A great session before lunchtime, this panel explored outreach using culinary collections. Key take-aways included:
1. Creating research guides for culinary (other other themed collection) offers great opportunities for independent projects taken on by grad students and other researchers, e.g. Digital or physical exhibits, blog entries, recipe swap, etc
2. Connecting collections to campus events, and history offer the opportunity to expose collections to new users and celebrate collections and university or organization history.
3. When performing outreach, especially where you’re giving out food, be sure to have a reasonable goal in mind to anchor the event.
4. Outreach requires both flexibility and planning, and frequent communication with partners.
5. No outreach event is complete without connecting or directing participants to further information, either about the department, collections, or opportunities to support the collections and services of the archive.