Success Beyond Access: Maximizing Faculty Buy-In, Student Assistance, and Public Use

During this second session, I heard from Christopher Harter of the Amistad Research Center about the effects of collaborating with Tulane’s service learning requirement to work with students to process and preserve collections. Most of these students were History students and the collections they worked on connect with course themes.

Harlan Green, Head of Special Collections, College of Charleston spoke next about how cataloging their hidden collections led to development of African American Studies, and Jewish Studies majors. The library began to reach out and work with teachers to integrate primary sources from these cultural collections into their work developing Document Based Questions for the Common Core curriculum. They also developed an exhibits loan program to further expose these previously hidden collections. These description projects also led to donations to Jewish Studies and other programs, after donors saw the materials.

Dale Rosengarten, Curator of the Jewish Heritage Collection, College of Charleston shared how important good hires are to managing a successful grant project. The project archivist, Amy Lazarus, at the College of Charleston discussed how project archivists can incorporate outreach activities into a processing position. She took a Hebrew language class and shared information about the collection she worked on. Amy also updated social media accounts, and helped to coordinate interns.