group may have. She took it one step further by organizing a display case, which included some of the aforementioned letters. As you can imagine, these letters—dated between 1913 and 1945 and detailing the experiences of librarians during wartime—were not only rich in institutional memory, but fostered a personal affection for their authors.

The visitors from the London Library and Carolle discussed options to share these letters with both institutions’ member. It was decided that a live performance would be the best way to share these letters with the public. Jesse Marquese, a writer who had done similar work in New York, came on board as the scriptwriter. With the writing underway, the next step was to figure out the mechanics: who would fund this event? Where would it take place? In the end, it was agreed that the Athenaeum would provide an honorarium and travel expenses for the actors, all of whom were New York based and chosen by Marquese, and that the event would be hosted twice—once in Boston, once in New York City. Marquese shared his script with Carolle, who provided edits in order to provide some local Boston context.

And now we arrive to the night of the event itself. The live production was witnessed by 60 audience members, some of whom were trustees’ emeriti and current trustees and BA staff. Two days later, the production travelled to New York City’s Knickerbocker Club, this time sponsored by International Friends. It has since been suggested that the production travel to the London Library itself in 2018, although this is still in development. Hosting the production at different locations will not only allow more users to experience the performance, but it will also continue to advocate for the value of the Boston Athenaeum’s archives—an element of her job that Carolle admits is difficult to do on a daily basis. As an audience member, I can attest to the power of hearing my own institution’s history through the words of those who came before me.

In her ten years as the sole archivist at the Athenaeum, Carolle can only recall one other event that utilized the archives. This is not to say that the events coordinators are uninterested in using the archives, but there is often little correlation between book talks and the institutional archives. That is exactly why projects like the live performance are crucial in advocating for the important of Carolle’s work as the archivist and of the archives themselves. Carolle anticipated an increase in archival inquiries after the event, which has not (thus far) transpired. However, perhaps even more valuable is that all who attended—the Athenaeum director, patrons, and staff—were able to recognize the importance of the BA’s archives and of all archives. In the end, Carolle considers this project a success: “it made people see that the work that I do is important.” Recognition and respect should, after all, be the goal of any advocacy project.

 

 

 

 

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Meet Lorna Condon, Senior Curator for Historic New England

by Anna Faherty

Lorna Condon, the Senior Curator of Library and Archives at Historic New England, was kind enough to meet with me this week and tell me about the collections and programs her institution offers. In her position of senior curator Lorna deals with archival acquisitions, and works on publications, exhibits, and grant writing, among other aspects of archival work. She says she finds it extremely rewarding to help connect people with historical and archival objects that inspire them.

Historic New England is a regional organization encompassing 37 historic properties in five New England States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. The organization was started by William Sumner Appleton in 1910. Appleton hoped to preserve architecture and artifacts that would tell the stories of the daily life of New Englanders, and not only of famous historical figures. Collections that Appleton began are integral parts of the collection today, for example, the ephemera collection and the documentary photograph collection. The library and archives at Historic New England include photos, architectural drawings, postcards, books, periodicals, and manuscripts. Many collections of photographs have been digitized and are available on the Historic New England website. Explore the collections of Historic New England: https://www.historicnewengland.org/explore/collections-access/

Historic New England is focused on preserving, maintaining, and making accessible objects associated with the region’s history. Though the organization began in Massachusetts, it maintains buildings in all New England states except for Vermont. Historic New England has developed collaborative partnerships in Vermont through public programs, lectures on New England history, workshops for homeowners, loans of material to exhibitions, and a field school for preservation students and professionals.

An important group of stakeholders in Historic New England are those living in historic homes they would like to preserve. Through the easement program, Historic New England partners with these homeowners to help legally deed preservation maintenance into their ownership documents to protect their houses in perpetuity. By helping to manage the care of private historic homes, the organization can assist in the preservation of New England heritage outside of the traditional realms of public institutions like museums. Other users of the archive at Historic New England include historians, architects, students of all ages, filmmakers, and community members from various localities throughout the region.

Within the organization, the library and archives provide resources for staff members from various departments: marketing, exhibition, preservation, and publication, to name a few. The archive provides information and artifacts which are featured in exhibits at various locations, including online, in magazines, promotional materials, and books. There are also external groups and individuals which Historic New England reaches with various programs, workshops, partnerships, and exhibitions. Every year, the organization gives awards to authors of books of new research about the material culture of New England, and to collections of works on paper which make significant contributions to history. These awards serve to forge bonds between researchers, collectors, and Historic New England, in order to promote and recognize the value of historical scholarship.

Historic New England partners with various organizations in order to broaden their user base and expand their collections. Some of their partners in exhibit creation, programming, digitization, and grant collaboration include: The Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), The Boston Athenaeum, state initiatives such as the Maine Photo Project, schools like Berwick Academy, and professional associations such as the American Alliance of Museums. The program Everyone’s History grew out of community involvement in events relating to the 100th anniversary of the organization. Everyone’s History partners Historic New England with community groups all over the region to tell the stories they are passionate about. Some of the outcomes of these projects are oral histories, books, exhibits, documentaries and ongoing programs. Partners include museums and historical societies, public school systems, religious organizations, LGBT groups, workers associations, preservation trusts, and even a yacht club! Learn more about Everyone’s History:

https://www.historicnewengland.org/explore/everyones-history/

Everyone’s History has helped Historic New England reach potential users from diverse communities, and provides an ongoing connection to groups that represent New England daily life in the modern world and historically. A great example is the Haymarket Project, a collaboration between Historic New England, the Haymarket Pushcart Association, and photographer Justin H. Goodstein. The project documents the lives and traditions of vendors at Haymarket and the history, changes, and challenges of the market. The relationship between Haymarket and Historic New England has continued, and on October 20th, a program hosted by Historic New England and the Haymarket Pushcart Association called “Taste of Haymarket” explores its history and culture for interested members of the public. More information about the “Taste of Haymarket” event can be found here: http://shop.historicnewengland.org/HGO-HAYMARKET-2-9499/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Meet Bergis Jules!

Bergis Jules, University and Political Papers Archivist at the University of California, Riverside

by Jessica Purkis

Recently, I had the chance to catch up with Bergis Jules, the University and Political Papers Archivist at the University of California, Riverside. Bergis manages UC Riverside’s institutional records, political papers collections, and African American collections. While supporting the university’s administration and community outreach efforts, Bergis documents campus history and builds collections around local, regional, and state political organizations in California. As part of his work, he is constantly reaching out and educating to build better donor relations and more diverse collections.

Bergis views his work in archives as a way to build ties between communities and ties between community members. He believes that archives and cultural heritage materials can bring people together, especially when those materials are “put into the hands of those who teach.” Without enhanced accessibility, some users might never encounter these materials (or communities) at all. To build ties, outreach and advocacy are essential. By creating a space for conversation, an archivist can build trust and discover a community’s particular needs. The most important aspect of any outreach or advocacy project, Bergis reminds me, is “putting people and communities first.” No matter the medium, digital or old-fashioned face-to-face, conversation comes first. Bergis believes that collaborating and conversing with smaller communities holding diverse materials is the best form of advocacy that an archivist can perform at a large repository. The best way to do this, he adds, is to learn to listen to the communities that keep the materials.

Because listening facilitates collaboration, Bergis suggests that listening itself is a great way to find new strategies for outreach and advocacy. An archivist can learn a lot from other projects by asking about what has worked and what hasn’t, and then seeing what spaces may be left behind that provide new project ideas. Bergis has had a lot of success learning about new projects through networks of archivists on Twitter. According to Bergis, following the networks on Twitter is a really effective way to find out about and collaborate on all kinds of projects, including grassroots archiving. Bergis himself is very active on Twitter, and can be found at @BergisJules.

In the past, Bergis has helped build collaborative communities around collections from underrepresented groups. He has worked at the Black Metropolis Research Consortium at the University of Chicago and also at the District of Columbia Africana Archives Project at George Washington University. At the BMRC, he was Project Director, and helped create a digital repository of collections documenting Chicago-area African American and African diasporic materials. Bergis wrote a grant to jumpstart the DC Africana Archives Project, increasing access to collections documenting the history of the African diaspora in the DC area. Both projects have been incredibly successful in enhancing accessibility to materials. More recently, Bergis has helped develop Documenting the Now, a tool for archiving tweets, to help document diverse perspectives on social justice issues.

DocNow is a tool and a community developed around supporting the ethical collection, use, and preservation of social media content.

Bergis therefore brings a long-standing commitment to community-building and diversity to his work at UC Riverside’s Archives, located in the UC Riverside Library. The library holds more than 275 manuscript collections, including personal, family, and organizational records. The university collects materials that document a wide variety of experiences in the US, particularly in the Inland Empire Region, an area in inland southern California east of Los Angeles. Some of the strengths of Riverside’s special collections lie in the history and culture of the Inland Empire region, Latin American history and culture, and ethnic studies, which document African American, Native American, Asian American, and Chicano/Latino experience.

UC Riverside currently spearheads the Inland Empire Memories consortium, a group of cultural heritage institutions located in the Inland Empire. Bergis is the Project Coordinator there. He writes grants and manages the program day-to-day in conjunction with the other member institutions. Because the consortium was established recently, right now Bergis spends much of his time listening to the consortium’s members, gathering data along the way about their projects and interests, their resources, and their ideas for later programs. Bergis is currently helping to facilitate the Sherman Indian High School Museum’s project to digitize some of its collections and provide its users with new levels of access.

In future, the Inland Empire Memories institutions intend to collaborate to share funding, develop access tools and programs for digital collections, and build relationships with other community institutions. The Inland Empire Memories mission is “to identify, preserve, interpret, and share the rich cultural legacies of the Inland Empire’s diverse communities” by enhancing access to cultural heritage materials. It emphasizes materials documenting “peoples and groups underrepresented in the historical record.” Increasing diversity in the archival record, I have come to find, is something of a theme in Bergis’ work.

It’s through listening that Bergis has had such success collaborating with others to promote access to a more diversified historical record. I expect that the Inland Empire Memories Consortium will become as active as the Black Metropolis Research Consortium and the DC Africana Archives Project in enhancing access to new materials. I hope to hear about many more projects from its members in the future!

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Emily Drabinski: Advocacy is in Every Part of the Job

Emily Drabinski, Coordinator of Library Instruction for LIU Brooklyn

by Gina Cullen

Meet Emily Drabinski, Coordinator of Library Instruction

Emily Drabinski, the Coordinator of Library Instruction at LIU Brooklyn, grapples with a lot of logistics every day. They may take the form of analyzing the metrics of library use, organizing instruction schedules, or reconfiguring the physical layout of the reference desk, but working with the tangible problems is where Emily excels. “What I like about libraries is that it’s material and concrete: books, wires, copiers, opening hours, food policy. You never have a question or problem that’s abstract, they’re always real,” she said while we discussed challenges facing libraries as institutions.

Given the breadth of her responsibilities, it’s clear that she has an excellent grasp on coordination. Every semester she organizes the schedule so that every faculty member has a lab and a librarian available for their requested time slot. She and four other librarians lead about 300 classes a year for primarily freshman and sophomore students, which is only part of their regular duties within the library. Because librarians are also considered faculty at LIU Brooklyn, she has university responsibilities as well, which include attending faculty senate meetings and being the representative at Board of Trustees meetings. She also serves as the secretary of the Long Island University Faculty Federation, Local 3998, NYSUT/AFT, AFL-CIO.

Prior to her career as a librarian, Emily worked in the print media world primarily for magazines. Her last job was as a fact-checker for the magazine Lucky, where she was caught up with the trivial minutiae of tasks like ensuring that the number of bargains listed inside was accurately conveyed on the cover. After getting chewed out for mixing up the telephone number for Barney’s and Saks Fifth Avenue, she realized, “This can’t be my whole life.”

At the time, New York Public Library had a program sponsoring students as they went through librarian school if they worked at the library so she applied for a job with them and in 2001 she enrolled at Syracuse University. She immediately felt at home in her classes, learning about the ways libraries compile, organize, and store all human knowledge for everyone to access. The aspiration of the profession is often confronted by the daily realities of working in libraries.

“It turns out it’s a lot of stapler repair,” she laughs.

But focusing on the little actions and outreach we can have with any person who comes into the library has become a large part of how she conducts her job. Working in an academic setting means that she teaches students not just how to use the library to search for information but how to find and recognize accurate and reliable information. That instruction may take the form of showing health science students, who need sources to debate a critical issue in healthcare, how to find pro and con sources without using the words ‘pro’ or ‘con,’ or teaching them how to access information from Medline. She’s even taught students how to scan book chapters on their phone, a small skill that can have a significant and lasting impact on how they can conduct their work. Sometimes the most beneficial action is something simple like turning on the fax machine or copier, because it makes a lot of students lives better.

Emily’s practical approach to helping students is even more essential given the problems facing LIU Brooklyn. Like many other higher education institutions they have seen declining enrollment, retention issues, and labor issues. Last year administrators physically locked faculty out of the library over contract negotiations and this year they have slashed budgets for nearly every department while also implementing a new policy that obtaining grants is now a factor for achieving promotions or tenure. This has made the primary focus of their outreach and advocacy to be on behalf of their own survival. As she explains, “Working conditions are students’ learning conditions so if we have primarily a contingent labor-force that is getting paid peanuts to teach our students then they’re not going to teach our students very well.”

Part of that work includes what many other libraries have done; they have snack tables at student orientation, they have zines with information about their services, and they have 24-hour service during finals. Assembling statistics and compiling them in reports is another important tool in making the case for additional resources, although the declining enrollment affects all aspects of those numbers. Distilling the intangible act of obtaining knowledge into a measurable metric, something that Emily likens to “extracting resources from higher ed the way you would extract resources from a silver mine, which is just very strange because the commodity is a person,” has its own implications on how it influences the data itself but without that data she can’t show why those resources are necessary. It’s a difficult, challenging time for the higher education sector and that makes Emily’s approach of localized, project-based work all the more essential.

While archival institutions serve a slightly different purpose, this approach of focusing on practical actions can serve as a valuable guide in better engaging with our communities. Emily teaches her students how to navigate the library and learn how to best analyze and utilize the resources they find. Archivists can take the same approach and teach not only how to use the archive but also how to use primary sources and apply the historical context of when they were created. If archivists and local educators can collaborate to create programs that emphasize the importance of these documents –not just historically but relating to many disciplines — then they could provide a valuable service of lasting skills to their community. Hopefully this would also lead to a mutually beneficial rise in usage, further demonstrating their importance and the necessity for adequate funding.

Please check out more of Emily’s publications, which cover a range of topics from information literacy standards and instruction, the intersection of power and library structures, to gender and sexuality in librarianship, available on her website. She is also the series editor for Gender and Sexuality in Information Studies from Library Juice Press/Litwin Books. She considers her article “Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction” (Library Quarterly, April 2013) to be one of her most important pieces that has guided her thinking regarding all the projects she’s done since and it provides an nuanced and needed perspective to the discussion.

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Myron Groover and Activist Advocacy

Myron Groover (photography by Victoria Ostrzenski)

by Alden Ludlow

Myron Groover is the Archives and Rare Books Librarian at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He received his Master of Archival Studies and MLIS degree from University of British Columbia, Vancouver in 2012. He also holds a MA Honors in History from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland (2006). We spoke with him on issues of advocacy and outreach in a phone interview on September 29, 2017.

For Myron Groover, advocacy in the archives field is an overtly political project. Having graduated with his MLIS degree in 2012, he found the situation within Libraries and Archives Canada (LAC), at the national level, to be dangerously in disarray. With the appointment of Daniel J. Caron as Librarian and Archivist of Canada in 2009, government employees found themselves under siege, with budgets being cut and information professionals being fired.

Groover’s advocacy work grew out of budget cuts to LAC during the administration of Prime Minister Stephen Harper (in office 2006-2015). Defunding of cultural heritage institutions during the administration led to the firing of many LAC professionals, and those that remained were further pressured in their jobs, including requirements that they sign non-disclosure agreements, effectively muzzling them and preventing them from discussing their work in publications and at conferences.

“What I was experiencing was this incredulity that there was this systematic dismantling of knowledge infrastructure which was essential to the core functioning of government and its ability to be accountable to its own citizens, and hardly anyone was saying anything at all,” Groover noted in a recent interview for this profile. “The professional organizations were all afraid to say anything, and the people who worked in the institution were terrified to speak up.” He found himself taking on advocacy on behalf of an archives and library meta-discourse at the national level.

Groover has a broad and varied background which put him on the trajectory to taking up the cause on behalf of his fellow Canadian professionals. Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he grew up in the United States; at fourteen he attended high school in Switzerland, and after that university in the United Kingdom. He left the UK for Canada in 2007 to attend library school.

Groover’s vision of advocacy is broad, yet nuanced. It looks beyond institutions, seeking to work within the social fabric itself. “The business of advocacy, if it is anything, is working together to build a shared narrative of a society wherein libraries and archives are valued and contribute to the well-being of the people that live in it,” he argues. “Advocacy is the process of building that shared narrative, or repairing it when it gets frayed, and making sure everyone can participate in it.”

His advocacy on behalf of LAC employees began to come to the fore in 2012. “I was desperately underemployed at the time, and I did that on my own without any institutional support from anyone,” he says. While in school, Groover had been maintaining a listserve to promulgate his advocacy ideas; in 2012, at the Canadian Library Association (CLA) conference, he took his fight to the top. Caron, “the hatchet-man the right wing had brought in to shepherd through the destruction of the national library, was the keynote speaker,” Groover recalls. The speech was not well received. “Later that day he had a Q&A panel, and I did the unthinkable thing and got up in his face, and asked him some detailed questions; he couldn’t answer them all, and it was a disaster.”

However, that was not enough. “What started out as this impassioned political project of getting people to care morphed into chronicling the decline,” he says. “I thought, we may not win, but I’ll be damned if they are the only ones getting their line of rhetoric out there.” While his message coalesced around issues of accountability, it was draconian LAC employee speech policies introduced in 2013 which drove him to take his advocacy to the next level. “The employee free speech issue ended up getting a lot of attention, because that was where it was easy to connect what was happening at Library and Archives Canada with regular people,” he says. “Everybody has some conception of what it would be like not to have freedom of expression. Everyone has an intuitive understanding that having your participation in mainstream politics curtailed by your employer is outrageous.”

Groover turned to social media to broaden his audience and increase awareness, and that turned out to be the missing piece. “Social media is a way of reaching people who can help you out, and who want to hear what you have to say,” he relates, adding, “what Twitter did was give me an opportunity to take those longer blog posts, encapsulate them, and get them into a broader sphere where you are able to interact with journalists and policymakers directly.” Members of Parliament were taking notice, and Groover was given the opportunity to shape discourse, noting that all the policy work he was doing was a “heavy lift.”

All that lifting paid off. Caron was fired in 2013; the pressure against him finally reached a peak, and what finally did him in was cheating on expenses. “It was a Pyrrhic victory,” Groover notes, adding, “there was never any accountability for any of the things he did in LAC. As I predicted early on, if they got away with it for long enough, then it wouldn’t be possible to rebuild, and indeed that’s exactly what happened.” Despite continuing issues at LAC, morale has improved; Guy Berthiaume was appointed in 2014. “Just by bringing in someone with a different personality, who is willing to take a more conciliatory rhetorical line, that has made a huge difference.”

Another casualty of this upheaval was the CLA, which disbanded in June 2016. In the end, they did not live up to their mission. “They never had vision on anything, never took to advocacy on these issues,” Groover says. “They gave no value back to the community at all.”

Advocacy on behalf of the profession has been taken up by several smaller organizations, and individuals like Groover. “We don’t have whistleblowers in Canada,” he notes. “There is no tradition of that here. You really do need rogue actors, or at least people who have the autonomy to say what they really think. I was lucky enough to be able to do that … I built my standing in the community through unremunerated advocacy work,” he jokes. A new advocacy and culture of transparency within LAC is taking root in Canada, led by professionals in the field, using social media as a tool to connect with journalists, politicians, and citizens.

“It turned into something I didn’t expect,” Groover concludes. “I think back on it, where it started and where it ended up, it is not always clear to me how I got from point A to point B.” This opportunism–addressing needs where they are most pressing–is at the very heart of advocacy.

 

Resources

McMaster University William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections – https://library.mcmaster.ca/archives/

McMaster Rare Books on Twitter – https://twitter.com/MacResColls

Bibliocracy blog – http://bibliocracy-now.tumblr.com/

Bibliocracy on Twitter – https://twitter.com/@Bibliocracy