13:30:34 See where is
13:30:37 ok.
13:30:48 Good afternoon, and welcome to session to recent archival research by graduate students and Johnny Floyd and I'm pleased to be your moderator.
13:31:00 Before I introduce the panelists, I have a few announcements Merrick wishes to thank the sponsor of this session, the University of Maryland College of Information Studies, the masters of Library and Information Science Program at UMD offers a degree
13:31:15 specializing in archives and digital curation, as well as a dual degree in library science and history, and a graduate certificate in museum scholarships and material culture, among many other degrees.
13:31:29 Thank you I school for sponsoring this session, and for making the virtual conference possible today.
13:31:36 Now some virtual housekeeping for today.
13:31:40 We will be utilizing the live transcript for this session for accessibility purposes. If you would like to hide the subtitles, simply click live transcript button, which is at the bottom of your application should be and then select hide subtitle.
13:31:56 And if your zoom application is not maximized. You may need to click on the three dots, which is the more icon to turn off those subtitles.
13:32:06 Finally, please use the q amp a feature to pose questions to the panel.
13:32:12 I will relay those questions to the panelists. During the q amp a portion of today's session.
13:32:18 Now let's get started.
13:32:20 Our panelists today. Our Marissa Eddie, Jamie and Crossman Benjamin Jackson, and next door.
13:32:39 Marissa is in her final semester of New York University and Long Island University's dual master's program, where she will receive an MA and archives and her ml is her current research is focused on primary source education and creating ways to make sources,
13:32:46 easier to integrate into K 12 classrooms, then, is a project archivist for the keys and collection on popular music and culture in special collections of Performing Arts at the Michelle Smith, performing arts library, University of Maryland, College Park.
13:33:03 He is a doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology at UMD researching venues and gentrification in Washington DC.
13:33:12 Max earned an MLS with a certificate and archives from Queens College City University of New York, in 2020.
13:33:21 He has taught archival literacy to undergraduates and presented original research on labor for clarity within the archives profession.
13:33:30 He currently works as an adjunct instruction library librarian at Queens College. So welcome panelists. And I'm going to stop sharing and give Marissa the floor.
13:33:43 Thank you so much. I'm going to go ahead and post something in the chat now, but you don't have to worry about it for a little bit and then I'm going to start sharing my screen.
13:33:56 Alright, today I'm going to be talking about European traditions tracing the connection between archiving and that's as archivists, we are unable to escape our past the archival materials that previous artless have kept surround us on the shelves, as
13:34:17 a field, we acknowledge that there are holes in the archives voices and records that are missing.
13:34:25 There's been a similar acknowledgement of missing voices in a field of dance studies.
13:34:31 The ideologies of American Dance have been viewed on mostly white bodies, but what those white bodies were often dancing was a mix of qualities, from various cultures, traditions.
13:34:43 As we look at our archives, and the records of movement, but are passed through the oral tradition of dance, we can see the physical manifestation of white supremacy.
13:34:53 As we look at our history, we can see how this white supremacy has created the holes for people of color, and other minority groups should be.
13:35:04 In this presentation, I seek to unpack the European traditions that created Western dance and archival ideologies and how those traditions came to the United States of America, where they continue to dictate the correct way to dance, and archive.
13:35:19 I argue that through this translation of European ideals voices have been lost in both fields. However, both of his fields are seeking to reclaim these lost voices by retro actively correcting the records will actively working to correct the records,
13:35:36 moving forward.
13:35:39 The authors of the Dutch manual and sir Hillary Jacobson created and helped us solidify the rules for archival theory as a language of their written works is examined similar words begin to emerge, such as should must and correct.
13:35:57 These words are utilized to demand the correct ways to arrange materials, and why material should be described in a certain way to solidify what archiving was these authors demanded strict structures and rules to ensure that there was a clear boundary
13:36:15 between what archiving was and what it was not these rules, cannot be confronted without challenging the very heart of what archiving meant to these authors, with this understanding, we can view the muskets and should that proliferate our field with concepts
13:36:35 such as provenance as a rigid rules of the European tradition.
13:36:42 These riches and unbending rules of the European tradition, are also found in dance traditions, with the upright spine being the standard bear for proper, and correct dance, this vertical spawning was a part of the overall image of superiority, that European
13:36:59 courtiers believe they held over non courtiers.
13:37:04 The Cordier change the way they walked danced and stood to be able to showcase that they were up a different societal class.
13:37:13 One of these changes, was the direct upright spine, that has been passed down through Western dance traditions, most easily seen in ballet, but also found in American modern and contemporary dance forms.
13:37:27 While there has been a movement away from these traditions in dance training, there is still attention placed on the upright spine as the way dancers should hold their bodies by acknowledging the traditions of erect spine in the field of dance is easier
13:37:47 to see how these traditions.
13:37:47 Excuse me.
13:37:51 by acknowledging the traditional direct spine and the field of dance is easier to see how the traces of colonialism and white supremacy are written onto the bodies of dancers of the past and present.
13:38:03 This connection between traditions can be physically seen in the archival record and on the bodies of dancers, and how they showcase the European ideals that still permanent both fields.
13:38:16 With these rules and traditions that were created by European minds. The structure of who held the power in these fields, was also built in the archival field, who control the archive was directly in control of dictating the history that would be preserved
13:38:33 in the collective memory, the archival voices of the past. Often, white men dictated that these views of those are the European descent, where the voices that had the right to be archived.
13:38:47 The white dancing body was superiority ascribed on an upright spine had the power of dictating the rules of dance tradition onto the bodies of generations to come.
13:38:58 Due to their power practices such as ballet, have been and are still holding cultural esteem, as high art.
13:39:07 Why is Valley considered high art, and not an African derived form, the answer comes from the power of those who set up the rules of what was right and wrong.
13:39:20 As these European traditions solidified and crystallized this power, their unwavering ideological superiority, was able to be maintained as a practices, came to America.
13:39:37 As archival practices were brought to America, European traditions heavily influenced the type of materials and voices that are archived and American repositories.
13:39:49 In America, archives were created in the style of European archives, and maintained European archival fury.
13:39:57 This demand for salt scholarly discourse and refinement that came from European archival traditions, kept the American institutions, white and upper class with minority populations excluded as users.
13:40:11 Their voices were also excluded from the archival material.
13:40:14 This exclusion place the power of the archives, and the power of our collective memory squarely in the hands of European the sentence
13:40:25 in American Dance, the power was placed onto the bodies of white Americans.
13:40:31 In contrast to what occurred in the archives, the voices of other cultures were taken into the white dancers bodies and assimilated into American dance.
13:40:40 One of the most glaring simulations, or appropriations, was that of African movement is the American Dance cannon.
13:40:50 To have the defining characteristic of African dance or poly centrism, the body having more than one center of gravity and Polly rhythm. The body using multiple rhythms simultaneously.
13:41:03 George Balanchine American Ballet choreographer, who created the New York City Ballet, was one of the white bodies to take from African movement forms with his work.
13:41:13 He brought African principles into the ballet cannon using movements from the African and African American vernacular, while running a modifying have been part of many artists to cultures.
13:41:36 Balanchine never acknowledged his influences that came from working with African American dancers and their movement qualities that became synonymous with Balanchine's American Ballet.
13:41:48 At the same time, the ballet dancers of color have had difficulty being employed by Valley companies, because their skin color does not match the European aesthetic of a corps de ballet.
13:41:59 For all the dancers look the same as dance the historians look backward, there is less, a lack of voices, as can be seen in archival record and more and uncovering of the voices that were quieted and stolen from as many of you are most likely not dance
13:42:19 scholars is often challenging to understand the descriptions of the body, without seeing them.
13:42:25 Due to this, I put together a few essential dance works that are available on YouTube to showcase this potentially tricky concept.
13:42:34 Since zoom is not always friendly to video on a shared screen. I have posted the link to these videos in the chat. If you would like to watch them later.
13:42:43 As a note, I did take off the music for all of these videos so I can talk over top. And that way we can focus on just the movement.
13:43:07 This first clip is from the American Ballet theater's 1969 production of jazz out while watching the short clip, I would like you to observe upright spine, even as the body tilts there's little curvature of the spine.
13:43:36 The second clip is from the 1941 film house upon where the whities Lindy hoppers are the performers.
13:43:46 In this clip, I would like you to watch the bent knees and curve spine. That allows the dancers to perform with speed and multiple rhythms.
13:44:14 This third clip is from the 1977 version of the four temperaments, which was choreographed by George balancing for the New York City Ballet.
13:44:25 As you watch this clip. Watch how the dancers, move off center and curb their spine and PAL by while they're still the balletic upright spine. There's influence from the Africanist principles, we just watch.
13:44:51 Again, if you would like to watch the videos in full, or with the music, those links are in the chat.
13:44:59 At first, and may appear, that there are no similarities between dance and archiving one fields records can be seen on the shelves and boxes will in the other, the records of past movement are passed on to new generations of dancers.
13:45:16 However, there are similarities and how European rules have affected the practices of these fields with these two fields, the words must and should, as well as the knowledge passed down through bodies have caused particular views of what is right and
13:45:33 what is wrong.
13:45:35 Setting up standards for any field demands that there are strict rules.
13:45:40 Or else that cannot be standards. However, it should also be acknowledged that these rules were creating a time where the Western world viewed itself as dominant culture and acted accordingly.
13:45:52 by acknowledging these rules and the effects they have had been a next step forward, can occur due to the way, American archives were set up.
13:46:03 There's physically very little documentation of non European or Western voices.
13:46:09 This lack of proper archival material has caused a riff in our collection of archival memory, repetitive movements are necessary to finding these voices within our collections and projects to bring the voices of record subjects onto an equal playing field
13:46:23 as its creators have begun to bring out the voices of minority populations in historical collections.
13:46:32 In a way, the repetitive movement is similar to the white dance artists are also looking back to uncover last voices.
13:46:40 Brenda Dixon God's child, a dance scholar coined the term invisible eyes to discuss the way American dancers took African movement qualities, and did not attribute the sources of the movement as dance researchers are looking backward at the movements
13:46:56 of historical dances, they're searching for the impacts that minority populations had on American Dance, and how many similar qualities, were incorporated into the American Dance cannon Walcott's child's Trump invisible eyes was originally used to describe
13:47:23 looking backward can only be so successful, both fields also have to look forward to ensure that current practitioners, do not continue to perpetuate the silencing and invisible rising of minority voices, as archivists look to the future.
13:47:39 There are initiatives to proactively collect the story and materials of people who have not traditionally been a part of the archive. This movement is just one of the many ways the archivist are looking forward after having learned from past archivists
13:47:53 dance artists are also seeking to ensure that more diverse voices are able to become choreographers on major productions, and that leadership positions, do not remain white and male, which has been perpetuated in many companies with an eye to the future
13:48:11 archivists and dancers are making their way towards a more diverse and less Europeanized feature.
13:48:19 Moving forward, I hope to see an understanding of the traditional European rules, but dance and archival studies are founded on.
13:48:27 But these rules being understood than the damage they have done to the archival record, and the dance tradition, can be counteracted as this new connection between the fields that dance and archiving has shown.
13:48:41 They are more similar in their creation than different with this, there can be more understanding of the passing on of traditions between the fields, and the collection of their history, even if the fields collect their history, a little bit differently.
13:48:56 As these fields overcome the hurdle of European rules. There's a redefining that was occurring.
13:49:03 This redefining is slowly challenging the structures of power within each of these fields to hopefully allow the voices rules and bodies of more people to be a part of the collective cultural memory of archives, and the oral tradition of dance.
13:49:21 Thank you, and I look forward to any questions later.
13:49:27 Thanks very much for us I'm sure there'll be a lot of questions but as a reminder, please post your questions in the q amp a.
13:49:37 And now we're going to move on, on to our second presentation for this session.
13:49:44 It's time for you, Ben.
13:50:06 Alright, thank you so much.
13:50:09 So let me just start by saying, I'm grateful to you all for the opportunity to speak with you today about my experiences in archival description through digital storytelling digital storytelling and to further the case for public exhibition of our materials,
13:50:23 both in person and online as a cornerstone of what we do as archivists in the past year, as the coven 19 pandemic has kept us away from the physical materials that we steward.
13:50:33 We work tirelessly to digitize and publish materials, consult with patrons and to generally create as closest approximation to our research environments, as in times before.
13:50:43 And while our work to connect remotely with researchers has been tremendous. I personally have been equally moved by the blog posts, podcasts Instagram posts and one off digital exhibits that we've all created targeted at the broader communities that
13:50:56 were a part of the restrictions depend on that can give a new weight to our online presence. And this is a no small part due to the fact that for a lot of us fortunate enough to keep working throughout all this for months on end these digital products
13:51:09 projects made up a lot of the work that we actually could do remotely.
13:51:13 Today I want to focus on an earlier project of mine, modern songs of war and conflict, which explores the keys and collection on popular music and culture in the University of Maryland's Special Collections and performing arts and looking at this project,
13:51:27 I will highlight the fact that open source platforms and plugins can allow us all, regardless of our experience in web design to quickly create compelling digital explorations of our materials, as we all work towards goals for increasing access and interaction
13:51:40 and expanding the ways in which our archives are part of the communities that they inhabit digital storytelling tools can bring narrative to the forefront that might be less clear in a catalog refining it, and can provide an illustration of the kinds
13:51:51 of projects that are possible. when working with our collections.
13:51:55 And I believe it is this demonstration of the possible, that can bring more people through our doors, and to our shirt collections.
13:52:02 Now I'll consider early on that I don't believe that I'm necessarily making a novel intervention and saying as much. We're fortunate right now to be in a time spoiled from originally designed and engaging examples of digital storytelling, my own work
13:52:26 developing digital exhibits is at the behest of the namesake of the collection I work with Dr Hugo keys and a collector in American Studies scholar, whose donations from the work of myself and another project archivist who process materials and conduct research within the collection.
13:52:28 The keys and collection and popular music and cultures and expansive collection compiled by Dr. King and his brother voter, who became fans collectors and scholars American popular music and culture.
13:52:38 After moving from the US.
13:52:40 After moving to the US from the Netherlands in their youth.
13:52:44 This collection includes thousands of singles LPs pieces of sheet music, as well as popular music cereals frozen memorabilia and original notes and research materials and everything from the world wars, two Fats Domino to a full set of Beatles inflatables
13:52:59 and wigs, so it really runs the gamut.
13:53:02 Modern songs of world war and conflict over began at the behest of Dr. King was conducted extensive research on American popular music and more producing widely circulating books and compiled box sets on the Korean and Vietnam wars battleground Korea
13:53:15 and next up is Vietnam which you can both see here.
13:53:18 Dr Qiang suggested producing a digital exhibit highlighting the intersection between the American wars of the 20th and 21st centuries and popular music to encourage the use of this newly expanded segment of the collection.
13:53:30 He asked the exhibit include a timeline, but beyond that I was given a great amount of leeway. And even though this is now greatly expanded for much of the project I was working with somewhat limited from materials due to the fact that Dr Qiang is still
13:53:42 very much active in his own research in the areas.
13:53:45 Oftentimes for the collection we receive materials when he's moved on from one research area to the next. And we've sent succession huge amounts of material from the American wars the modern era.
13:53:54 But when I began the mirror, the materials I had at my disposal were around 270 it's of popular music relating to the Second World War.
13:54:04 The discography compiled in a.
13:54:07 Discography compiled in Excel over three decades detailing most any song time in some way to the Vietnam War, without any corresponding records or tapes collections of JPG is of LP labels.
13:54:33 No initially I was unsure of what abuse I could produce with limited physical materials, but the limitations forced me to really consider how I could produce something that was widely useful, and that brought out the narratives unique to our collections.
13:54:36 I began by constructing the timelines that previously mentioned this in itself is somewhat of an anxiety inducing process for me considering the amount of inherent editorializing and trying to sum up, any military conflict, let alone the Second World
13:54:47 War. And the end result is unnecessarily incomplete.
13:54:52 However, the practice of making these timelines allowed for space to highlight episodes and dimensions of the wars that have been historically underrepresented and to highlight the specificity of the commentary present in the music of the collections.
13:55:04 And what you see here is what came out of, I came across a 78 but we had account bases little known beside draft and blues, which clearly and its title is related to conscription.
13:55:38 But with the context that a timeline can provide. You can also show that the single was recorded within weeks of the enactment of the Selective Service Act.
13:55:48 And you can really see the immediacy of the response of some of the 78.
13:55:52 Now while timelines are generally useful as an introduction to subject matter in a broad sense. I also wanted to create elements that would dig into our material specifically, but given that I was working with a pile of seven hates that were all copyright
13:56:03 protected. I was somewhat unclear as to how to make these useful.
13:56:07 I knew that with these materials, I couldn't hope to produce a total and complete story of the Second World War and popular and American popular song, and by all accounts that story had been well told and scholarship.
13:56:18 So rather I decided to use numerical analysis of our own collection to highlight the underlying trends specific to what we had for our world war 278. I collected and transcribed the lyrics, organize them by year and produce charts, considering how in
13:56:33 our collections, the vocabulary of popular song changed alongside the war, these graphs for example, show clearly how action words associated in the early words such as go, or fight as you can see here, gateway by the end of the war, two waiting and missing
13:56:48 or how weirdly 1944 proved to be a particularly prolific year for American patriotic focus and our collections.
13:56:58 Now, I took a similar approach to the Vietnam recordings discography.
13:57:02 What you see here is a published version of a spreadsheet compiled by Dr Qiang as collaborators over nearly 30 years with individual entries for every song that could be possibly read as referencing the Vietnam War, from 1955 to the present with tags
13:57:16 by subject matter, so this is truly a behemoth Excel file that you basically have to take time out of your data plan to open and going through this first one I ended up doing was I took tags and created discography is on topics like Agent Orange, where
13:57:35 the Green Berets and created graphs, showing these releases by year.
13:57:33 Each color rectangle in the screenshot that you see here, is part of this graph that represents a song that was recorded in that year.
13:57:42 Addressing the subject and users on the page can hover over each to see more information about the individual recordings.
13:57:48 Now looking at the graph you can chart the spike and precipitous drop and enthusiasm for the, for the floor, through the icon of the green Bray.
13:57:56 Here you can see it established.
13:57:59 You can see the Green Bay established in 1966 with the 33 recordings in the single in the first year alone of The Ballad of the Green Berets, but the icon of the green brain became increasingly polarized and by 1968 was really invoked.
13:58:13 When can also see a growing awareness of the horrors of war, including Agent Orange by tracking that and song as well.
13:58:20 The topic was relatively unaddressed and popular song through it much the word itself. But once the debilitating effects of the chemical weapon were more widely publicized in the mid 1980s is an orange became a symbol and song for the long open wound
13:58:31 of the war.
13:58:34 Now beyond working with recordings tied by subject material. I also wanted to take on a project that would demonstrate how the Vietnam discography could be used in a more complete manner.
13:58:42 I limited the discography to entries falling within the years of the war, 915 1955 to 1975, and I compared this against an open source database of every entry in the Billboard Hot 100 by week for the same years.
13:58:56 Now this was to consider how the soundtrack of the war in films like platoon or Forrest Gump lined up with the popular soundscape of the time.
13:59:03 I used the two data sets to create an interactive graph that you see a screenshot of here, every.is a song referencing the War of the cross into the top 100 singles in the US, and everyone you can see the year it was released the title of song etc.
13:59:18 So while portions of the charts brought no surprises indeed fortunate son did seem to be inescapable in 1969.
13:59:25 Others were surprising such as the intense popularity of pro war songs such as Merle Haggard's okie from Muskogee, where this other thread that I discovered and putting it together which was how specifically amongst song supporting the war, they develop
13:59:41 this trope of spoken word with orchestra.
13:59:44 You can see it in victory lumbers 1968 single against draft dodging entitled open letter to my teenage son.
13:59:52 In 1974 there were three separate recordings of a Canadian radio, radio personalities plea to the world to continue supporting the US entitled The Americans, that all charted in the hot 100, or be even more surreal.
14:00:05 Unlikely hitmaker Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, who became an unlikely present on the Billboard Hot 100 with his spoken word with orchestra piece gallant men.
14:00:29 down.
14:00:34 There have been men
14:00:43 who have done that others might be free.
14:00:48 Not entirely sure but pretty sure that this is one of the few if any chart topping. Senate Minority leaders.
14:00:55 But again, this came through digging through a document that originally function you can more to a finding aid.
14:01:00 But in going through that you're able to see the data, presenting these stories that with a slight narrative refocus could really present something that's much more valuable alongside the document itself that really can help instruct people and how to
14:01:14 get the most of the materials in our collections.
14:01:18 Now, I was only able to make these digital exhibits through the hard work of programmers worldwide who invest time in open source tools. When I began, I had never worked in web design and I believe that I had to wade through lines of codes to do anything
14:01:29 meaningful.
14:01:31 Originally when I was designing my timelines in HTML, I used outlines that users on the popular web design platform a code pen and uploaded. And we're looking at other exhibits, the colleagues of mine put together.
14:01:42 I saw that it was nothing like this and also people were doing it much faster and I was just like, gosh, what is happening.
14:01:48 And one of the first things I really centered on to some of my colleagues had used at the university was Northwestern University's night labs timeline js, which as you can see here requires only that a designer plug material into a spreadsheet on Google
14:02:01 to publish a scalable timeline to the web.
14:02:05 Now, equally useful to this plugin.
14:02:07 There's slightly more intimidating at first is the Google charts suite of products.
14:02:11 These are highly customizable interactive charts, which I used to create all the graphs on my sites, the charts all have robust documentation that walk you through how to fill out an embedded chart tailoring them to your needs.
14:02:22 And even though they're actually designed in in JavaScript they're, they're easily editable by basically following a format like you can see here.
14:02:32 Now, with Google charts on with visual interactive of any kind that I relied on heavily in this project, accessibility really needs to be a primary concern, which is why these charts, in my experience function best with thick text description of what
14:02:42 is going on in the graphs point by point.
14:02:45 Likewise, it's important to make the data itself for each trip available as well to people operating through screen readers, which is why I also produced a plane table in HTML for each of these so that the full data was available to all the users, open
14:02:58 source projects like this, though, have made it possible for me with no formal instruction in web design to quickly throw together useful engaging digital supplements to our collections.
14:03:07 Now I advocate here for the use of plugins and templates for their accessibility and ease of use, but it's also important to discuss their shortcomings, on the one hand they do require some degree of maintenance, there's the question of longevity of the
14:03:18 plugins not supported in the future, clash, and digital waste is not only a concern for users but has a real environmental and human impact and more recent projects as I've gotten increasingly comfortable with markup.
14:03:31 I've leaned towards an approach and design and markup, inspired by those who work in digital humanities practicing minimal computing.
14:03:36 To better ensure the longevity of projects I create I practice this but I realized that I couldn't have done this without taking the time to learn mark up to a functional level, which I love, which is a luxury that we all do not have.
14:03:47 I also believe that individuals shouldn't necessarily have to know how to use a flex box properly, to be able to create a digital storytelling exhibit that uses the materials that they work with.
14:03:56 and it's beyond sort of plain text and photographs.
14:03:59 So at one point we have these web platforms that allow you to put together a professional looking exhibit with minimal HTML experience in a few hours, but have questions of preservation.
14:04:08 And on the other hand, we have designed it's not entirely reliant on an external plugin that can be easily saved say to a hard drive offline and stored long term, but requires more functional markup knowledge to make.
14:04:22 I think that there's room and necessity for both approaches here so that we can both nimbly create, to get people in the door, and to work with longevity in mind.
14:04:32 Now as with any collection, the holdings in the way in which I framed them are by no means entirely comprehensive or authoritative. Still I believe that it is worthwhile to consider what narratives are present in each of our collections and how we can
14:04:42 use different platforms to bring them to the fore.
14:04:46 I understand that working to digest and represent our holdings online takes time that many of us may not have as we were trying to work in person, but hopefully as open source technologies continue to reduce the amount of time and scripting knowledge
14:04:57 required to undertake projects like this, more of us will be able to explore new ways to help our collections connect with all in our communities.
14:05:04 Thank you.
14:05:10 Thank you very much, Ben.
14:05:13 I'm sure there's going to be a lot of discussion about the tension between ease and longevity.
14:05:21 We have our third panelists up now.
14:05:26 The floor is yours max.
14:05:30 Hey everybody, how you doing
14:05:34 present my slides.
14:05:42 Looks like that's up.
14:05:44 Hello.
14:05:46 My name is Max Thorne from Queens College City University of New York.
14:05:51 Welcome to my presentation collections in the classroom and archives construction fellowship.
14:05:58 I want to say thanks to my fellow presenters versa and Benjamin and Joni, our moderator.
14:06:04 Jenny, our technical volunteer, as well as the Nevada and Liz Navarro co chairs of the program committee and John's Ryland dead shift co chairs of virtual arrangements committee.
14:06:18 This has been a long time in the making. I submitted a proposal for this presentation in October of 2019.
14:06:26 And finally, here we are.
14:06:29 At that time I had just finished my semester as the archives instruction so at Queens College Library, and recently begun. My job there AM, and recently begun my job as an adjunct instruction librarian, which I still hold today.
14:06:47 I graduated from the QC library school in spring 2020, with an MLS and archive certificate.
14:06:54 This presentation is based on a poster that I presented at the New York archives conference. In June, 2019.
14:07:05 So I want to present the main ideas of my presentation right up front, the first question is, You know why archival instruction.
14:07:14 And that's, whoops, Let's go back here.
14:07:18 That's because it improves undergraduates primary source literacy initiates meaningful faculty collaboration and fosters engagement with the archive.
14:07:29 Why graduate fellowships. I'm sure we all know a few small Special Collections and Archives departments within an academic institution fellows can help them meet their ambitious goals.
14:07:45 And in our case at Queens College, it was to more fully developed an archival instruction program graduate fellows, get hands on experience, maybe even fulfilling internship requirement as I did.
14:07:57 In a very real sense I wouldn't have a job and a half today without the fellowship.
14:08:02 And I'm in my fourth year of association with Queens College so it does create that bond between graduate students and their institution.
14:08:15 Because the basic rundown of the archives like the QC whereby he know our multimedia collection consists of 5000 linear feet.
14:08:36 by alumni were politically active in that movement in the 1960s. We support research, engage the community.
14:08:42 uh, pardon me Hold on,
14:08:45 dealing with a little alarm to go off. Okay.
14:08:50 And we support research, engage the community through partnerships with local institutions, and do some teaching.
14:08:57 Any prioritises training the next generation of archivists.
14:09:00 I was one of two graduate students who inaugurated the fellows program. And there's been three more since they've launched a memory lab for personal archiving, which is open to the campus and greater queens community.
14:09:15 And currently, fellows growing our civil rights movement collection through a major oral history project with QC alumni.
14:09:23 My primary responsibility was to integrate archival material into the curriculum of an undergraduate history seminar, America in the 1960s the work consisted of classroom exercises.
14:09:39 Student Research appointments and faculty outreach throughout the semester I collaborate with the head archivist and history professor of the seminar.
14:09:48 Our goals were to increase student awareness and understanding of the college's archives, improve their primary source literacy and support their research.
14:09:57 Most of the students were history majors, and the instructor was especially interested in improving their ability to critically evaluate primary sources access online.
14:10:10 So after interviewing for and being awarded the fellowship, the first phase was to prepare and run to classroom exercises, an introductory presentation which is a kind of a classic show until of the archives followed weeks later by a small group document
14:10:25 analysis exercise.
14:10:28 In the second phase of the fellowship, I held one on one research appointments and created a loop guide for faculty interested in teaching with archives guide includes the bibliography of literature on teaching with archives as well as professional guidelines
14:10:44 on the subject.
14:10:46 I'll talk first about the document analysis exercise, then the research, research tutorials and finally assessment.
14:10:55 So we adapted this document analysis exercise from teach archive.org.
14:11:01 This 60 minute classroom session staged encounters with interrelated items from our strongest civil rights movement collection.
14:11:11 Teach archives, was an award winning program created by Brooklyn Historical Society.
14:11:23 The principles are to define specific learning objectives thoughtfully select individual documents.
14:11:28 Designed tailored small group activities and model document analysis through specific prompts.
14:11:36 I'll put a link to the full lesson plan outline in the chat.
14:11:43 Let me see if I can bring it up here,
14:11:49 here's a
14:11:53 link to the lesson plan
14:12:02 in small groups, using worksheets designed specifically for this exercise, students practice key skills in primary source literacy.
14:12:11 We use the 2018 ACR LSA, that's an association of college and Research Libraries society and American archivists guidelines for primary source literacy.
14:12:26 We use these to create session goals and paid special attention to understanding provenance and evaluating creators biases.
14:12:35 And this next slide is an excerpt from my journal that I kept during this semester, it was a requirement of the internship that I wish I was, you know, fulfilling with this fellowship.
14:12:49 I'm glad I kept this journal because it was really interesting to look back on and preparing for for this presentation.
14:12:58 So
14:13:01 I tried to define the learning objectives. First, which was my reading of this teacher archives work philosophy.
14:13:07 But I felt like I needed to collaborate more closely with the history professor, but it wasn't as easy as I'd hoped.
14:13:16 Here's another excerpt from my journal from from about three weeks out from the document analysis exercise.
14:13:26 I felt like time was running out.
14:13:29 And, and after some discussion I got a basically a free pass from the professor, do the exercises, as I pleased.
14:13:37 But my journal reminds me that I was wishing for more help from her and coming up with the learning objectives.
14:13:45 I think I was working through a tough question that anyone who does archival instruction faces which is what's the balance between autonomy and collaboration,
14:14:00 what we ended up doing was that any and I chose the collection first and then created learning objectives.
14:14:08 And then selecting the documents, out of the collection that we chose the collection that the learning objectives are here on the screen there I'll send the lesson plan that I made to the collection we chose to work with was donated to us by a, an alumni
14:14:28 who volunteered at the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964, who collected documents and make photographs.
14:14:36 In addition to organizing, one of the famous freedom schools, which were alternative free schools for African Americans.
14:14:44 Freedom Summer primarily a voter registration drives was organized by an ideologically diverse coalition of civil rights groups, including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or cynic Congress of Racial Equality also nice core.
14:15:03 Congress of Racial Equality, also known as core. Martin Luther King Junior's Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the local n double A CP.
14:15:11 So I'm going to put a link in the chat to the worksheets, it did.
14:15:15 I would have liked to shown some of the documents, but they're not all digitize.
14:15:25 We'll get to one of them shortly.
14:15:28 Here are the worksheets
14:15:39 careers those.
14:15:43 As I continue to talk.
14:15:47 Just talk while I show some photos from our session,
14:15:54 which is not coming up.
14:15:58 Well, Let's go back let's see.
14:16:02 Well it looks pretty similar. These are photos this me had longer hair time.
14:16:07 So the five items I chose for students to analyze displayed a variety of possible perspectives audiences and purposes.
14:16:16 They were won an essay by a freedom, school student imagining slavery to a racist letter from a local politician in the Ohio town or the volunteers home their orientation.
14:16:31 Three and issue of a freedom school student newspaper for an official premiere on Mississippi State Government notable for everything that didn't say about how state government was run in Mississippi, and five notes from Sonic staff, observing tensions
14:16:52 between local black organizers and white volunteers are mostly college students from the north.
14:17:00 Each worksheet asked tailored questions asking students to be careful observers at the content and tone to consider the possible audiences and their responses to encountering these documents at the time.
14:17:17 The documents context within the larger collection archive archives itself.
14:17:24 Each worksheet finished with the same prompts. What questions, does the document raise that leaves unanswered.
14:17:32 Students were also asked to reflect on their own aspect of experiences of this account of this encounter.
14:17:38 and to make connections with other parts of their so this.
14:17:43 So let's look at one example on the screen here.
14:17:47 This is, let's look at this form and letter.
14:17:51 This is a letter within a letter
14:17:55 given to are sent out to the college student volunteers can see that from the top, and then quotes in for another letter from a few days prior.
14:18:09 And I'll just give us a 30 seconds or so of quiet to read the letter.
14:18:15 If you're curious I don't like when people put stuff already set up on the slides and then just talk straight over it so I'll give you a minute to read it.
14:18:23 It's interesting.
14:19:16 Just put in the chat the link specifically to the worksheet that accompany this item for the students.
14:19:24 I think this letter and the worksheet really exemplify what we're going for. In this session.
14:19:31 If you refer to the worksheet, you can see that the questions address this letter within the letters, multiple perspectives on the same event.
14:19:40 And also ask students to create a timeline to articulate the stated purpose of the letter which suggests that this can be critiqued, And to imagine the impact that had on the recipients.
14:19:52 All of these are core questions for developing primary source literacy and doing historical research
14:20:02 that this was an overall very good experience in the classroom.
14:20:10 After the document analysis exercise.
14:20:13 I spent the rest of the semester doing a few things. One of them was research tutorials, one on one with each of the students in the seminar. We a lot of 60 minutes for them.
14:20:26 And every tutorial went the full 60 minutes.
14:20:30 There were about 12 or 13 students in this class actually had trouble finding a record of how many exactly there were, but testament.
14:20:40 We had a special focus in these tutorials on accessing and understanding digitized archival collections online, such as the sneak digital gateway, which I have an image for up here.
14:20:53 Though we were open to students using our own QC archives for their research, two reasons cause us to not push students towards that option and certainly not to require it.
14:21:04 The first was access the document analysis exercise was a staged encounter. And for students to be successful in researching in our archives would have required some additional training in navigating the physical archives that we just didn't have time
14:21:19 to teach.
14:21:21 We made this decision in consultation with the seminar professor.
14:21:25 The second reason was that many students wanted to research topic areas beyond the scope of our collection, and it was pretty broad seminar. After all, American the 1960s
14:21:36 Now work like this is never a solo effort. So for this part of the fellowship. I preparation included reviewing primary source research strategies with our history, subject specialist librarian.
14:21:48 Shout out.
14:21:54 Last but not least assessment.
14:21:56 We wanted to get student feedback, of course, and we did.
14:22:02 After the analysis exercise, I created a survey for students based on ACR L's primary source guidelines and put the link to the survey in the chat right now if you'd like to do the survey.
14:22:16 And then I'll share a few of the results.
14:22:24 We also had our colleagues review some of our work in a staff meeting and exit interview that I had with the archivist one missing piece of this was faculty review and the personal journal which I've already mentioned it or some other documents from the
14:22:44 same collections as Stokely Carmichael on the right here.
14:22:48 And this is a math Mississippi, how the organization's divvied up the state for this big historic campaign.
14:23:00 So, highlights from the student survey.
14:23:05 You know 100% of the survey students reported that document analysis exercise improve their ability to critically evaluate the perspective of the creators of a primary source.
14:23:21 A three said they handled archival material for the very first time during the seminar.
14:23:28 And the same amount said they would enjoy spending more time on exercises that use archives.
14:23:34 So obviously a small sample but the results were promising.
14:23:39 I mentioned also.
14:23:42 The colleague review.
14:23:45 We hadn't compare worksheets to the professional standards on primary source literacy next interview with the head archivists identified the following areas for improvement.
14:23:56 The reference appointments lacked a firm pedagogical basis, as well as any formalized assessment.
14:24:03 And although there was a significant amount of collaboration between, Annie and the history professor to establish the fellowship, well before I entered the picture.
14:24:12 When we look back we agreed that we needed more time working with the faculty on learning objectives. Before this semester began.
14:24:22 The last piece of this fellowship, was a little bit of outreach, I helped me build a teaching with archives live guide for faculty are interested in doing more of this
14:24:33 in the future.
14:24:36 That's gratifying to look back and see how much I enjoy working with undergraduates and doing instruction, and in my fourth semester now, as an adjunct instruction librarian, leading workshops on library research and information literacy for first year
14:24:52 students.
14:24:54 And this was a huge played a huge part in that and I think it's a replicable program that can get real results at archival institutions of all different sizes.
14:25:35 Wonderful. Well thank you for three wonderful panelists you've given us certainly a lot to think about and moreover, I see that there were some questions in the q&a that Ben did go ahead and respond to but Ben did you want to kind of book
14:25:35 end on time.
14:25:36 Ben did you want to kind of summarize the questions and the responses.
14:25:41 Sure, so quickly the two questions I had first was on what I used to develop my graphs.
14:25:49 And I replied that I used Google charts which, as I mentioned is is an open source product that's developed by Google free to use. And again, this is all coming from my lack of expertise in this.
14:26:00 I as opposed to using a dedicated thing to develop graphs I literally copy templates over from Google use their documentation to put in my own stuff I didn't use an external database that I linked it to I just typed it all up in HTML.
14:26:13 The second question was, how much progress has been made on the keys and collection has it started out as an open source project or wasn't made open source at one point, and I just to summarize the keys and collection is primarily the physical materials
14:26:25 itself. It's mostly processed but we get more material every year so it's something that's in process, all the time.
14:26:32 The digital prototype discussed is a supplement to that but not the project itself, the project itself is mostly determined through dr Qiang and other co collaborators.
14:26:48 Thanks, Ben for something. Summing that up.
14:26:55 Ah, I'm going to give people some time to put some questions in the q amp a, but I did, I have a question. And this is for all of you.
14:27:03 And you can sort of customize it in the way you you wish.
14:27:08 And that is, you all are kind of working on projects that involve evolution, sort of intersection of approaches with open openness and engagement.
14:27:18 I wonder how much of that you've seen reflected in the, the, the students, faculty, staff, that you are working with.
14:27:29 You can talk about that, that's my first question.
14:27:40 So, I will start. I will say that this research was done, kind of, beginning of my first semester of grad school really trying to bring together, my knowledge of depth studies with archival theory and mixing it together so I will say that project in itself,
14:27:56 didn't really interact with other people.
14:27:59 But as I'm looking forward and working on my capstone research which I'm finishing up at this moment.
14:28:05 This research has definitely informed, how I want to have this intersection between dance and bringing dance into the archives and dancers I should say into the archives, and dance material, making sure it's brought into the classroom because typically
14:28:21 dances and oral tradition, so I will say that this intersection ality has really well this obviously as Max said was done a long time ago has really informed the rest of my research in grad school.
14:28:36 Good.
14:28:40 I will just add to that that with my own research. This has been kind of open and very good ways but then trying to balance degrees of openness.
14:28:48 It was great that having a project like this, so I'm going to musicologist by trade that you know as pivoting into archives.
14:28:56 So being able to go to our faculty party and pull this up on my phone. A lot of faculty were like wow like I wish we had this material for our Janet classes like, it's great.
14:29:05 And you know, fostering those connections to our broader institutional partners is always like a great thing that you know, I think these kinds of things can really make it more clear how directly useful we are even to people teaching undergraduates,
14:29:16 so that we can continue those partnerships. And then on the far other end of openness. So Dr Qiang his namesake I work with.
14:29:24 He when designing this project, wanted to go for radical accessibility to the point where on the fact he was like I want everyone commenting I want anyone can edit this, I want everyone to be able to add songs.
14:29:37 Discography he truly wanted this to just be out there, and it put us in a position of trying to balance both the goals of having this be open but also making it still useful and meaningful to the widest amount of people possible.
14:29:54 Okay.
14:29:54 max. There's a question for you. And could you speak a bit more about your assessment tool.
14:30:05 Unfortunately, no, this was the weakest part of the fellowship, our assessment was the extent of our assessment was what I shared in the presentation.
14:30:20 Thank you.
14:30:23 I guess my next question is what's next for all of you all. Recent or nearly graduated graduates.
14:30:37 So as I said I'm going to be graduating in May, and I will actually be moving to Tampa, Florida, and I will be hopefully trying to find a job as artists, once I moved there.
14:30:47 So if anyone in the panel does anyone to Tampa, please feel free to connect to me.
14:30:51 Even though I know barbaric at the but right now I'm finishing my capstone research which is actually one of the virtual poster presentations for me.
14:31:00 So I can drop a link in the chat if anyone's interested but it's creating a primary source resource for K through 12 dance educators, and I will drop that in the chat, as well, and make sure I actually send it to everybody and not just the panelists the
14:31:12 sun.
14:31:14 I think you I'm sure the audience will appreciate that.
14:31:21 looking, looking for that illusive full time job.
14:31:25 So yeah, DMV.
14:31:31 But my interest.
14:31:43 But I've also continued to do some primary source literacy instruction, using archives.
14:31:50 Thanks to Annie for continuing to give me opportunities to do that.
14:31:57 And then I've also presented done some research for my capstone project that graduated last year, and from this class of 2020 into clarity and labor in archives industry, check presented locally here.
14:32:16 So, either one of those tracks, probably, describe my near future. In, in libraries and archives.
14:32:29 And to echo everyone else. Yeah, going after a full time job.
14:32:41 In the short term I'm continuing to work as a private archivist at Maryland. I have a quick shout out to a presenter tomorrow. Christina Taylor Gibson and I had been working on a podcast exploring the American band masters Association, it's going to debut
14:32:49 soon so I've we've really been doing like everything promote that we can have a much larger digital exhibit that will be announced soon through Maryland, and then you know finishing my dissertation and trying to find full time work in the DC area.
14:33:04 So, basically two full time jobs, this rotating and telephones me.
14:33:11 I envy you all not but I, I, listening to, to the projects that you're working on. I certainly like to work with you and learn from you.
14:33:25 There's a question for Marissa says I have no expertise on ballet or dance, let alone, African dance but the question is about Broadway. And let's see the production of this nice Lion King.
14:33:39 What are your personal scholarly observations about it, you consider it a step forward step backwards sidestep.
14:33:49 Well, I do have to say that I might be biased but the Lion King is one of my favorite Broadway productions.
14:33:54 So I do really love that production there's so much power that comes from that production. And I do believe that it might be because they do at least in the voice part.
14:34:05 Not as much in the dance part but in the vocals that they use, they do bring more of the African tradition.
14:34:12 But even that you can see in the, what you think the Disney movie, The Lion King was made by running around, they bring more of that into the Broadway production.
14:34:18 The dance is definitely more informed by the classical Western dance tradition.
14:34:26 But because of the puppetry, but it's just the majority of the Broadway show, there is less stance, but the dance that there is still that Western tradition.
14:34:35 So I would say it's in the middle, it's looking in the right direction. But when it comes to movement, American dances still just really stuck on European traditions.
14:34:46 When it comes to Broadway or entertainment dance. And so if there's still a lot of steps for that needs to happen.
14:35:03 Okay.
14:35:07 Just double checking the q amp a here,
14:35:12 and Jenny you can help me out I I
14:35:18 don't, I don't think I see any more questions.
14:35:26 Okay. Jenny says no more questions.
14:35:30 But let me just check quickly there too. There's some comments in the chat, where everyone is thanking you for a wonderful presentation and I concur with those sentiments.