Examples of institutional projects that push the boundaries of outreach and creative exhibition.

Rachel Jirka from the Society of the Cincinnati (http://www.societyofthecincinnati.org/) spoke about a new outreach program designed for teachers to enhance the practical application of primary sources in the classroom. The Society created a week-long “Master Teachers Seminar,” which includes research sessions, show and tells, and discussion sessions. Teachers apply for the program and come prepared with lesson plans.  Jirka and her colleagues discovered what worked best was free-time in the library and the show and tells, which gave teachers new ideas and increased understanding in student researcher needs.  Additionally, Jirka learned what did not work and how to improve the seminar for future.  They felt teachers needed a more robust library orientation, access to personal reference librarians, and that teacher lesson plans should be supplied in advance.

Kenton Jaehnig from the Hagley Museum and Library (http://www.hagley.org/library/) talked about three types of outreach activities that coincided with the processing of a 700 cubic feet collection of automobile/transportation literature and memorabilia.  First, outreach included on-site “Information Days” where the public was invited to come and learn about archival methods for printed materials and receive a sneak peek of the collection.  Another on-site outreach event coincided with Hagley’s annual Car Show, where Jaehnig set up a booth and talked to automobile enthusiasts. The second type of outreach consisted of off-site presentations at conferences and seminars. The third type was online outreach, which included a digital archive of selected items of the collection and a blog devoted to the collection (http://vinson.hagleyblogs.org/).  Jaehnig discussed the advantages and disadvantages of each type of outreach, concluding that although all three types have benefits, the online outreach touches the most people.

Sierra Green from the Heinz History Center (http://www.heinzhistorycenter.org/) talked about their grant project to digitize 300 oral histories and supporting materials. Using Omeka they created Paesani di Pittsburgh (http://paesanidipittsburgh.omeka.net/), a dynamic site about the Italian American culture and experience in Pittsburgh. In addition to the site they engaged with a reporter who wrote a newspaper article about “The Lost Art of the Love Letter,” which included information about the Center’s collection.  Social media was employed with success, and the Center offered a genealogy workshop to educate about oral histories.

All three speakers recommended including outreach/marketing and assessment in grant proposals! In terms of assessment, Green said that you have to define what success looks like for you. Assessment techniques included quantitative data (e.g. analytics, statistics) coupled with evaluation forms, as well as allowing for other opportunities to receive feedback (e.g. blog comments, in-person discussions).  Causal and impromptu conversations also afforded the opportunity for assessment.  Jirka reflected on a conversation that developed between the teachers when a session ran short. They talked about teaching strategies, which allowed the library staff to gain important insight and feedback about ways to make improvements on the seminar for next time. Jaehnig added that educating patrons about what processing entails through blog posts and in conversation can create more understanding and patient researchers.  In terms of online outreach, the speakers acknowledged that it can be a struggle to keep the momentum going, but it is an important and worthwhile advocacy opportunity.

Contributed by Laurie Rizzo, Hagley Museum and Library, DVAG Vice Chair

In April, I attended the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) in Erie, PA. For those of you who could not make it, I would like to tell you a bit about what you missed.  In a three-part series of posts, I will discuss the conference and some of the sessions I attended.  I thought I would start with an update about MARAC, generally.

Outgoing MARAC Chair, Ed Galloway has been working on forming a consortium of regional archival associations. At this point there are nine representatives from six regional associations working together to determine membership, governance and purpose. The hope is to improve communication and facilitate collaboration between the various groups. This is a result of a Regional Summit that occurred at the last Society of American Archivists annual meeting. I see a lot of potential in this development and look forward to hearing more from them.

Since I mentioned the “outgoing,” I should also mention the “incoming.”  MARAC has a new Chair, John LoGloahec, from NARA in College Park, MD! For those of you not acquainted with John, he is a wonderful person and will do a great job for MARAC.  As you know, MARAC is an all-volunteer organization, if you are interested in being involved in MARAC in some way feel free to express your interest to John.  His contact information, along with all of those currently serving on committees can be found on the MARAC website.

Other ways to get involved with MARAC are to write for the Blog (http://marac-blog.blogspot.com/) or to write an article for the Mid-Atlantic Archivist (MAA) publication (http://www.marac.info/publications).  MARAC welcomes your contributions and would love to see increased dialog from you on their blog and more articles on archival topics in the MAA.

MARAC’s institutional repository, called DRUM, is up and running (http://drum.lib.umd.edu/handle/1903/12510).  It is hosted by the University of Maryland, which is also the repository of the MARAC archives.

There has been ongoing analysis of the Membership Survey which was distributed in March 2012. Out of 40 questions 4 were free response; as you can imagine there is a lot of additional coding and analysis required. The Membership Development Committee is working on this analysis, and results will be made available to members as available. There will be links to results of the membership survey on the MARAC website, as well as more information on this to come as well.

It was announced that Holly Ott, MARAC Administrator has resigned, effective August 2013. Holly will be pursuing her doctorate at Penn State University and we all wish her the best. For those of you who have joined MARAC in the past four years like I have, it is hard to imagine MARAC without Holly! At Erie, we thanked Holly with flowers and a standing ovation during the Business meeting. Holly gave some warm remarks about her experience working with MARAC. The search committee hopes to find Holly’s replacement to continue work out of the Dickinson College office by July so that there will be overlap for the incoming MARAC Administrators training.

UPCOMING CONFERENCES:

The next MARAC conference is November 7-9, 2013 in our very own great city, Philadelphia, at the Hyatt Regency Philadelphia at Penn’s Landing!  I hope that you all can make it and look forward to seeing you there! (Of course, I also look forward to seeing you all at the next DVAG meeting, which will be at the Curtis Music Institute in June – more details on this to come!)

The Spring 2014 conference will be April 24-26, 2014 in Rochester, New York! Followed by Fall 2014, to be held October 16-18 in Baltimore, Maryland; and Spring 2015 Meeting with New England Archivists, date, time and location TBA.

Nina Long was a judge for the Junior Division – history papers for the PA History Day Competition held in Mechanicsburg, PA on  May 3.  Winners from the competition will proceed to the national competition to be held in Washington, D.C. in June.

The Wistar Archives has just completed a 3-year project to return an artifact to their museum collection under the Federal Museum Theft Act.   Wistar Archives worked with Robert Wittman, Inc., the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wilmington, DE to achieve the successful outcome.

The artifact,  a green glass wine bottle embossed with the initials “RW” for Richard Wistar, was  blown at the Wistarburgh Glassworks (1739-1777) in southern N.J.  The only other known example of this type of bottle is in the collection of the Corning Museum.  The RW Bottle  will be on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.