This morning I attended “Beyond the Ivy Tower: Archival Collaboration, Community Partnerships, and Access Issues in Building Women’s Collections.” L. Rebecca Johnson Melvin of the University of Delaware presented on the oral history project that she and other staff have worked on to document the experiences of local Latina women. Through a capstone course in the Women’s Studies department students conducted the interviews and video recorded the sessions and the final product “Latinas Speak Out” has helped to broaden the scope and emphasis of the U. of Delaware special collections to include a more biographical and historical context for materials.
T-Kay Sanwand shared her experiences as part of a grant-funded initiative to collaborate with the UCLA Library and the UCLA Center for Studies of Women to preserve collections from the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archive. The over-arching goal of the project was to preserve and make available lesbian histories- a goal which overlapped with the institutional mission and objectives of the university. Central to a productive collaboration was trust and transparency when establishing a partnership. Also important was raising the public profile of the project through public events which helped to make potential donors aware of the positive effects of donating their materials to the Mazer archive- processing and accessibility.
Kelly Wooten of the Sallie Bingham archive at Duke University presented Elizabeth Myers work as the archivist for the Women and Leadership Archive at the University of Chicago- Loyola. Partnering with the Chicago Area Women’s Historic Council to increase awareness and ensure the preservation of women’s collections. The project is on-going and as Myers’s presentation underscored collaboration and not competitive stregthens our profession and ensures that the right repositories receive the most apt collections.
For successfull collaboration: set a clear project time line, reporting authority, concept of an exit strategy.
This session was a wonderful illustration of the positive results of archival collaboration and the possibilities that exist to ensure that all women’s voice are heard.