Kyle Courtney and Emily Kilcer from Harvard shared their thoughts about copyright and digitization in a compelling session. The central theme seemed to be mitigating risk. Most interesting was the discussion about transformative works, or when you create a new purpose and message, which differentiates the original work from the one you’ve created. They shared […]
S.5 Delighted to make your acquaintance: Introducing users to primary sources
The central theme of this session was the notion of surrending complete authority over the collections that we manage, in favor of shared learning and development with our users. Several of my biggest take-aways from the speakers included: Learning is a social activity. Peer-to-peer learning is a powerful pedagogical tool for archivists and students. The […]
MARAC/NEA Boston Plenary I
The conference began with opening remarks from Danna Bell. She shared with us her thoughts about professional development and continuing education for archives professionals. Her central question was: What skills do archivists need and how should they attain them? I was excited to hear Bell discuss the real need for collaboration across organizations to make […]
Opening up the urban archive: innovations, in teaching, research and digital outreach
Hearing Doretha Williams discuss her work on the D.C. Africana Archives Project at George Washington University provides archivists with a great model for planning and executing cross-institutional collaborations. Considering relationships between institutions and how collaborations can strengthen those relationships was a big take-away. Simple pieces of a project, like setting aside two student processing positions for […]
Engaging students in complex description: 3 projects, multiple languages, and EAC-CPF in the classroom
This session focused exclusively on how students, both in high school and college, can be helpful in processing collections. Valerie Addonizio from Johns Hopkins commented on her experience working with a high school teacher, two school librarians, and six students to create EAC-CPF records. Her lessons learned included: Considering what the host institution defines as […]
Diversity and collaboration: making hidden Mexican, Jewish, and Chinese Collections Discoverable
This panel focused on how students can be used to help process collections. Several take-aways included: Students can be helpful in creating keywords and basic descriptions or summaries, but for authorized names, etc. it’s best to use catalogers for consistency and efficiency Students can offer language skills that can be critical in translating and annotating […]
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 […]
CLIR Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives Symposium- Innovation, Collaborations, and Models
I attended “Looking back and facing forward: Learning from Collaborations with our peers and constituents” for session one. Eric Pumroy of Bryn Mawr shared his experiences participating in the PACSAL consortium finding aid database project. He emphasized the challenges that he and others continue to confront as they consider the future of is collaboration. These […]