For those of you who couldn’t make  it to the conference last weekend (or who just wants to see the presentations again), MAC has posted the presentations from the various sessions on their website.  You can find them here: http://bit.ly/MACPresentations.  Enjoy!

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Invisible Cultures: Discovering the Hidden History of People with Disabilities

Presented by: Barbara Floyd, Kimberly Brownlee, Arjun Sabharwa, from the Ward M. Canady Center for Special Collections at the University of Toledo

The Ability Center of Greater Toledo donated $1.9 million to create a Disability Studies Program at the University of Toledo. Out of this has grown an exhibit: “From Institutions to Independence: A History of People with Disabilities in Northwest Ohio.” Most program includes the records are of organizations, such as the Rotary Club, but there are exceptions, such as papers of Hugh Gregory Gallagher, author of Black Bird Fly Away: Disabled in Able-Bodied World and Alva Bunker, who was born without hands or feet.  Other outgrowths of this Program and Collection include the placement of a historical marker at the cemetery where a mental health facility once stood, for example.

Discussion centered on means of Web accessibility, collection accessibility and HIPAA issues regarding past and future collections, questions and issues that could be applied to many collections, not just those that are devoted to the study of organizations centered on disability rights or assistance or people with disabilities.

One of the most poignant sessions of the annual meeting was about two very different sides of disasters: preserving what happens during a disaster and how to react in the face of disaster.

The first disaster discussed was the Red River Flood of 1997.  Speaker Michael Swanson of the University of North Dakota Grand Forks’ Department of Special Collections gave an interesting presentation on how the university documented the flood and the effects on the community.  Swanson began by giving a background of the Red River and why the area is prone to flooding.  For some general information about the Red River, check out the Wikipedia page.  (Yes, yes, I know it’s Wikipedia, but there’s good info in this one!)

Swanson then went on to explain why the flood of 1997 was so significant.  Some of the reasons he gave included:

• Wet weather the year before
• 8 blizzards between November and the beginning of April
• A total snow accumulation of over 100 inches
• Sudden warm spell in April
• Inaccurate flood projections
• Power outages
• Non-potable water
• Fire that destroyed 11 buildings in downtown Grand Forks

All of these combined made it very difficult for the people of Grand Forks to handle the extent of the flooding.  Because the National Weather Service had predicted a crest of 49 feet, the townspeople had built levies, sandbagged, etc. to handle that level of water.  By the time they realized the river was going to crest higher than that, it was too late to do anything but evacuate everyone.  If you would like more detailed information relating to the Flood, check out the USGS website.

Because this was such a major event in the city’s history, the university made the decision to collect information about the Red River Flood of 1997.  They have been documenting the flood by collecting:

• Manuscripts
• Photos and videos
• Oral histories
• Other audio recordings
• Theses (4 written by UND students)
• Artifacts
• University records
• Books
• Reports and publications
• Newspaper and magazines

In addition to all of these materials, UND was also lucky enough to collect the 9-1-1 calls made the day of the evacuation.  At the time they were recorded on a Dictaphone machine and when the Emergency Services Department switched to digital recordings of calls, they donated the Dictaphone along with the recordings from the evacuation in 2007.  Currently, the Special Collections has abstracts of each phone call and has been editing (redacting personal information) and converting the calls to Mp3 with Audacity.  Swanson’s hope is to have some of those audio clips online with interactive features; however there are still confidentiality issues to deal with before that can occur.  Until then, Swanson and the Special Collections are still actively collecting materials relating to the Red River Flood of 1997.  Information can be found on their website.

Our second speaker of the session was Colleen McCorkell, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Information Studies.  She spoke about her experiences volunteering as a professional to help the Municipal Archives of Cologne cope after their archives building collapsed in March 2009.  She and a group of other graduate students went over in July 2009 to help the Archives deal with the materials found at the site of the collapse.

Some background information about the Municipal Archives of Cologne, Germany, and its subsequent collapse may be helpful, so I’ve compiled some resources for you to read (if you want):

• Historisches Archiv Stadt Köln (In German – the last section on the bottom of the page shows a schematic of the collapse.)
• Historical Archive of Cologne Wikipedia
• “The City Without A Memory: Treasures Lost Under Collapsed Cologne Archives” Times Online UK
• “History In Ruins: Archive Collapse Disaster for Historians” Spiegel Online International

McCorkell’s presentation was mostly filled with photos and brief descriptions of her experiences as a volunteer, so it’s kind of difficult to describe without the imagery.  I would definitely recommend checking out MAC’s website for her presentation after they have posted it (Rumor has it all PowerPoint presentations will be posted on the website).

She did have some valid advice if you want to manage volunteers or if you wanted to be a volunteer as a professional.  If you are managing volunteers, it is good to have a training session of the work to be done, make sound decisions, clearly identify staff, provide advice or recommendations, and clearly communicate your goals and expectations in volunteers.  If you are a professional in a volunteer capacity, McCorkells’ advice is to act professional, clarify and possible differences in training, do what is asked of you, communicate any expertise you have, ask questions, and help don’t hinder.

In this session, representatives from three Wisconsin repositories – small, medium and large – presented projects they created to preserve and present oral history materials from new and existing collections.

First, Josh Ranger, from University of Wisconsin-Osh Kosh, talked about the “Black Thursday Oral History Project,” a two-year effort to document a 1968 student protest at the university that resulted in 94 black students not only being expelled from Osh Kosh, but being banned from any other Wisconsin public university. A history professor and students were heavily involved in the project, which resulted in 122 interviews – 36 of which were from the students who had been expelled in 1968. After the interviews were collected, the project organizers used a software program called Audacity for signal processing to clean up the sound quality, and backups were made on three separate servers. Description was an ongoing process, as the collection was restricted until the publication of a book by the professor involved in the project. Since the project coincided with the 40^th anniversary of the event, there was a significant outreach component, which was composed of three approaches: a public program one night in a music hall off campus, a multimedia exhibit at a campus gallery and a Web exhibit. All have been a success. The lessons learned:

• Get needs across to interviewers: format, segments, sound quality, introduction methods.
• You can be your own engineer – it’s not that complicated.
• Redundancy in file storage can be relatively cheap.
• If it’s done well, you’ll see 200 people in a music hall listening to oral histories.

Contact Ranger at ranger@uwosh.edu or see the exhibit at www.uwosh.edu/blackthursday.

Next were Allison Page and Leah Ujda of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. From August 2007 to July 2009, they created the UWDCC-Forest Products Lab Oral History Project, to prepare for the centennial anniversary of the lab, which is the only such forest research facility in the nation. The project involved a great deal of pre-planning to gather stories of the research and people of the lab and its impact on the community, nation and world. Funding was provided by the lab. Much pre-planning was involved: developing questions to choosing narrators, etc. After the interviews were conducted, time-coded indices were created for the transcripts. The collection includes the digitally recorded audio, full-text transcripts, a metadata record in FMP and digital images of the narrators. The audio was processed through software called Levelator, then processed through cleaner software called Cleaner. The challenges were storing and preserving digital materials while providing conventional access, and access online. But the staff found solutions, including using University of Wisconsin server space. Finally, a Web site was created that included a finding aid, and a browse/full-text-search function. As of March, the site, which went live in July 2009, had received 9,000 hits. For information contact Page at allisonpage2008@gmail.com or Ujda at lujda@library.wisc.edu, or visit http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/index.shtml.

Finally, Sally Jacobs of the Wisconsin Historical Society, spoke of the “Oral Histories: Wisconsin Survivors of the Holocaust” project, which digitized materials that were collected during the 1970s and 1980s, including oral history interviews conducted between 1974-1981 of 22 Holocaust survivors and 2 American witnesses. Since the subject matter was so delicate, the digitization effort received the “Cadillac treatment,” Jacobs said. That included many meetings about terminology, interviews with potential researchers about what they would be looking for, redoing transcriptions that were incomplete, and focusing heavily on quality control, especially since the narrators on the original audiocassettes, when speaking of something very emotional, would either have much heavier accents from their native countries, or lapse into their native language. The tapes were converted to digital files through an in-house audio lab, which were then given a Web presence through an HTML interface instead of put into Dspace because the project organizers wanted to display text and audio segments at the same time. The final web site included photo galleries, full interviews, an excerpts section and a page for teachers. Jacobs would not recommend such treatment for all oral history collections, but ones as significant as this definitely deserve such focus. Visit the collection at www.wisconsinhistory.org/holocaustsurvivors.

Conundrum at the Crossroads: Challenges of Ethnic and Immigrant Collections

This session was presented by:

Suzanne Maggard, University of Cincinnati, Ohio

Karen Mason, University of Iowa, Iowa City

Christina Johansson, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois

The lessons from archivists working with collections of immigrant materials:

• Learn from people who are using the materials.

• Challenge yourself to learn new things (e.g., go ahead and learn a language).

• Even a little bit of knowledge of a language can help.

• Describe what you can—things don’t always need to be perfect.

• Finding aids and MARC records can always be updated.

• Sometimes you have to say, “good is good enough.”

• If usage levels off, try new programs.

This is a vast simplification of an impressive program about what look to be impressive collections. You are encouraged to visit the MAC site if you haven’t already and look at the full presentation, and follow the links to these collections.

Landing a Job in this Economy

Kevlin Haire (Chair)

“Getting Published and Other Resume Builders”

Michelle Caswell, Doctoral Student

Michelle began her session by noting that if you cannot find a job as an archivist then the best bet is to expand your scope of potential jobs. Although you might not have a job in the archives, make sure you continue to volunteer in an archival setting.  Another step is to get involved in groups such as MAC or SAA as well as presenting at conferences.

Getting published is another good way of getting your name out and impressing job seekers. However, publishing will not make you rich and famous. Also, it is not for everyone. Publishing can be scary, time-consuming, and nerve-wracking. The biggest hurdle is getting over that fear of criticism and actually put the pen to paper.

Michelle points out that after you have written your article, proceed to take the first tangible steps; Reread, as yourself if you are saying anything new, show it to the smartest archivist you know, etc. After considering their criticism, look for publication possibilities.

Once you have figured out where you hope to get published, review the past few issues of said publication, check the guidelines for submission, conform your citations to meet their requirements, and double check everything!  The next step is to submit.

After you have submitted, give yourself a pat on the back. The waiting begins. In the meantime try to find a job! Once you receive a response it will fall under the three headings of: Accept, Accept with Revisions, or Reject.

Don’t fear rejection. You win some and lose some. DO NOT RESPOND WITH ANGER! Burning bridges is never a good idea. Learn from the experience and take the editors comments into consideration.

If you have your article accepted with revisions, give yourself a few days to be happy! When you sit down to review the article, let the comments set in. After revisions, submit the new draft.

Michelle commented that seeing your name in print is actually quite scary. Also, do not expect fan mail or hate mail (thankfully!). If you are lucky, your article may be cited, placed on a syllabus, or read by someone important in the archival community.

Another pro of publishing are awards! There are two opportunities for publishing recognition that Michelle mentioned: SAA’s Calvin Pease Award and the Libri Student Paper Award.

Jason Nargis

“How I got my “Big Boy” Job”

Jason is a 2007 graduate of the University of Michigan and found his “Big Boy” job at Northwestern University in 2009.  His background includes an internship at the Chicago History Museum working on future exhibits. In need of money he went to work at a bike shop. This job allowed him the flexibility to volunteer at local museums. After not being hired at Northwestern, Jason was told of another position that fit him well. Next he told of the pros and cons of being a generalist.

Jason offered a few basic suggestions:

• Keep up with what is going on.
• Be involved with what is going on.
• Be super prepared when going into an interview.
• Network by being involved!
• Be Flexible!
• Stay Positive!
• Break job searching into small time spans
• Learn new skills, figure out what you are lacking.

Adam Zimmerly

“Tales from No Man’s Land”

While Adam does not necessarily have an archive job, he still has experience in searching for jobs. His background includes an internship at the Wisconsin Historical Society. He cites the internship work as some of the most relevant for his career.  He has also interned in Germany, and did a project in West Virginia. However, the biggest problem is that he did his internships in areas where he did not intend to stay.

One problem Adam had in looking for a job was his lack of database experience. Sure he had heard about them in class, however his background had a glaring hole. He took a volunteer position at the US Fish and Wildlife service. to learn a particular database program.  After moving due to his wife’s job, he has volunteered in Williamsburg, VA. Adam states that volunteering has been difficult and rewarding. Volunteering, although pay may stink, allows you to learn a new system, meet new people, and they are learning who you are. After applying to 60 jobs, Adam continues his drive to find his dream job as an archivist.

He concluded that the hardest part is hearing potential employers saying “We’d love to hire you, but we have no money in the budget.” Be optimistic about your future!

Good luck, Adam!

This session featured three different speakers who each gave examples and practical advice on how to advocate for your archive in order to avoid the chopping block.  [Warning: This post is really long.  I apologize, but I found it incredibly informative.]

First up was Elizabeth Meyers from the Women and Leadership Archives at Loyola University.  Her presentation, entitled “Little Fish, Big Pond: Surviving and Flourishing in Murky Economic Waters,” discussed three things she would have done differently if she could go back in time three years.  When Meyers began working at the Women and Leadership Archives, the economy was booming.  However, not that long after she began, it suddenly tanked and it took Meyers some time to adjust her way of doing things in order to advocate for her archives.

Meyers recommends taking a proactive approach to advocating for your archives.  Depending on your institution, these ways of advocating may all be different; however, these are some of the approaches that worked for her situation.  You have to find a different way of thinking and to do this you have to first know the dynamics of your institution.  The Women and Leadership Archives are relatively young and modest in size, so Meyers had to work hard to promote it.  The three things that she would do differently if she could go back in time are:

1. Picking your battles
2. Provide evidence of need along with evidence of success
3. Participatory solutions

Looking back, Meyers realized that she kept asking for funding for everything and receiving it for some things, which weren’t top priority, and not receiving it for others, which were of higher priority.  It is important to know which projects to press for funding and which projects can wait until a better time.  Pick your battles carefully and you can still do the projects that you want to get done.

Providing evidence of need is key to getting said funding, but providing evidence of success is just as important.  Showing that you can be successful in promoting your archives or in securing grants for some projects helps the higher ups to realize that you are an important asset to your institution.

Help you to help me.  Participatory solutions are very important to most public archives.  Finding a way to supplement your budget with grants or donations helps you, but also helps the larger institution to see you as a viable part of the whole.  The most important thing here is to compromise to get what you need.

One of Meyers’ approaches that I particularly liked (being a business major in undergrad) was her willingness to learn some “business speak” and to adjust her way of thinking to appeal to those looking at the bottom line.  She spoke about taking the initiative to ask for the ability to ASK (aka seek out donations).  Normally a different department on campus is in charge of ASKing for all donations and they were not keen on having others do the ASKing.  Meyers, being used to asking for material donations, sat down with the people who do the monetary donations and they taught each other about the ASK.  Meyers learned to be more comfortable asking for monetary donations and they learned about asking for material donations.

Meyers also talked about working beyond statistics, i.e. quantifiable versus unquantifiable.  She found ways to quantify some of her work to show statistical impact on the university, but she also demonstrated how her work is largely unquantifiable.  She built networks on campus, became involved in various committees, and got involved in the community – all to advocate for her archives.  And it worked!  Meyers showed her archives’ value not just to the bottom line, but also to the university’s image and to the community at large.

The second speaker was Kevin Leonard from the Archives at Northwestern University.  Leonard discovered after doing some exit interviews of student researchers that majority of them were seniors or juniors (those at the end of their studies).  This was troubling to him and he wanted to find a way to promote the archives to incoming freshman so that they could utilize the resources for longer and become repeat patrons.  This is very important in a university environment because the archives department is evaluated based on patronage and staffed accordingly.  So his goal was to reach students earlier in their tenure at Northwestern and to build an awareness of the department.

Leonard’s idea (which I LOVED – again business major here) was to approach the business school on campus for advice on marketing themselves.  He wanted to learn about how to build a brand for the archives and to develop a network of repeat customers.  “Archivists are in the business of communication.”

Interestingly, while Leonard was speaking he took off his nametag, and then the jacket came off, then the tie…all while still speaking (fairly fast speaking at that).  Admittedly, I got somewhat distracted because I was wondering what in the world he was doing, so some of the details of the presentation aren’t all here.  Finally he began unbuttoning his shirt and I noticed a T-shirt underneath.  He stood up, took off the shirt, and showed everyone his Northwestern University Archives “branded” T-shirt!  It was great!  (On the front it said “Northwestern University” and on the back was his slogan “I found it in the Archives!”)

He worked with the marketing department to develop a brand by using font from a 1970s school newspaper and developing his clever slogan.  By doing this, he got students excited about the archives.  He began handing out T-shirts at events and I quote, “If there’s something students like besides free liquor, it’s free clothing!”

Leonard started blogging as a means of outreach, becoming the first library department to do so.  He also started a monthly e-newsletter, became a part of new student week, and promoted the archives at every chance he could.  Marketing is all about knowing patron’s expectations and using that to reach out.  He increased on-site users by 21% and web hits on the archives site jumped to the top of the library pile.  Plus, he got the repeat customers he was looking for!

Finally, Heather Stecklein from Rush University Medical Center Archives spoke about her experiences with improving the profile of her archives.  Her experiences are somewhat different than most because she works in a strictly medical university.  Rush has 1,732 students and 10,000 staff members (2 of which are archivists).  The archives do help external users; however, internal users are its priority.

Some of the archives’ outreach challenges include:

• Limited in creating digital collections (due to patient confidentiality)
• Locations – archives are off-site across the expressway (10 minute walk)
• University’s mission is to provide medical education and quality patient care.  In some ways this doesn’t include a great place for the archives.

Stecklein’s goal in advocating for her archives was to promote its visibility on campus with students and faculty.  She expanded their exhibits on campus to include other locations.  The university decided to decorate the long hallways on campus with posters about various departments and topics, so Stecklein made it a point to have a poster on the history of Rush.  Now that poster is in regular rotations around campus.

Another great idea that Stecklein had was to provide tours of the archives.  She organized an annual tour of the archives, an architectural walking tour of campus that provides some history of various buildings (including old photos of how buildings used to look), and the archives also provides tours on-demand as their time allows.

She also does table talks outside the cafeteria every year during Archives Month.  They have duplicates of photos or other materials (so originals won’t get damaged) for people to look at and they also answer questions about the university’s history.  Another great aspect is their “Identify these people,” where they have old photographs of people and ask passers-by to identify them.

Stecklein also organized a Film Festival on campus, where the archives presents film clips that they’ve had digitized from their collection.  She also became an active member of the community, participating in committees across campus that has allowed her to advocate for the archives.  She and her colleague make it a point to attend at least one event a month that is thrown by another department.  She realizes what goes into creating these events and wants to show her support.  She also participates in Facebook and the university blog, provides monthly reports and an Ask the Archivist column in the school newsletter.

This year’s MAC members’ meeting was once again a mix of business and pleasure, with lots of recognition given to dedicated members, an updated Web site unveiled, and a positive financial report released. Highlights included:

• The 2010 Distinguished Service Award went to Janet Olson of Northwestern University.
• The 2010 Emeritus Member Award went to Dr Fred Honhart of Michigan State University.
• Amanda Haldy of the University of Alabama was awarded $100 for “Orphan Works,” which won the first annual student poster competition.
• MAC President Tanya Zanish-Belcher recognized the work of various council and committee members, and other volunteers, and she presented several service certificates, including one for Craig Wright, who has served two straight terms as MAC Treasurer (along the way finding a previously unknown account totaling $39,000!).
• Wright gave a quick synopsis of MAC’s budget, which is in good shape, despite a hit in 2008 to its investment portfolio because of the stock market meltdown that year. Losses have been recouped, and a working group is being formed to look into future investments and development ideas.
• In her “State of MAC” address, Zanish-Belcher made a call to service to members, strongly encouraging them to become more involved; she reported that the downward trend in membership was reversed this year; this year’s meeting attracted a record 450 members, including 70 who signed up for the new-member dinner (the group apparently took over an entire restaurant!); the Web site now has a list of all academic archival programs; ideas are needed for educational opportunities; articles are needed for “Archival Issues;” a working group also is being formed to focus on possible future marketing efforts.
• MAC Secretary Josh Ranger explained several proposed changes to the constitution and by-laws that would allow for certain processes to be done electronically as well as by traditional paper means. Members present at the meeting voted to approve the changes.
• Ranger stood in for Web master Erik Moore in walking members through MAC’s revamped Web site, which is now administered by MemberClicks. New features include member forums, an online payment system, including printable receipts, and a working space for committees.
• Future meetings were announced: Fall 2010 symposium in Dayton; Spring 2011 annual meeting in St. Paul; Fall 2011 symposium in Sioux City; Spring 2012 annual meeting in Grand Rapids.
• Vendor coordinator Shari Christy conducted a raffle of Dayton-related memorabilia to get everyone pumped for the symposium in that fair city this fall.
• The audience saw a short preview of the Spring 2011 annual meeting in St. Paul, whose theme is “Headwaters of History.”

Dr. Pacyga used Plenary Session 2 to spin an enthralling narrative of the history of Chicago. Any attempts by me to reproduce the complete content of his presentation here simply will not do it justice, so I will instead discuss several points he raised on types of resources he uses in his research. Dominic spent much of his talk identifying some of the most valuable, yet underappreciated and threatened, historical records. His speech was filled with humor, yet (in my opinion) hidden beneath was a call to action for archivists. Some of the important threatened materials he mentioned were:

• Family History: this material is some of the most enlightening for research, but often remains uncollected in dresser drawers
• Ethnic Churches: these neighborhood stalwarts were the centerpiece of many ethic communities and can leave behind large and complex archives
• Third Spaces: these were spots where people gathered away from home and work. Often saloons and hardware stores for men and other retail establishments for women, these important sources of social information need to be the target of more preservation efforts
• African American Politicians: the rise of the black middle class and their political power is not well collected or preserved. There is a chance that we will loose these records if action is not taken soon

Other important sources of historical research materials are school records, small ethnic and neighborhood newspapers, fraternal and athletic organizations, hospitals, and records related to labor strife and war.

One of the most illuminating examples given in the speech was the value of school records. Using first communion photos from Catholic churches in neighborhoods affected by the Great Migration, Dominic was able to track how the population of the neighborhood changed year by year. I think his description of how quickly the photos transformed from having one or two African Americans to having one or two Caucasian students greatly impressed the crowd (full disclosure : I am a Chicago history uber-nerd).

During the Q&A portion of the session, an audience member commented how current social media applications like Facebook are now providing places for people to post never before seen photos and information on new and old ethnic communities. Dominic said that these sources of information are invaluable to social researchers and could be lost.

If you have not figured it out yet, I really liked this session and found Dominic’s presentation enlightening and, most important, inspiring.