This session will look at the numerous ways in which the ever-expanding digital age for archival records and information management has impacted the reference experience. The panelists will address questions related to reference staffing in this new environment including: Are institutions seeing an increase in virtual reference and a decrease in on-site reference? Or are Special Collections and archives seeing fewer researchers and less reference interaction overall? How are digital collections increasing the number of researchers discovering collections? What staffing changes are needed to handle new types of requests? How has this impacted staffing of reference teams?
Slavery in the United States was the foundation on which many institutions were built and were able to flourish. Four panelists will share the legacy of slavery as it relates to their individual institutions and the approaches they are taking to address this once marginalized yet integral part of their schools’ histories. Panelists will discuss how their universities established formal projects that foster collaborative research initiatives between students, faculty, and other groups, as well as how they develop curricula, foster outreach efforts, and improve access to controversial archival materials by expanding digitization efforts and enhancing metadata for these collections.
This panel will focus on the 140-year custodial history of the collections held by the National Anthropological Archives (NAA), as well as examine the practicalities of conducting and managing an assessment project that requires frequent collaboration with IT staff, multiple project archivists, and anthropologists. Panelists will give an overview of the assessment project; how it operates day-to-day; preliminary findings; and the value of the gathered data to the sustainability of the NAA’s collecting policies and needs. The panel will also address parallel efforts to increase accessibility for NAA users, utilizing both the assessment’s findings and data gathered through user studies and a National Science Foundation-funded fellowship in museum anthropology.
Historic images are in demand—especially those available for discovery online. At the same time, digitizing large photograph collections can be daunting, particularly when a project involves balancing access and preservation with tight budgets, limited staff, and fragile or deteriorating objects. Outside collaborators can help leverage available resources and increase the effectiveness and reach of the project but identifying and recruiting partners and keeping diverse stakeholders on the same page can be challenging. Panelists will discuss collaborating across disciplines on two large digitization projects, the Religious News Service photographs, 1945-1982 (about 60,000 prints and negatives) and the Los Angeles Department of Public Works photographic materials (about 700,000 prints, negatives, and slides).
To build collaboration and outreach, archivists often need to present about archives to supervisors, external stakeholders, educators, and students. In particular, archivists may need to explain archival concepts to those who have no background in the field. This workshop will help you practice and refine ways to do just that and will provide techniques to deliver content in an engaging fashion for those with a variety of learning styles. The first part of the workshop will deal with presentations to stakeholders outside the library; the second will deal with pedagogical approaches for working with students.
