Digital Commons Network^™

The Importance Of Digitization In Teaching-Oriented University And College Libraries, Craighton T. Hippenhammer

Faculty Scholarship – Library Science

An increasing number of university and college libraries have started digitization programs and there are good reasons why they are doing so. First, we are in the middle of revolutionary change as to how ideas get published and distributed. Over 50 percent of scholarly publishing has gone digital and over 20 percent has gone open access. Governments worldwide are beginning to require tax-supported research be published in open access venues. Secondly, it is imperative that they increase their Archives’ digital presence. Preserving institutional histories is currently being lost because of the entirely digital way academics now communicate and many archives …

Au Courant - Fall 2013, Jim Alderman

Au Courant

Newsletter of the Thomas G. Carpenter Library

Documenting Women’S Civil War Experiences In The Ohio Valley At The Filson, Eric Willey

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

This collections essay describes archival collections of the Filson Historical Society of Louisville, Kentucky. These collections document women and their experiences in the American Civil War.

Cultural Sensitivity In The Archives: Digitizing Controversial Materials, A Balancing Act, Marisol Ramos

UConn Library Presentations

What is the role and responsibility of the archives when considering giving access to potentially controversial material? How cultural sensitivity can serve as a framework to balance access to material that may hurt the feeling of individuals or groups? These are some of the questions discussed in this presentation. The presentation will focus on two cases at the University of Connecticut where issues about cultural sensitivity have an impact in the decisions taken to digitize the collections. In specific, I discussed working with sensitive cultural materials which have the potential to hurt, embarrassed or infuriate different type of stakeholders. I …

Digitization Is In The Details: Using Data From Patron Research Patterns To Enhance Accessibility, April K. Anderson-Zorn

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

Materials like yearbooks, catalogs, and university governance are highly requested items at a university archive. For Illinois State University, we decided to digitize these items to make them more accessible to our out-of-town alumni and researchers. Digitizing these materials was a huge accomplishment for the department and helped us achieve our goal of gaining a larger web presence with our patrons. But where do we go from here? All too often, archivists tend to think we know what our patrons want but in some cases, our digital efforts are rarely viewed online. What parameters can we follow in choosing materials …

Documenting 'Herstories' In The Ohio Valley At The Filson, Eric Willey

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

This collection essay describes archival collections held by the Filson Historical Society of Louisville, Kentucky. The collections described document women’s contributions to the region’s history, their struggles and triumphs, and the contours of their daily lives, including interactions with family, peers, neighbors, and business associates.

History Day Collaboration: Maximizing Resources To Serve Students, Thomas D. Steman, Patricia Post

Library Faculty Publications

In tough economic times, History Day provides an excellent opportunity for units at a university and interested parties in the community to collaborate in new and interesting ways. A focus on collaboration at St. Cloud State University (SCSU) helped ensure that History Day participants in central Minnesota had a more level playing field with their counterparts in the Twin Cities area. Strong relationships were built over three years of programming, which has become a stabilizing force as members of the team weather more new challenges due to the economic recession.

The Well‐Rounded Archivist: A Unlv University Archivist Perspective, Tom D. Sommer

Library Faculty Presentations

I’m going to be focusing on three main themes today:

• The first theme will be “Being a University Archivist.”

• Next will be the things that I “Wish I had Known.”

• Lastly, I’m going to provide you a series of thoughts and feelings that center around my “Advice for New Archivists.”

Creative Collaboration: Maximizing Resources For Multi-Collection Exhibits, Jillian M. Slater, Nichole M. Rustad

Marian Library Faculty Presentations

This presentation illustrates the collaborative, multi-format approach used in preparing an exhibit of archival materials on the 1913 Dayton flood at the University of Dayton Libraries. Originally formed due to the absence of a University Archivist, the small planning committee was able to combine areas of expertise including archives, history, graphic design, video/audio production, marketing, and digitization. The collaborative process facilitated a creative approach resulting in a unique, interactive exhibit utilizing audio, video, original materials, reproductions, a permanent digital component, and a discussion panel event. The presenters will also discuss how the planning committee maximized available resources (without a budget) …

Interview Of Joseph Grabenstein, F.S.C., M.A., M.Ed., M.L.S., Joseph Grabenstein, F.S.C., Wesley Schwenk

All Oral Histories

Brother Joseph Grabenstein is the Head Archivist of the La Salle University Archives and also manages the Brothers of the Christian School, District of Eastern North America Archives that are housed here at La Salle. He worked as an assistant archivist from 1992 until 1994 and was made head archivist January 1, 1994. Grabenstein was born in 1950 in Cumberland, Maryland to Herman and Irene Grabenstein. He is a 1968 graduate of Bishop Walsh High School and received his Bachelor of Arts in History in 1973 from La Salle College. He taught a variety of classes including history, geography, religion …

Cultivating A Special Collection: How The Personal Touch Can Sow The Seeds For A Major Acquisition, Sue Lynn Mcdaniel, Nancy Richey

SCL Faculty and Staff Publications

Introduction:

Serendipity is often the best friend of special collections librarians. Sharing our passion for history and preservation can create happy accidents, connecting us with the caretakers of the remnants of past generations. In fact, libraries come to acquire many cultural treasures, often discovered in the contents of someone's attic, basement, or storage space, because we nurtured a relationship with a potential collector over time.

Au Courant - Spring 2013, Jim Alderman

Au Courant

Newsletter of the Thomas G. Carpenter Library

The Use And Availability Of Environmental Activism Collections In Academic Archives, Amy F. Stempler

Publications and Research

This study seeks to reveal the current state of environmental research in academic special collections and archives, with an emphasis on materials associated with environmental activism. The use and availability of archival environmental activism collections were assessed in a two-fold process. The use of such collections was evaluated through a citation analysis of related research articles published in Environmental History, the premier scholarly journal in the field of environmental history. The citation analysis reviewed the prevalence of archival collections sourced, and examined citations by repository type and material type in order to gain insight into the kinds of items used …

The Student As Subaltern: Reconsidering The Role Of Student Life Material Collections At North American Universities, Jessica L. Wagner

Publications and Research

This article argues for college and university archivists to undertake advocacy and activism to better document student life. It discusses key shifts in archival and historical theory that supported an interest in collecting from a wide variety of people rather than just elites. Next, it describes recent archival scholarship on student life materials and considers the extent to which college and university archives are actively documenting the student experience via the collection of these materials. Analysis of the results of a survey of college and university archivists about the nature of these collections sheds further light on prevailing opinions of …

An Archive, Public Participation And A Performance: Five Perspectives, Laura Browder, Patricia Herrera

English Faculty Publications

This essay discusses our work on the digital archive, The Fight for Knowledge: Civil Rights and Education in Richmond, Virginia, which grew out of our five-year documentary theater project at the University of Richmond. We include the voices of six collaborators—students, a special collections librarian, a digital archivist, and faculty members—to closely examine the multiple archives that have grown out of this project, and the way this has led us to propose a new way of thinking both about archives and about our documentary theater methodologies. This collaborative process has helped us to reconceptualize the relationship between archive and …

Metastatic Metadata: Transferring Digital Skills And Digital Comfort At Umass Amherst, Jeremy Smith, Robert Cox, Danielle Kovacs, Rebecca Reznik-Zellen, Aaron Rubinstein

University Libraries Publication Series

Discusses efforts by the Digital Strategies Group and Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to enlist all library staff to create metadata for a group of historical photographs from the University archive.

True Single Search: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Margaret T. Kidd

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Since the advent of Google, the trend in search engines has been to try to provide as many types of information as possible from a single location. Libraries are no exception, with discovery tools such as Primo and Summon becoming more and more popular. This presentation discusses the pros and cons of using Primo in relation to finding manuscripts and archives materials.