Thoughts from SAA Chicago 2007
I’m posting this on my last day at the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists, held this year in Chicago – I head home to Pennsylvania first thing tomorrow morning.
I arrived early so that I could attend some pre-conference workshops. Aside from my genuine interest in the topics of my selected workshops, the necessity of earning continuing education credits to maintain my certification by the Academy of Certified Archivists (ACA) provided important motivation to attend them.
I learned about an NHPRC-funded project, undertaken by Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to study the problem of electronic records management by academic institutions and develop tools to help those institutions successfully implement electronic records management policies. These tools, known as “Managing the Digital University Desktop” (MDUD) are freely accessible at www.ils.unc.edu/digitaldesktop/.
My second workshop took place at the Newberry Library and also concerned digitization – the digitization of Special Collections. The speakers were charged with being “provocative” and some suggestions that resonated with me were (1) to take advantage of the popularity of Wikipedia by contributing articles and citations that would bring customers to our own repositories and (2) to remember that the standard for archivists is to catalogue to a higher level than the individual item (that is, to the folder or box or collection level) and to apply that standard to our digital collections, including photos.
I was particularly tickled by the first, because the week before leaving for Chicago I actually made my first Wikipedia post, adding information about Kwame Nkrumah and citing Lincoln University’s online resources – the alumni directories and the Lincolnians!
And as for the second, it was like a revelation, removing an important hurdle that has been standing in the way of my undertaking to digitize our Lincoln University Archives photo collection – the lack of documentation about specific photos. Now I plan to commit serious time and effort to preparing a grant proposal for that ambitious project.
In addition to the “for credit” workshops I attended a number of other programs and meetings before and during the conference. At the Lone Arrangers meeting I was a discussion leader, using my experience with planning and implementing digitization projects at Lincoln as a springboard for discussion on the topic, particularly to encourage those who have not yet made the leap to digitization.
As I start to pack up my things for my early departure tomorrow, I have to say what a great city Chicago is – and we have been fortunate to meet walking distance from some of its treasures – Millennium Park and the Art Institute to name just two….I definitely want to come back and see more!
I arrived early so that I could attend some pre-conference workshops. Aside from my genuine interest in the topics of my selected workshops, the necessity of earning continuing education credits to maintain my certification by the Academy of Certified Archivists (ACA) provided important motivation to attend them.
I learned about an NHPRC-funded project, undertaken by Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to study the problem of electronic records management by academic institutions and develop tools to help those institutions successfully implement electronic records management policies. These tools, known as “Managing the Digital University Desktop” (MDUD) are freely accessible at www.ils.unc.edu/digitaldesktop/.
My second workshop took place at the Newberry Library and also concerned digitization – the digitization of Special Collections. The speakers were charged with being “provocative” and some suggestions that resonated with me were (1) to take advantage of the popularity of Wikipedia by contributing articles and citations that would bring customers to our own repositories and (2) to remember that the standard for archivists is to catalogue to a higher level than the individual item (that is, to the folder or box or collection level) and to apply that standard to our digital collections, including photos.
I was particularly tickled by the first, because the week before leaving for Chicago I actually made my first Wikipedia post, adding information about Kwame Nkrumah and citing Lincoln University’s online resources – the alumni directories and the Lincolnians!
And as for the second, it was like a revelation, removing an important hurdle that has been standing in the way of my undertaking to digitize our Lincoln University Archives photo collection – the lack of documentation about specific photos. Now I plan to commit serious time and effort to preparing a grant proposal for that ambitious project.
In addition to the “for credit” workshops I attended a number of other programs and meetings before and during the conference. At the Lone Arrangers meeting I was a discussion leader, using my experience with planning and implementing digitization projects at Lincoln as a springboard for discussion on the topic, particularly to encourage those who have not yet made the leap to digitization.
As I start to pack up my things for my early departure tomorrow, I have to say what a great city Chicago is – and we have been fortunate to meet walking distance from some of its treasures – Millennium Park and the Art Institute to name just two….I definitely want to come back and see more!
posted by Susan Gunn Pevar | 4:22 PM
|
0 comments
