10:39:21 As for the archives, the University Archives was established in 1966 as a unit within the Special Collections department, and in 1979, the archives service center was formed when the administration for the archives of industrial society which was in the
10:39:33 history department. The United Electrical Workers Union archive and University Archives for centralized to form this one department.
10:39:44 At the same time, at the time, I'm sorry. The new unit share to space in the main library with the Special Collections department.
10:39:52 So one of the predictions from Aaron's book is a use of off site non traditional library building spaces for processing and digitization activities and storage, and in 2000 the archives service center moved to an off campus building, whereas collections
10:40:05 and staff could be housed under one roof.
10:40:08 The university's records management program was also transitioned from an in house program within the business services office in the university to a third party off site storage provider that had records manager in the library system that then oversaw
10:40:21 those responsibilities.
10:40:27 Another of errands predictions was the centralization of library departments that manage unique collections in 2017 the archive service center and Special Collections department merge to form the Archives and Special Collections department with reading
10:40:41 rooms and collections storage both in the main library and the office, off campus locations.
10:40:46 This allowed us to streamline and standardize our services and practices capitalize on the expertise of both units and make connections between special and archival collections that have not been as apparent when the units were separate.
10:41:00 Immediately after the merger we began to plan for renovated space in the main library, which allowed the Archives and Special Collections to reimagine how we present ourselves to the public and promote new areas of emphasis.
10:41:11 The fully renovated space was scheduled for a soft opening when students returned from spring break in 2020, but the pandemic had other plans like it did for for many projects throughout the country.
10:41:21 The students were asked not to come back to campus during spring break, and while the space is ready to go. We have yet to fully realize its potential.
10:41:29 The new space that you can see on the slide includes a large exposition expert exhibition area that provides for low barrier engagement by allowing visitors to interact with collection materials without the archivist intervention.
10:41:42 In addition to traditional exhibit cases there's also a large digital screen that you can see in the center of the photo that allows multiple visitors hands on interaction with several exhibits of archival content.
10:41:54 The space also includes a large classroom dedicated to Archives and Special Collections class visits, which were numbering around 70 and the pre pandemic academic year.
10:42:03 And that's at the far end of the hallway that you can see in the photo, and that classroom can also double as event space when needed.
10:42:12 So now I'm going to review some of the ways that pit archives measured up, specifically to some events predictions. First we're going to take a look at a few ways that are archivist participate as collaborators.
10:42:25 The first way is by making the archives a place of reckoning.
10:42:29 The university has fielded a few complaints concerning building namesakes and the archive played a central role in evaluating the lives of those individuals archivists not only supply documents for review.
10:42:56 write their histories to celebrate anniversaries, but we also help them think about related efforts like oral history projects, and the associated permissions and rights and paperwork that kind of comes along with all of that.
10:43:08 Working with the University of art gallery curator the fine arts librarian and archives PhD student. I also let an effort to catalog and document campus artwork.
10:43:17 Through this collaboration we influence the founding of a campus public art committee and hope that our work will result in better documentation of works moving forward, and will mobilize campus or for pedagogical use.
10:43:29 Speaking of pedagogy, teaching with primary sources has become popular activity in our department, or sometimes these class visits amounts of the traditional show and tell sessions, increasingly, we work with professors as well as high school teachers
10:43:42 to develop exercises that get students thinking about the records records creators and information they encounter, through our archival scholars researcher word, we also have the opportunity to spend an entire semester engaging a small group of undergrads
10:43:55 We also had the opportunity to spend an entire semester engaging a small group of undergrads and extensive archival research and teaching them research techniques.
10:44:03 Several of the areas of greatest opportunity that Aaron identified in this book pertain to electronic records and how they impact our skills is archivists and our processes.
10:44:12 Well this topic has been on our minds for a number of years, we have just the last few years made real headway in digital archives and preservation.
10:44:19 When I became University archivist I thought that the University Archives would open doors for electronic email and web archives because we were the only collecting area in the archives that's mandated by the university to fulfill those collecting responsibilities.
10:44:31 And so we were in the best position to get institutional support for those new activities and resources that we needed.
10:44:38 However, at the time had had a lot of old school senior administrators that still relied heavily on paper records or pronounce of electronic records. And so the push to address electronic records wasn't strong enough from senior administration.
10:44:50 Instead developments in digital archives and preservation workflows and procedures were driven by bigger name collections that weren't affiliated with the university, like the George Romero archive.
10:44:59 One area of the University Archives did influence though was the introduction of web archiving, we were able to make the case that many of the publications the archives traditionally collected on paper, had moved online.
10:45:09 And so web archiving was necessary to fulfill our mandate to collect this information, and then Luckily, you know the timing was right because this became so important when we start to document the coven pandemic.
10:45:21 The biggest development in this area of electronic archives there was the hiring of the digital archives and preservation librarian to oversee the development and management of our digital archives and preservation concerns the implementation of preserve
10:45:34 ago and workflows for ingesting processing and preserving collections, is probably going to have a huge impact on our unit and the the next few years.
10:45:45 Another of errands identified opportunities was documenting the diversity of society, and I've spent my time as University archivist trying to acquire and promote collections that document the variety of people that make up the campus community.
10:46:08 document student life I began attending the annual Student Activities fair to introduce myself and the archives to organizations that tend to be influential or represent under document in groups. I also develop the student organization records toolkit to provide best practice information for groups that want to maintain their
10:46:14 organizations records and offer the archives that was a resource to answer their questions and if they choose the repository for their records.
10:46:21 One major donation from these efforts was the records of the rainbow Alliance, which is pits oldest and largest organization for LGBT q students last few years included a series of 50th anniversary celebrations pertaining to the rise of African American
10:46:37 students and their influence at the University of Pittsburgh.
10:46:40 The black action society formed in 1968 and organized to sit in. In January of 1969 to advocate for more diverse student body and faculty, these celebrations allow the archives to collaborate with black alumni on events and exhibits that featured our
10:46:54 collections, as well as a call for alumni to donate items to the archive and gathering materials for a time capsule.
10:47:01 We also tried to shed some light on the experience of women on campus, we process the records of the Women's Studies program is the gateway to learn more about the concerns of women on campus, and also work with a course that gathers information about
10:47:12 women and campus life before they interview alumni from 15 years ago.
10:47:17 We also recently mounted an exhibit on the history of women students and faculty at Pitt, as a way to celebrate the hundred and 25th anniversary of the graduation of the first women from the university.
10:47:29 So after reflecting on how our archives evolved over the last decade, I tried to think about what academic archives might look like a decade from now.
10:47:37 I think it'd be impossible to deny the impact coven 19 has had on all of us.
10:47:42 Previously, we've spent so much time reshaping our work to emphasize outreach and engagement. But when we couldn't meet in person and kind of like, threw us for a loop in 2013, I suspect will be on the other side of a new sort of digitization wave based
10:47:56 on the ones and the needs of archivist and users during the pandemic as a response to the question what we need to access from home, but couldn't.
10:48:04 I also think we'll see more digital outreach as many of us have become more comfortable presenting and attending online events.
10:48:10 This might also include class sessions that used to visit us in person.
10:48:15 But my chance to incorporate more online or hybrid learning in response to the experiences of the last year.
10:48:20 I think in general. We're all a bit more comfortable now with documenting that now, right.
10:48:25 So what we generally take a passive approach to collecting and kind of catch things after the fact, documenting the covert experience for the soul to collect in the moment.
10:48:32 And I think that being comfortable with that will help us expand our collecting efforts moving forward.
10:48:37 The other two predictions are really just a continuation of trends we're already seeing an archives today, and they were both are interrelated.
10:48:43 The first is engaged in the community through increased outreach and more post custodial relations with community members. And in addition to continuing to collect and support the, the preservation of records from underrepresented communities more archivists
10:48:56 than ever will become more comfortable in mobilizing these collections in the pursuit of social justice, through storytelling events and other means. All this community input.
10:49:06 Thanks so much for listening and I look forward to your questions at the end of the session.
10:49:43 Sorry shared the wrong screen.
10:50:12 I'm just gonna have to go for it. Okay.
10:50:14 Sorry about that everybody.
10:50:17 Good morning and thank you for joining us for some perspectives on academic archives, I am representing experiences and a small academic archives, and I've titled My talk today the not so alone arranger because as you'll see, even though I'm technically
10:50:31 a lone ranger.
10:50:33 As the only archivist on my campus. I have a role in place in a variety of communities, both on and off campus. So I'm not entirely alone. I will be speaking today about some of the unexpected communities I found myself a part of as an archivist and a
10:50:47 small academic archives.
10:50:56 I grew up in Kingston Pennsylvania about 15 minutes away from where I'm sitting right now. I started my college education, it will sell University in Philadelphia, which is a Christian Brothers school, and one like, much like this recording to my previous
10:51:08 work experience and graduate education, were done entirely at r1 institutions. I came to this recording in September 2016. Five years ago I was faced with several rather large transitions from our one to a small liberal arts institution, from public land,
10:51:24 land grant institutions to a Catholic base Catholic mission base University, and from large Special Collections departments to being a lone ranger with one staff member, and sometimes students.
10:51:38 Mr Gordy It was founded as college Mr accordion by the religious Sisters of Mercy in 1924, their religious sisters and mercy were founded by a Catholic late woman named Katherine McCauley and 1831 in Ireland, her mission was to primarily help the women
10:51:49 and girls of Dublin, which is a pretty awful place in the 19th century.
10:51:54 Long story short, she started her own religious order and became a sister of RC Sisters of Mercy branched out from Dublin across Ireland to England and to the United States throughout the 19th century.
10:52:06 The Dallas community was established in 1924 with the opening of the mother house initiate a high school, and the college, all in one building this one, which was renamed or C Hall in 2002 in recognition of the Sisters of Mercy and as a reminder of the
10:52:19 values that guide the schools Mission
10:52:23 College Mr accordion opened almost 100 years later, on the same day in the same spirit as the first house, House of mercy in Dublin, to provide educational and occupational opportunities, and training for young women.
10:52:35 It's changed greatly in the subsequent 100 years, becoming coeducational 1979 expanding from its original 99 and 250, acres to 123 acres currently in gain university status in 2007.
10:52:50 Mr cornea is one of 17 colleges and universities in the United States sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy, and part of the conference of mercy for higher conference for mercy higher education, which oversees the role of Mercy.
10:52:59 Mercy mission at these institutions.
10:53:03 These recordings archives is relatively young compared to the age of the school. There are customers officially established in 1990, and then known only as the archives and name for Sister Mary karma McGarrigle its first archivist in 1997 sister karma
10:53:16 first had been a member of the faculty of the music department, but she also shared for about 20 years, when the music department closed at the college in 1988 sister karma was given another assignment, which was to become the school's first archivist
10:53:28 and establish the archives.
10:53:30 She took this, she took on this task as diligently and meticulously as she did all things. She said out to document and preserve what the history of the school at which she worked and had attended and the legacy of the Sisters of Mercy, who founded and
10:53:43 shaped it for nearly half a century, it was recording archives, it was as much a documentary effort of the school as it was the heritage of the sisters.
10:53:51 It was recorded University Archives currently contains approximately, approximately 250 named and numbered record groups in manuscript collections collections include department office and unit records, as well as publications faculty papers alumni collections
10:54:05 are because of the Sisters of Mercy will abort of Wilkes Barre chapter material from student clubs and the Center for nursing history of northeastern Pennsylvania collection.
10:54:14 Most of the collections are stored here in the Americans, but we know library, with additional space and another building that hold some of the larger items from the Center for nursing history collection.
10:54:24 And now much more fully acquainted with why Lone Ranger's tend to use the word journey when they describe what they do.
10:54:30 A lone ranger is the tongue in cheek term for an archive that has only one professional archivist with students volunteers and other staff frequently making up the rest of the crew.
10:54:39 If there is a crew at all.
10:54:54 According to Russell Coursera. In the 2013 Society of American archivist presentation. The term Lone Ranger may very well have originated right here with Merak in the literature Lone Ranger sometimes meditate on having to believe in their experience and
10:54:56 education and get the job done on their own, some of whom have made a transition like I did, and yet others who started out on their own. It can be daunting, standing on your own without the backup you're used to having, whether that's from colleagues,
10:55:06 or in one's own degree program without the shared agreement that Archives and Special Collections are important and necessary to a campus, and without the necessary resources to get the job genome done is a journey, it is both personal and professional.
10:55:22 For me, starting my journey as a lone ranger was made both easier and more difficult having spent most of my career in education at a large at large research institutions, easier because of what wonderful colleagues mentoring and training, training and
10:55:35 access to resources I have had. And really the easy access to all of those things. Someone who knew what you did was always there. I brought all of those experiences with me to bear and my solo act more difficult because I know now what I no longer have
10:55:48 the loss of whatsoever has encouraged me to not only be appreciate more appreciative of our professional network of archivist, but also more proactive in cultivating collaborative opportunities to the new roles I've taken on
10:56:02 in 2008 million mayor and others were evaluating where the profession had been in the previous 30 years and considering where it was going. Mayor rightly noted that not only have academic archives not still, but neither has higher education.
10:56:15 He emphasized the need for archives to be quote active agents in the learning process rather than trusted witnesses of the past that are patiently waiting to be discovered and examined archive should continue he wrote to document the ever diversifying
10:56:37 institutional and cultural record of academia to maintain a user focused relevance in a student focused active learning focused educational environment. Well mayor's argument was for archivists to remain archivist Aaron Purcell would say a few years later in 2012
10:56:44 in 2012 that quote the next wave of archivists will possess the skills of a librarian, an archivist, a scholar with a subject specialty and a digital technician errands predictions for archivists in the future took a holistic approach with archivist as
10:56:56 in the multiple roles want to can have an academic institution, and the emphasis we place on these values that are shared across academia.
10:57:05 I wear several hats in my library. And this was one of one large part of my transition from r1 to a small institution, the departments in which I worked at both the University of Maryland and Delaware were like libraries within the library.
10:57:18 Moving to Mr Accordia I had to learn about all aspects of the academic library reference and instruction Access Services Technical Services purchasing materials, my knowledge of which was previously limited to the nature of special collections.
10:57:33 Here it was recorded I hold a dual role as archivist and a librarian. I'm responsible for several subject areas, including all of the humanities and psychology, for which I teach information literacy sessions, work with faculty and oversee those areas
10:57:45 of the collection. I provide general research and reference services, and also in depth assistance to students and faculty and my liaison areas. I collaborate with our other librarians and workshops and instruction orientation sessions for students approaches
10:57:58 to information literacy assessment and marketing of services as head of the archives I'm also a manager and part of the library's management team, along with the library director and other department heads as part of the management team I contribute to
10:58:12 decision making and policy creation at the highest level.
10:58:16 When I first arrived in this recording I inherited a grant project with the Center for Independent Colleges Consortium on digital resources for teaching and research, which was hosted on what was then chair shelf comments now digital now Jay store forum.
10:58:28 The Center for nursing history photograph collection was prioritized for this digitization project for access and preservation purposes to reach wider audiences and to establish a deep stable digital environment for regionally significant collection.
10:58:43 Since 2017, I have worked to refine the collections contents descriptions and ensure appropriate metadata standards. I've even worked with members of the nursing community, alumni of the various nursing schools represented in the center's collection for
10:58:56 better, better item description, a project I presented on it at Merrick in 2018.
10:59:08 I'm now in the process of transitioning the question once again to a new platform misreporting digital comments or institutional repository.
10:59:19 Doctor of Nursing Practice program. Digital Commons is a beat press product, which is crawled by Google and other search engines, as part of the Pennsylvania research comments, along with other Pennsylvania schools that use the platform.
10:59:28 I became responsible for managing this recording Digital Commons. I'm going to have expanded it to include students scholarship Special Collections and Archives material and meta data records for staff and faculty publications, student posters have been
10:59:41 especially successful initially uploaded into the repository as an online alternative during spring 2020. As of the end of February 2021 items from the student poster series have been downloaded over 1500 times in 94 countries by individuals and over
10:59:56 400 institutions, including government agencies corporations and several hospital. Hospital systems.
11:00:04 I've also instituted the use of omega.net for digital exhibits. I previously worked with a mecca at the University of Delaware, which had its own hosted instance, we have a great IT department at Missouri cornea, but it serves the entire university and
11:00:16 could not accommodate the locally hosted version of a mecca limited IT support combined with my own very limited programming case capabilities, makes the omega.net version a great solution.
11:00:26 I have two instances, one for the University Archives and one for the Center for nursing history,
11:00:33 greater focus on information archival literacy and the ways in which primary and secondary sources intertwine and student learning, particularly in higher education, have led to the formalization of our own standards alongside these are off AC RL framework
11:00:45 for information literacy in my subject areas I not only teach students about conducting secondary research, but also primary research source research, how to find primary sources, how to interpret them and how to bring secondary research to bear on that
11:00:59 interpretation. I have been embedded into courses, not only as a librarian but also as an archivist active learning and inquiry based opportunities in and outside of the classroom are becoming increasingly important sought after one class I serve as both
11:01:14 liaison librarian archivists for is the introductory course in the medical and health humanities program, medical and health humanities is an interdisciplinary program that began at MIT or misreporting in 2016 to offer quote abroad educational experience.
11:01:28 The challenges students to view healthcare through the lens of cultural familial philosophical spiritual mental and social conditions.
11:01:35 This class uses items from the Center for nursing history collection for material culture assignment, during which students interrogate everyday objects using the caregiving capacity.
11:01:44 I taught this session in assignment entirely virtually in 2020 over zoom using breakouts that breakout rooms and digitize photographs for the classroom activity, and with wonderful photographs which you can see here, of collection items taken by a talented
11:01:57 colleague and alumni relations as my curated options for the students papers.
11:02:01 I use our learning management system to share photos, share item photos and descriptions with the students and professor.
11:02:08 In addition to the usual assignment questions, students were also asked to address the challenges of an entirely digital material culture assignment.
11:02:15 Many archivists and Special Collections librarians and amazing things this year adapting to teaching virtually and ensuring students are still able to engage with archives.
11:02:25 I've also worked with faculty for academic camps for high school students. I've worked with the English department faculty for lit camp to engage students in creative writing activities based around objects from the archives.
11:02:36 For the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein in 2018. I held sessions for the students in which they learned about how everyday objects in the archives can lead us to ask questions about what it means to be human.
11:02:46 Just as Mary Shelley considers the human condition through the creature and Victor Frankenstein stories. We held the scary story contest, like the one from 1816 that generated the idea for Frankenstein.
11:02:56 Each story was based around an object from the archives.
11:03:01 Another year stainless detective fiction, a covered aspects of the genre and the ways in which have developed alongside advances in forensic technology in the 19th and 20th centuries.
11:03:10 I introduced concepts of concepts of archives as evidence and students were tasked with writing with working on their descriptive skills by writing about objects from the archives.
11:03:22 I also supervise undergraduate interns and student volunteers in the archives. But in terms of process collections transcribed oral histories, written and edited metadata and curated digital exhibits supervising and mentoring students as a role that's
11:03:34 very special to me, as I've been lucky enough to have wonderful mentors throughout my career, I consider our profession one of mentors, everyone has had helped gotten great advice, has been supported.
11:03:45 And it's important to continue paying it forward.
11:03:49 The largest special collection house in the recording archives is the Center for nursing history, establishing a collection of materials through the center as an organization is one way in which it fulfills its mission of documenting the areas nursing
11:04:00 history, and giving voice to nurses educational and training experiences. In this way the center acts as a community archive.
11:04:08 And part of that community through management of the special collection interacting with current and potential donors alumni of the nursing schools represented in the collection and raising awareness of the significant local history collection.
11:04:20 I manage the center's Facebook page, where I share updates on processing, the digital collection in turn in student posts and ask for help identifying people locations and medical equipment.
11:04:29 I do not have a medical background, and one thing I've learned from interacting with this community is that nurses have no problem telling you when you're wrong.
11:04:38 Finally I collaborate with offices on campus, particularly the Office of alumni relations for their activities and marketing, I provided them with trivia questions for events photos for social media posts and projects and participate in Alumni Weekend
11:04:50 events.
11:04:51 I mentioned previously that Ms recording is one of 17 colleges and universities in the United States that were founded and are now sponsored by the sisters mercy.
11:05:00 Part of this recording is archives is the history of the sisters, whose mother House initiative established the Dallas community and operated the college for most of its life.
11:05:08 I've collaborated with the Office for mercy integration on campus.
11:05:12 To use the archives and mercy week activities, including presentations permanent photo installations. And this past year a display on the roles of the sisters during times of crisis.
11:05:21 Mercy week is an important yearly tradition, a time for reflection and giving back, and especially important for new students and becoming acquainted with the mercy mission and opportunities for service.
11:05:33 Academic archives will continue to change alongside higher education, and in our new timeline, some changes are coming swiftly. We have been preparing for many of these changes, however and are adapting as quickly as they come as the last year has shown
11:05:44 us archivists or nothing if not adaptable.
11:05:48 As a really not so alone arranger in a small academic archives and a small library. I see my personal growth and that profession continuing to focus on users, particularly on students through technology standardization community engagement and teaching
11:06:01 a close with a quote from William Mayor that I liked very much as he looked back at 30 years of academic archives and as we look ahead at the next 30.
11:06:10 But as we face the future, we should take solace direction and inspiration from the fact that we can don't do no worse than our predecessors did in struggling with what seemed to them.
11:06:19 More than they could manage, but like them. We also must be prepared to take at least a hand hold on all of the new challenges that keep coming at us.
11:06:28 And thank you.
11:06:34 Very good, thank you. Marine.
11:06:38 Our next presenter, that we're going to transition to is Marilyn parish.
11:06:48 Thank you, Aaron.
11:06:50 It's great to be here today with all of you.
11:06:54 go ahead with my presentation.
11:06:58 I'm Marilyn Parrish. I'm the Special Collections librarian and university archivist at Millers Ville University.
11:07:05 This is the end of my 18th year at Milledgeville and as Aaron mentioned, I will be retiring next month. And so it's been very interesting to put this presentation together thinking about all the ways things have changed over that time that Miller's will.
11:07:24 So just to give you a little bit of context for Miller's though we are part of the State System of Higher Education Pennsylvania, the former state on normal schools in the state.
11:07:37 We were founded in 1855, co educational from the beginning.
11:07:43 Located in South Central Pennsylvania about an hour and a half west of Philadelphia.
11:07:48 We have over 100 programs, undergraduate through doctoral level, and about 7500 students, including both undergrads and graduates. About 22.5% of our student body are students of color.
11:08:07 our archives in special collections at Miller's Phil was established in the 1960s, the archivist reported directly to the president at that time.
11:08:19 A variety of people were in place.
11:08:23 Over time until I began in 2002.
11:08:28 Like you we manage unique content and collections we facilitate student learning. We develop collaborative partnerships on campus in the community.
11:08:39 We ground our work in an inclusion clues, inclusive excellence framework. And we also have a role in leading from the archives for university and library initiatives.
11:08:55 So those are some of the areas that will be looking at together today and connected somewhat to some of errands predictions.
11:09:05 In our Archives and Special Collections, I am the one faculty member of the one archivist. I'm also the subject librarian for history and music and African American Studies.
11:09:16 So I have other hats as well. We have one archives technician one temporary staff member, and about 10 to 12 students at any given point in time summer Student Assistance summer student interns are focused on specific projects.
11:09:33 Over the past year I found myself in the position of having to make the case for why Archives and Special Collections matters to the university repeatedly plans to replace me and my position are uncertain, at this point.
11:09:49 And so, as I've been looking back over the changes that have taken place over the past 18 years there's a sense of urgency in which I am eager to share this same perspective, unfortunately I keep having to do this with our administrators.
11:10:04 But what we'll be doing together is looking at some of the current initiatives at Milledgeville in our Archives and Special Collections and some reflections about how they've changed over time.
11:10:18 So, in terms of managing collections, we preserve and make accessible as you all do. We have a teaching focus.
11:10:26 We engage with donors, identify new content that supports the curriculum and create new knowledge through oral history projects, collecting areas.
11:10:39 In the past, of course we have the University Archives so we're focused on collecting resources related to the archives.
11:10:48 Night 1855 to the President.
11:10:50 We also have a traditionally or a past focus has been special collections in Pennsylvania German history language and culture. The history of education, and book arts.
11:11:03 One thing that has changed over time is now we have growing collections in African American History women's history Latino history and literature children's literature, history of math, science and medicine so those are growing areas for us.
11:11:18 And like all of you we have we have, we have things that run the gamut from photographs manuscripts rare books.
11:11:26 The world histories, audio, video, and digital objects
11:11:32 are growing digital collections are accessible through our repository we're using the repository tinned, which is a repository that was developed through CERN in Switzerland.
11:11:45 In addition to what's available through our 10th repository. We also make use of a mecca for online exhibits, and we we include other resources relating to university history on our archives and social social collections Special Collections website.
11:12:04 This.
11:12:06 We have had during pandemic digital first philosophy, where we are providing digital content to students and members of the community to meet their research needs Well, the Archives and Special Collections areas is close to the public.
11:12:24 This has been challenging over the last month and a half. Due to recent network outage caused by ransomware attack. So not only did we have the pandemic but we also had ransomware attack which shut down.
11:12:44 IT systems across the university. Thankfully we now have access to our website, again, and all throughout that time we still had access to the digital repository, which was wonderful.
11:12:56 So like you. We also facilitate student learning. This happens with classes, across the curriculum, where we focus, I think initially visits to Archives and Special Collections would have been much more of the show and tell variety.
11:13:14 Now we really focus on hands on collaborative learning with primary sources, we teach students how to carry out, or oral history projects how to transcribe analyze and create presentations based on what they find when students are working with primary
11:13:35 sources.
11:13:36 I encourage them to observe and question texts and to use these as a jumping off point for research investigations. We're looking for diverse voices and perspectives.
11:13:49 Paying attention to whose voices are present, and who's are missing.
11:13:53 So a current snapshot of our instruction the instruction side of things.
11:14:00 Over the past three years, which is me I'm providing the instruction.
11:14:05 As I mentioned about 18 years ago when I began there were just a few classes that would come to Archives and Special Collections. Just take a look at the last four years, we've had over 110 classes with about 2200 students participating.
11:14:22 This is an average of about 36 sessions per year, which is usually more than 720 students that I'm engaging with with their research projects.
11:14:36 This continue through the pandemic. I had 34 primary source focus zoom classes, since the fall of 2020 had some in the spring and then again, another whole set this year, using zoom and our digital collections and using breakout rooms and share documents
11:14:57 in teams. So, lots of opportunity for continued student learning, even during the pandemic.
11:15:04 Another important area for us. I'm sure similar to to those of you is having opportunities for students to students to learn as employees or as interns within Archives and Special Collections.
11:15:17 We focus on a community of practice model where students work in teams, and teach each other things, along with help from us, of course, some of the projects that student interns are working on right now include donor funded history of computing projects
11:15:35 that will be working toward the publication of a book, as well as an online exhibit theater.
11:15:45 Several theater collections which are being processed right now. Languages and Cultures students who are trans translating and transcribing documents, and the WJL Film Archive which I'll talk about in a movement.
11:16:01 Two examples of student learning.
11:16:05 As they have evolved over time, this is, this is the women of color Oral History Project, which took place in the fall of 2020 students and collaboration with the professor teaching the Women's and Gender gender studies introductory class.
11:16:25 We wanted to together work with the students to document the experiences of women of color on Miller's those campus this follows a students of color project that took place with the African American Studies program in 2017 18 where we collected oral histories
11:16:45 with students on campus.
11:16:48 In response to increased experiences of racism and micro aggressions on campus. So this particular one in the fall, students learn how to conduct oral histories and work with me, and then working in teams of two they interviewed 12 narrators for students
11:17:08 for faculty and staff members about their experiences as women of color and Mellors bill.
11:17:14 And one of the exciting things about this project is they gave presentations at the end of the semester, and then came up with recommendations for the administration, which have since been shared with the chief diversity officer and she is planning to
11:17:29 take that the presentation to the cabinet, so that they can hear what these students are recommending about the need for specific actions relating to creating more inclusive environment at Miller So another example here is this is one of our students
11:17:50 who works in Archives and Special Collections This is a leg right.
11:17:54 She is a German and music major, and she's a great example of students who come to us and have specific areas of expertise already and interest, and we try to match them with collections that we have that need Particular attention.
11:18:11 She's working with the correspondence of the Viennese born writer and music critic Francey Asher Nash, who fled with her family following Nazi Germany's annex of Austria in 1938.
11:18:24 The family arrived in New York in 1939, and frenzy ended up living in Milledgeville the borough of Miller still at the end of her life and donated her father.
11:18:35 Her father's collection, who was a composer, as well as her own collection to build herself archives alegria is transcribing correspondence and translating from German as, so we have both will have the transcription both in German and English.
11:18:53 And so we regularly have students who are studying German working with us because we have a lot of German materials, and they translate from these documents and often they have to learn a different type of German than they're used to knowing so it's a
11:19:10 great learning opportunity for them plus it's an excellent plus for us. We collaborate with German faculty members to identify candidates for these positions and a leg or is a case where she had been thinking about education German education, initially,
11:19:26 to teach, and now she's exploring the possibility of archives for her own graduate school and future career so we feel pretty excited about that.
11:19:38 So developing collect collaborative partnerships, is another area that Aaron mentioned, and moving from 18 years ago primarily an area that related to history and English faculty members and their students.
11:19:56 You can see the wide range of departments that are represented here on the left, and faculty members who are working with us in all types of different projects that benefit students in their learning.
11:20:11 In addition, we've developed collaborative relationships with staff in offices and programs throughout the university. As you can see on the right.
11:20:24 Collaboration with cultural institutions is another important part of the work that we all do. I wanted to mention the founding of the Lancaster County digitization project back in 2004.
11:20:40 And it's it's changed now to the Pennsylvania digital cultural heritage consortium collaborative sorry.
11:20:50 And I think one of the things that's been such a great experience of with, with the members of this group as it has changed over time is that the multi type institutions that are represented which is academic and public libraries historical societies
11:21:06 museums, the State Library.
11:21:09 We all have things that we can learn from each other.
11:21:13 In terms of digitization of these unique and important cultural resources.
11:21:22 The inclusive excellence framework that I mentioned earlier, this is a statement from the Office of Diversity and social justice on our campus Archives and Special Collections has had the opportunity to collaborate with this office with a couple of different
11:21:41 initiatives.
11:21:44 In particular we hosted a together collaborated on a Black Lives Matter event in the fall where we had African American narrators who had been interviewed in previous Oral History Project share about their experiences that Miller's will in the community
11:21:59 in relation to the Black Lives Matter movement and the events of this past summer.
11:22:07 The last statement here using a social justice framework we will be actively engaged in the creation of an environment characterized by purpose, open, openness and that is just caring celebrated.
11:22:22 Those are the kinds of things that we, we are looking for in our own work within Archives and Special Collections and certainly in our collaboration with this office and with others across the university campus.
11:22:35 One example that I wanted to go into in a little bit more detail with you is the, this digitization project that we're involved in right now and it sort of typifies many of the things that the previous two presenters shared but also what we've been working,
11:22:54 what I've shared and what we've been working on.
11:22:57 The. It's the, the, the archive is from the local Hearst NBC affiliate WJL channel eight in Lancaster, and their Film Archive is 16 millimeter film that covers the years 1949 which was their founding until 1979 when they switch to a different format.
11:23:19 The the trajectory of the project and the different places. The film was housed including at one point having to be rescued from a dumpster is truly a story all in itself, but finally in the fall 2018 we, we had a signed an agreement with, as you can
11:23:40 see here, with the, the station, and we're now in the process of, of a pilot project to digitize and preserve these rare and fragile
11:23:57 and unique community resources. In addition to that, we're building a community of practice that's centered on student learning, will have three groups of students that are working with each other and learning from each other students who are taking 16
11:24:11 millimeter filmmaking classes. Students who are working in the digitization lab and students who are future teachers working on creating lesson plans for area educators to make use of the digitized film clips from the collection and scripts.
11:24:28 We continue to develop this collaborative partnership with people across campus and also with our community partner partner in this project WJL, and of course it's grounded in an inclusive excellence framework where we want to be paying attention to whose
11:24:44 voices are present and whose are missing.
11:24:47 Our current focus is the summer of 1969 1969 is our pilot year.
11:24:53 And we're looking at the protests that happened in the region, particularly in New York.
11:24:58 During that summer. There's resonance between, of course what was happening in York in 1969, which were protests against police brutality and white gang violence.
11:25:12 So similar to to what has happened across our country since that time, especially over the summer.
11:25:18 WJL is currently creating a new special. This will be airing in May, and a couple of different times they'll be, they'll be profiling things about our project, and they are also focusing on our pilot year of 1969 in their coverage.
11:25:36 News film content can help our community process recent events through examining what happened here in 1969.
11:25:43 The murder of Lily Bell Allen, who is pictured up on the right hand side in New York.
11:25:48 In July of 1969 is one of the things that happened and then we're looking currently a current.
11:25:58 This disturbing as a current case study to, to show how staff and our student intern are researching the protests in the region I def identifying previously inaccessible scripts and clips for that project.
11:26:15 So, I'm finally leading from the archives I wanted to give two examples of things that I've been privileged to be part of.
11:26:26 One of the things that I participated in was the chair of our library renovation project we had a complete gutting of the library building, and the library was closed for two years and we offered our services through a variety of other points on campus.
11:26:44 As chair of the library renovation project I was able to be integrally involved with all aspects of the project but especially things that related to Archives and Special Collections like like making sure we had dedicated enough dedicated climate controlled
11:26:58 secure storage, and a functioning. Reading Room and classroom for our growing instruction schedule.
11:27:10 In addition, I served as chair of the, of the library faculty in the library department.
11:27:16 This was an important opportunity to in addition to faculty evaluation and leadership in the department, building a collaborative partnership with the director of library operations.
11:27:30 We served as co representatives at the sea state system library meetings, and I worked with him on the strategic planning process something we hadn't done before in the library, including creating a new mission and vision statement for the library.
11:27:46 So in conclusion, how are things changed over the past 18 years at Miller's will we continue to have symbol similar areas of responsibility of course we have the responsibility for paper records we have their hospital D now.
11:28:01 Additionally for other types of records that are being generated in all types of forms, we have, we are constantly adapting to reflect the needs of our communities, the needs of students and looking for opportunities to continue to preserve unique and
11:28:15 valuable content in all formats.
11:28:19 The impact of their pandemic made it important to recognize all of the hard work that had been put into creating digital collections which are now available for students to continue learning with during the pandemic.
11:28:33 Of course it was a bit challenging with our network outage but we adapted with that as well.
11:28:39 I want to acknowledge the fine work of the archives staff, Ashley Sherman and Adam Omar are excellent students and our digital assets committee which is a collaborative group in the library that makes it possible to ingest collections into the digital
11:28:53 repository, as well as the support of the library director. I did want to mention that all of these things that we that we work at as archivists take time.
11:29:04 So, it takes time to build collections, it takes time to invest in collaborative partnerships. It takes time to pay attention to the ways in which our collections and our teaching our pedagogy is reflect an inclusive excellence framework and attend to
11:29:23 voices who might not be present.
11:29:27 One of the things I wanted to mention to you is this afternoon I will be meeting with the provost, to talk about why Archives and Special Collections matters at Marshall University.
11:29:38 So a question for all of you is how do you explain the significance of the work that you do how do you explain the significance of archives of special collections to the people above you.
11:29:49 And how can we continue to demonstrate how archives of Special Collections adapt to meet the needs of our students in our communities.
11:29:59 Thank you very much.
11:30:16 Thank you, Marilyn.
11:30:47 Alright, thank you. Um, if I were having to write another book about academic archives.
11:30:55 Right now I think I would call it, academic archives, easy, and one of the chapters, or sections would probably be a quote that Marilyn just said, which was rescued from a dumpster.
11:31:09 I think that might be the collection focus.
11:31:12 Chapter. So, I have a few comments here, just sort of as a observation about where we were where we are and where we might be having, which I think goes along with many of the same things that are three speakers told us.
11:31:31 And just as a as an introduction, working in higher education is challenging the targets are moving, students must succeed budgets are fickle, the turnover of administrators are Pete's a familiar cycle of tearing down, and building up, especially whatever
11:31:49 it is that they inherited. And we usually have to document that.
11:31:54 And of course there always seems to be someone who will point out what archivists aren't doing this, this is a frequent thing that that I encounter. At the same time the pace of change and academic archives offers a great deal of opportunities for those
11:32:09 who are ambitious patient and strategic those working in the University Archives face the challenge of working in more integrated departments, I don't think any of the people you heard from our stand alone and their own little bubbles, without interacting
11:32:24 with other people.
11:32:25 So that means that position descriptions are much more detailed and their responsibilities are much more beyond just documenting and providing access to their, their school's history, and my department is certainly one of those situations.
11:32:44 So, in addition to what we heard today. I'm also co teaching a graduate course, the semester and Archives and Special Collections and it's really fascinating to hear some of the observations from what I'll call the archivist and training, which I think
11:33:00 hit on a few of the things so when, when I did this book, 10 or 11 years ago I looked at these four areas, and as the, the presenters mentioned.
11:33:14 I came up with the focus areas of focusing on the user technology assessment, which I don't hear as much about in terms of library assessment, there seems to be no end of people, collecting data.
11:33:33 But I don't hear as much of that as I used to perhaps that's just my own institution. Standardization specifically to metadata and arrangement and description, trying to have the same search fields across different collections institutions, and databases
11:33:52 engagement through community outreach advocacy the promotion and this idea of openness this access being much more democratic and open to all sorts of users.
11:34:06 I also threw out the idea of archivists as collaborators and specialists with it. The End classroom teachers, activists and much more outwardly focused I think what we heard today is.
11:34:20 Yeah, that we're seeing a lot of that. Certainly, with the three institutions in Pennsylvania, academic libraries. I think it's very important for archivists to have some sort of leadership.
11:34:32 It's very easy to get pushed aside as one little unit that does its own thing. And, and I think to be successful. We have to break out of that mentality and become stronger leaders for our academic library which many of them are struggling to find their
11:34:51 place on campus with the changes in technology, and then the importance of fundraising, to have a stronger role and raising funds, not just for our own programs but for the institution.
11:35:03 So I came up today with where we are now, and things that I'm seeing and hearing that we just heard from our presenters, there certainly is a much more of a merging of technology and standards as archivist to become more tech savvy.
11:35:21 They are applying those skills to coming up with those across the board standards, which is pretty exciting to see, we've gone from ed to DAX and AC and gone down the line that we're using our tech skills to make discovery access much more integrated
11:35:42 across the board documented communities, I think we all three of our presenters talked about that document communities, not just our campus but other areas that haven't been undergraduate success.
11:35:57 That is a constant phrase that I hear of wanting to make sure that students succeed when they show up on campus, and that after four years, they graduate and become a much more enlightened individual who can contribute in a lot of different ways that
11:36:11 that is a very important part of the collegiate experience and organizing higher ed, electronic records, a consistent problem challenge, coming up with solutions that archivist are working on, and the access definition, when we talked to her students.
11:36:31 A few weeks ago and we've talked about access and discovery access means things to different people. That means physical access, whether it's ADA compliance but also online access when we're close because of coven.
11:36:46 It means access to communities that have never felt welcome in an environment like we're in charge of. So, access definition is, it's changed a lot, and, and has grown.
11:36:59 And many of these are similar to predictions from 10 years ago the archivist is a partner as proactive, I heard this quite a bit now.
11:37:08 Not just passive waiting for things to show up, but they're proactive documentary, their advisors on their campus when it comes to matters of cultural heritage as I'm finding our institution is preparing for it's 100 and 50th anniversary next year.
11:37:23 There are a lot of cultural heritage quote experts who do not have a background at all, and do not know all that much about it, and we as archivists, we as people in the glam world need to be assertive and inserting ourselves to become not necessarily
11:37:40 the experts but advisors to let people know there is a profession and there is a literature related to it with it I think we're doing a lot more research and development.
11:37:53 And based on the focus areas of documented communities, we're more community liaison. Now, we're not necessarily integrated in communities that we're documenting sometimes.
11:38:03 But we, we have a much stronger connection to places off campus and that has been a big change I think, or academic libraries, there are so many trends that have come.
11:38:13 Some of them have gone. And I think archivists have tried to find ways to insert themselves into those trends and something like data for example, there's so much discussion of data and big literacy and, as I'll show you in the next round here.
11:38:31 The idea of integrating older technology and data recovery, I think is the direction we can go and leadership roles, there are some a Ul's and 80s, and even some beings of libraries in the academic world that have an archival background, and I think there
11:38:52 has to be some more to assert the importance of what we have in terms of primary sources, institutional history and the unique materials that we care for with fundraising.
11:39:07 There's been a lot more in the past 10 years of Grandpa, to be able to support positions. And one thing to mention, many of you may encounter this is the idea of the advancement model, which is a challenging thing for us advancement model is the the idea
11:39:24 that advancement officers development officers fundraisers whatever you want to call them are specifically highlighting people who have the potential to make a donation.
11:39:38 And it doesn't mean that they do not highlight people who don't make donations but the priority is for them, who have the potential to make a large financial gift.
11:39:45 So where are we going, these are some just big picture sorts of things that I think yet on what the three presenters said today. We certainly are going to be seeing more diversification, not just in terms of collections, we're already doing that but with
11:40:03 employees. That's one thing that the students in my course that I'm co teaching, just were like, Well, why aren't there more people of color in the article profession.
11:40:15 And I said well that's a really good question. That is something that has challenged archivists for a long time, and I really hope that over the next 10 years as we continue to diversify the collections that is going to change democratization of data.
11:40:29 That's pretty self explanatory. With the changes and metadata standards with the ability for archivist to play a role and providing more access again there's that word, more focused on technology and primary source of literacy.
11:40:47 I tried to think of a good word to represent that archivists are no longer just, you know, this jack of all trades, master of nothing to the idea that that we are experts and multiple things or masters of many things and this multiple potential reality
11:41:05 is what I think we're heading towards is that there are more people with these specific skills that are not, they're still doing a lot of different things, but there are more focal areas that they're looked at and recognized and being leaders and the
11:41:21 IT world, and the development and not having other it.
11:41:27 People who don't quite understand archives running the show, I really hope that archivists will step up and become more of the IT leaders, and as I said a second ago, there needs to be more people at the top, who are advocating and we're always getting
11:41:42 to talk to the provost, I mean that's that's huge. The, even if it's for a brief moment because Provost are only hearing certain things and reading certain things to have another perspective, especially the archival perspective, and some, you know, some
11:41:56 of the the real life stories of what goes on every day, and why it's important to be able that that level to advocate is certainly something that needs to happen in the next 10 years in terms of fundraising, I really think there's so much more to do with
11:42:11 alumni, and each institutions Alumni Relations or alumni group, and the possibility as funding becomes more fickle and difficult to have your own funding, whether it be through endowments, or its own foundation or whatever it might be.
11:42:28 I think they're more places, certainly, larger schools have their collections all done through a separate funding, but to move away from, especially for state institutions, the state only budgeting, I think that has to happen for us to be successful.
11:42:44 So those are my big picture over view ideas based on what the three percenters said, I want to thank them for sharing what's going on with their institutions and so what I'm going to do now is go look at the q amp a and stop the share.
11:43:02 And we will start with the questions, and I will turn it over to our three percenters if they want to come on back and I'll meet myself. So the first question that came up was many of us and academic archives, struggled to get the support and resources
11:43:28 need from our administration's, where have you encountered the most resistance. How have you been able to convince your administration to invest in the archives. So who wants to go first.
11:43:37 Well I could take the WJL example, as one that captured the imagination of our new University President when he arrived. Two years ago, he met with the CEO of our local station and as a result of that became very enthusiastic about the student learning
11:43:56 component that would was possible through this project so it seems like sometimes things can happen when you aren't anticipating them but if you're prepared ahead of time and you've laid the groundwork, and you're building up something, sometimes serendipitous
11:44:12 moments arise where you'll get support from the university administration as a result of that, we got the laser graphic scan station, because the University President decided this was an important project for the community, that was a huge, huge price
11:44:29 tag we're still now looking for funding for ongoing staff support and other things but that's just one example.
11:44:38 Maureen What do you think,
11:44:41 um, I think that, I mean I really responded to one thing you said Aaron is with administration turnover, and the ways in which you know administrators when they come in building, you know, their own process of building down and tearing up what predecessors
11:44:59 have done.
11:45:01 So that's incumbent upon us to, we're constantly rebuilding our relationships as new administration comes in.
11:45:08 So we're always making a new case to potentially new people.
11:45:12 But one thing that I found really important is on small campuses.
11:45:20 The library is always trying to prove it's worth. So if you yourself, if your archives is housed in the library you have the same kind of argument to make you know for the, all the library services as you do kind of the archives so for me I've really
11:45:36 seen seen success with focusing on student needs.
11:45:44 You know much the same we all do.
11:45:47 Doing instruction partnering with faculty partnering on campus.
11:45:50 Partnering in the community like what can, what do we do that improves the student experience and you know we talked about the student educational experience, providing you know those active learning opportunities in the classroom in the archives for,
11:46:07 you know, volunteering positions work, internships, things like that.
11:46:14 So what are we doing to take part of
11:46:21 providing an excellent educational experience to students.
11:46:25 One other thing I think that is very effective is becoming acquainted with, you know, your university strategic plan. So how does what the library. What does the archives do what does the library do how do they all fit together like little nesting dolls.
11:46:43 That's always really effective language to use with administration and becoming acquainted with you know if your institution has an accreditation process with, you know, accrediting body like ours do with Middle States.
11:47:00 Also very effective. So you know how, how do these things line up with the things that administration cares about that you do.
11:47:16 Zack yeah I think marine marine touched on a lot of what I was going to say, but that big one is I think making the archives relevant to what the priorities of your school.
11:47:26 Are you know if you can get involved in a couple of those key things so like PID has something called the pan, the plan for pit where like they have like identified five different things that they really want to engage in.
11:47:31 And if you could think about how your archives might tie into that or how can they support those initiatives. And then just kind of get yourself out there and cast the net because you know eventually it'll get to the point where you know those administrators
11:47:43 can turn around or read an article about something without having something from your collections or something, even from the library system, kind of pop up I think the biggest stumbling block is that still a lot of administrators just don't have a good
11:47:56 understanding of what archives are or they have an antiquated view or, or misconception of what an archives is. So if you can kind of prove your worth in that way and show the relevance of the collections and your knowledge as an archivist.
11:48:09 I think it'll go a long way to sort of advocate for your department and and probably the, the entire library system to some extent.
11:48:17 So there are two other questions in here which kind of similar to that. If either of the three of you want to chime in one of them said I could describe some strategies for advocating for archives, particularly the administration, kind of touched on that
11:48:29 a little bit, and then why do you think university administrators are so dense, when it comes to supporting University Archives, what have you attempted to get their attention and have you been successful so if you have anything to add to those.
11:48:55 Please do.
11:48:46 I think one thing that might come with this density I guess are the misunderstanding that archives are living and breathing entities.
11:48:59 Not that, you know, we're a cabinet of curiosities.
11:49:04 You know that we continue to do things.
11:49:08 You know, records management for example is ongoing, it's all the time collecting and you know collecting in the now is all the time.
11:49:16 Collecting well things are moving all the time it's not just a we did that already.
11:49:22 Are we done with that kind of questions. So I think, you know, really being able to articulate again just going back to that that idea of relevance, that everyone has touched on today and really great ways.
11:49:36 Okay, so we do have some other questions coming in, Marina Yv on the spot. One of them was a question about Lone Ranger solo archivists.
11:49:47 What advice would you give us or give us, introducing non archivists students or volunteers to working and doing projects and archives I think Zach and Marilyn you both have other people, you're kind of not in this.
11:49:58 So, you know, what do you think, um, yeah and pretty much everyone you know I've had working with me, whether their students, you know, don't have an archives background and funnily enough, so miserable idea.
11:50:12 Some of its largest and most successful programs are in health sciences.
11:50:18 Some of my best students as student workers have been in health sciences.
11:50:24 They are incredibly organized. They love hierarchies, they understand systems, right, because they understand that they're they're sitting systems of the body.
11:50:33 So they understand our way of thinking so one of the things I tried to do with some of those students is to really get back to what they already know and what they already understand.
11:50:47 And you know they're they're very meticulous just in their work and that's just their personality.
11:50:53 So that's one kind of funny thing that I discovered working here.
11:50:58 And I think, always explaining and this no matter whether you know someone has article training or not. I think it's a good management skill to always explain you know to whoever you work with or who works for you.
11:51:11 What, what and why they're doing, like what they're doing and why and how that contributes to what you're doing and what's, you know, and the goals and, you know, have your department, so that even though it might seem like busy work to them.
11:51:31 You know they understand that, you know, what they're doing is still important still an important task, you know, for you are good, so let's move it over to Maryland.
11:51:38 Next question is what are some of the biggest issues that Mellors bill encountered with digitizing the 16 millimeter films from the news station.
11:51:47 Um, we don't have enough time to go into all of the challenges.
11:51:52 But I will say that if any of you have to work with 16 millimeter film, or any kind of film, you should definitely get involved with the Association for movement of moving image archivists, it's such an excellent organization, they, they are so incredibly
11:52:07 helpful so so at each stage along the way when we ran into different challenges we could turn to someone who had expertise because this was a new area for us.
11:52:17 So, that would, I would just say in terms of the myriad challenges you're going to run into when you work, taking on a new project like this to, to, to use the approach that archivists typically do which is to reach out to people with with expertise and
11:52:31 ask for their help.
11:52:33 I think the main problem that took us, like most of the time most of the 18 years that I've been there was the challenge of getting the getting someone at the station to agree to give rights for educational purposes to us.
11:52:48 We don't have clear copyright to it her still owns the copyright but at least we have the right to digitize it for educational purposes that was a huge stumbling block because we couldn't even apply for any kind of grant at all until we had that organized
11:53:02 so that so that working together collaborating over a long period of time to get to that point that was huge, and then getting the equipment we needed.
11:53:10 Getting a staff member in place, learning about assigning metadata. I will say that James Snyder From the Library of Congress has been hugely helpful in every aspect of this process.
11:53:26 He has such incredible technical expertise from, you know, the Packard campus where they have all the audio visual stuff for the Library of Congress, so he he's been an amazing help.
11:53:36 If anyone has other additional questions, please contact me I'm happy to talk with you further about that.
11:53:43 Okay, so there's two questions in here related to teaching and so for those of you who are doing instruction one of them has to do how do you reach courses, outside of the humanities.
11:53:56 Another question, sort of the other direction is of cuts to humanities affected your work with the manatees teaching that you do.
11:54:04 Anybody want to feel down.
11:54:09 I'll try. Um, I think with, you know, the custody man is absolutely, um, you know if you're losing faculty who had previously been partners, you know and and we're big fans of the archives and big supporters of the archives and the library in general,
11:54:26 you know of course that's going to affect you know how many classes you can get into and how many students you can reach.
11:54:35 You know, it again.
11:54:38 becomes another one of those restarting all of your relationships things, you know if you get new faculty in or having to start back at Ground Zero and prove your worth again, going back to, you know, these are the things that we can contribute to student
11:54:56 learning, bringing in you know these active learning opportunities.
11:55:00 So it's, again the same spiel over and over again.
11:55:05 Sometimes to, you know, new and different people about you know what we can really bring to the table.
11:55:13 So, yeah, cuts, you know, cuts to faculty will always affect what we, what we are doing and what we can do outside of the humanities that's that's always a tough question.
11:55:26 Because you know their curriculum, you know, the curriculum is totally different.
11:55:31 It takes more convincing, I think, to try to speak to faculty to take up you know take up some time. Right.
11:55:44 You know within their courses, Maryland, I see her nodding along, having done the same thing, you know, same with that so that would be you know some of my experience.
11:55:55 Yeah, I think the one thing that we do is I try to make sure that our science and technology liaison librarians are fairly familiar with the archives and and what we might have so that they can kind of help make some of those connections with faculty.
11:56:09 I'll also say one thing that's worked out for us this year is that we have a graduate student assistant who's a PhD student in scientific philosophy, and he's been able to make connections with some of our medical faculty papers and like to medical ethics
11:56:23 classes and things like that. So not going like, all in on maybe STEM courses but kind of those ones that walk the in between and cover humanities and science and technology.
11:56:33 And it's really been a really valuable experience and because he knows the language you speak the language and he knows the faculty. So I think, you know, based on the year that he's had here, and all the different costs sessions that he's done we're
11:56:44 going to be able to build off that and maybe expand further into STEM courses in the future.
11:56:51 to be able to build off that and maybe expand further into STEM courses in the future. Great. Gonna do three more questions maybe we can address them quickly.
11:56:57 Jim Rowan had a question about setting priorities and communicating out to people I mean, obviously if you're still archivist new have to prioritize what you're doing.
11:57:07 But how do you tell people what you're doing.
11:57:11 If they want to take that.
11:57:14 Well, one of the things that we do and this sounds pretty TD.
11:57:20 Is it actually is more effective than you might think.
11:57:20 We do an annual strategic plan.
11:57:24 And then we do six months reports we do monthly reports and and six, six months reports where we show how we're meeting the needs of the division that were part of so we have like a table and we have these here the accomplishments that people are working
11:57:38 on this is what's been completed and this is how it relates to the Student Success goals you know for for Millers Ville. So we're trying to our own strategic plan as a library but we're also trying to the university's strategic plan and the division that
11:57:54 were part of all of that to say, if we can, as just echoing what other people have said if you can, if you can show how what you're doing in the archives is meeting the needs of students in the way that the university, really values and cares for them,
11:58:08 it's another thing they can share with with their stakeholders as well.
11:58:14 Okay, let's try to tie technology, there's two questions in here, about the digitization.
11:58:22 You know scale up because of coven and then also this question about a leadership role and it. So, for all for any of you three talk about how digitization has changed what you did.
11:58:41 I just like to, to say that it feels like in archives. There's never something you have to give up. It's always just something you have to add on, so it continues to add and add and add, and this gets back to Jim's questions about priorities, but
11:58:58 I would say this maybe isn't always the right answer to this but making sure that those strategic partnerships with it or in place, we've had, information technology staff member who is crucial, you know these plays plays a leadership role involved with
11:59:14 WJL project, all along so we're having a conversation tomorrow about streaming and cloud storage and he's going to be present there so he's an advocate for us, the archives within the it structure.
11:59:30 Okay, so I think we have like one minute left.
11:59:33 I wanted to quickly address this question about leadership and he department reports, up the line to our it in the library and that's been challenging to see the approach that people in leadership positions and it have.