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.
