MARAC 2023 Spring - Virtual Meeting 26-28 April
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Item Session 15: Finding New Methods of Making Legacy Collections Relevant to Students and Researchers in a Digital World(2023-04-28) Wick, Harrison; Vetter, LauraLearn how archivists at two different types of educational institutions are helping students and researchers navigate new and old archival resources. At Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the Special Collections and University Archives is building new opportunities for student-faculty collaboration and comparative research using oral history interviews and digitized archival collections, including rare books and primary source materials related to pandemics. At the Episcopal High School, a private boarding school established in 1839, students are using primary source materials within the school's archival holdings for research projects and adding to the historical record by conducting interviews with alumni.Item Session 14: Let's Collaborate: Facilitating Engaging Projects With Students(2023-04-28) Tighe, Molly; Amodei, Joseph; Carpenter, Chrystal; Davis, Emily; Johnson, CrystalIn this session, archivists and faculty who are working together to enrich campus experiences and forward institutional goals will discuss a variety of classroom applications for primary source collections. Speakers will share examples of immersive media technology applied to historical records to engage the concept of "serious play" in student exhibitions that reflect upon social good and political engagement. The session will also provide a view of ongoing collaborations between archivists and faculty to map the history of security and public safety; how students interrogate whose stories are being told and what role archives play in institutional accountability; and an exploration of new and evolving opportunities to engage a wide variety of stakeholders with archival collections in service of broad institutional goals.Item Session 13: Leveraging Regional Advocacy to Advance Ethical Labor Practices: Northwest Archivists' Archivist-In-Residence Program(2023-04-28) Kramer, Kathryn; Cray, Laura; Piasecki, Sara; Thomas, Rachel; Woody, Rachael CristineConversations about fair and ethical archival labor practices underpin ongoing advocacy to build a strong, stable, and diverse workforce within the archival profession. The discussion around the value of archival labor has increased with urgency, and in response, Northwest Archivists, Inc. (NWA) created an ad hoc committee to develop a new paid internship pilot, the Archivist-in-Residence (AiR) program. The goal is to advocate for the value of internships as archival labor and to effectively steward the next generation of archivists into the profession through the creation of productive, self-initiated, and funded internship opportunities. This session will address the AiR program formation and decision-making process; detail application and evaluation rubrics and how they can be replicated; describe the challenges and solutions involved in offering fair compensation across a region with widely varying cost of living; and address the sustainability of the program by reviewing fundraising strategies.Item Session 12: That's in the Archives! Helping Researchers Find Your Digital and Analog Collections(2023-04-28) Barker, Melissa; Rousseau, AnastasiaArchives are often overlooked by researchers who think they can find everything they are looking for on line. Even if what they need happens to be in a digital format, researchers may have a hard time finding it. Attend this session to learn how to get your analog and digital collection noticed by genealogists, university students, authors, and other researchers.Item Session 11: When Artworks Are Not Artworks: Caring for Artist Ephemera in the Archives(2023-04-28) Avant, Nathan; Blake, Ben; Crawford, Stephanie; Howe, CaraPreserving and providing access to objects such as drawings, collage, and sculptures, often calls for techniques that are not part of traditional archives education programs. In this session, speakers will share their experiences caring for art objects in a variety of contexts. Nathan Avant will give a tour of two artist-ephemera collections at Glenstone Museum and discuss the value of developing cross-departmental consultation relationships. Cara Howe will discuss her approach to caring for Upstate Medical University's portrait collection and its positive impact on other parts of the Archives and Special Collections. Stephanie Crawford will discuss the challenges of processing artwork in two collections of artists papers held at the Miriam Schapiro Archives on Women Artists at Rutgers University and the Mattatuck Museum. Finally, Ben Blake will discuss the challenges of preserving and providing access to artifacts of labor and social justice protests such as hand painted signs, leaflets, and t-shirts.Item Session 8: What I Didn't Learn in School: Practical Advice for Early Career Archivists(2023-04-27) Menjivar, Amanda; Christiansen, Laura; Hottel, Zachary; Vitale, Frank; Welsh, EmilyParticipate in this lively panel discussion about topics and experiences for which higher education did not adequately prepare us. A panel of archivists across different institutions and backgrounds will discuss their transition to the workforce and share lessons and guidance. Job hunting, project and contract employment, varying recruiting practices, the shortage of entry-level jobs, and the value of work experience against the worth of professional certificates will also be explored. This panel seeks to discuss lessons learned and give solutions to some of these issues that can benefit students and early- career archivists as well as their educators.Item Session 6: Making A/V Materials Discoverable(2023-04-27) Russo, Vicki; Andrec, Michael; Melbourne, Laura; Sussmeier, StephanieOur collections are not relevant if no one knows they exist. This is a problem that particularly affects audiovisual collections, which require significantly more processing to make them discoverable and available. How have institutions tackled this problem, and how can we do better going forward? Speakers in this session will present about working with audiovisual material in their institutions and address how to keep the momentum from special projects going. Archives are losing materials every day as magnetic tape deteriorates, films succumb to sticky-shed syndrome, and hardware to play obsolete media becomes increasingly scarce. How do we advocate for budgeting and staffing for audiovisual digitization to ensure our collections remain accessible? The speakers will also discuss ways of building an audiovisual digitization workflow that is not dependent on special funding.Item Session 3: MacGyvering the Archives(2023-04-27) Keefer, Scott; Christiansen, Laura; Davis, Melissa; Jenkins, Anne; Poe, Amy; Wink, TaraIn theory, theory and practice are the same thing; in practice, they are not. There are standards in the archives field, but we all know that sometimes the standards are not practical for everyone. It does not make us lesser archivists to not meet every single standard and in fact, it makes us better archivists because we must be more creative to overcome our challenges. There is nothing stopping us from accomplishing goals-even major goals-without large budgets or staff. In this session, see how six organizations manage to ensure their collections are preserved and made available without high-end tools and procedures.Item Session 2: Making Archives More Accessible: Integrating Digital Collections and Education Initiatives at the Delaware Historical Society(2023-04-27) Robinson, Bill; Fay, Rebecca; Geiger-Rayca, Kristin; Rifenburg, LeighIn this session, colleagues at the Delaware Historical Society (OHS) will discuss the development and implementation of their first digital collections platform, the integration of these collections into ongoing and emerging education initiatives, and continuing audience engagement and impact. The panelists will discuss the successes and challenges of integrating two developing projects-the implementation of a digital asset management system and Liberty in Our Grasp-to make archives more accessible and visible. In addition, they will discuss audience engagement and impact, cross-departmental collaboration within OHS, and the partnerships with vendors, corporate sponsors, non-profits, and teachers that made the projects possible.Item Continuous Migration: Challenges in Selecting a Digital Repository System(2023-04-28) Japha, AlexSession 10. Facilitating access to digitized or born-digital materials requires a functional digital repository platform capable of hosting a variety of different media formats. Numerous repository platforms exist, each with unique features and limitations. Selecting an appropriate repository platform is often a struggle between institutional needs, financial restrictions, and staff time and expertise. In this session, a panel of digital focused librarians and archivists will share their experiences with the repository selection and implementation process. Panelists will speak about the digital repository environment at large, what challenges they faced during selection, and how these challenges were addressed at their institutions.Item They’re in a Better Place Now: Navigating Collection Transfers(2023-04-27) Smith, Jasmine; Antos, Bethany J.; Glascock, SandraSession 9: Although transferring a collection of materials from one institution to another can be a big undertaking, rehoming it may enhance the accessibility and visibility of the materials, provide a better storage environment, or confer other advantages for one or both institutions. This presentation will address both the practical and philosophical sides of inter-institutional collection transfers. In addition to discussing the logistics and documentation of collection transfers, presenters will talk about why a particular collection move was proposed and accepted, and how it affected staff and researchers. This session will not discuss transfers that are part of scheduled records management activities.Item Program for the Spring 2023 MARAC Meeting: Keeping Archives Relevant in the Digital Age(2023-04) MARAC: Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives ConferenceThe program for the Spring 2023 MARAC meeting, "Keeping Archives Relevant in the Digital Age" held virtually April 26-28, 2023.