Uncategorized

This morning I went to a session where presenters shared tips and experiences about working with volunteers, interns and students. Rebecca Crago kicked off the session by sharing her experiences as a new professional managing an army of volunteers and interns at the Historical Society of Frederick, Maryland. She has these staff members research references […]

The second session this afternoon concluded with a great discussion about how to leverage the statistics we gather to inform decisions we make related to collection development, processing priorities and storage. Ben Primer from Princeton explained that he used data to determine which collections hadn’t been used in 5 years and then sent those manuscript […]

This afternoon’s session addressed aspects of strategic planning. There were three presenters: Diane Strock- Lynskey, Chana Kotzin and Joe Coen. Each shared their experiences with the process. Key themes that emerged were: Begin by doing an environmental scan to understand how your organization relates to the bigger picture (e.g. an archives department- how does that […]

This morning I went to a great session that included three case studies related to outreach methods. The first, “Master Teachers Seminar at Society of the Cincinnati” was given by Rachel Jirka. She explained that the program began in 2011 and developed into a week long seminar held at the Society. The first program had […]

I’m part of a search committee for a Digital Humanities programmer and during discussions with recent candidates, I’ve been struck by the phrase “scholarly practice.” My colleague builds projects that adhere to certain standards accepted within the DH community, which as a result create a scholarly product. For example, this year we’ve teamed up with […]

Opening up Special Collections In a age of increasing openness in academic libraries, how do Special Collections departments fit in? Often we’re fortunate enough to have instruction space built in to the blue print of our departments. Of course, we strive to fill those spaces as often as we can with teaching students, working with […]

Recently I had the pleasure of discussing the idea of establishing career goals with a group of new information professionals, like myself. As the conversation continued, I realized that since I began my job in May 2011 I hadn’t reflected on my career and what I hoped to accomplish. Starting a new job (especially when […]

Ok, enough of the Justin Timberlake references. But as someone rightly pointed out yesterday in the Manuscript Repository section meeting- born- digital is where the action is. I’ve heard this as a persistent theme throughout the entire SAA conference this year. For example, there’s a small ad hoc group “Born Digital Acquisition Group” that is […]