Archives and Special Collections Interest Group

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Worcester ARC Chapter Minutes, November 10th, 2011

Minutes for the Worcester ARC Chapter
November 10th, 2011
American Antiquarian Society

Present:
Margaret Anderson, WPI; Kathy Bell, Tower Hill Botanic Gardens; Sarah Campbell, Holy Cross; Tracey Kry, American Antiquarian Society; Mott Linn, Clark; Kathy Markees, WPI; Elizabeth Maisey, Assumption; Ellen More, UMASS Medical School; Kris Reinhard, UMASS Medical School; Nina Tsantinis, Assumption; Kate Wells, Fitchburgh State University; Fordyce Williams, Clark

The ARC Archives and Special Collections Special Interest Group (SIG) held its meeting on November 10th at the American Antiquarian Society. The meeting commenced with a tour of the Society’s building and collections, led by Tracey Kry.

The business meeting began with each member reporting on news from their respective institutions.

Kathy Bell posed a question about recommendations for digitization. Ideas included Iron Mountain, NEDCC, as well as Recon Group in Ottawa, Canada (recommended by WPI.) Other institutions are undertaking in house digitization projects, including Clark, where yearbooks are being scanned, and Fitchburg State, where a new flatbed scanner has just been purchased.

Kate Wells of Fitchburg State asked about deeds of gift forms, and whether or not other institutions have had to make changes to their forms to accommodate issues with digitization. No institution reported any significant changes being made as of yet, but copyright issues were discussed.

The group will schedule an additional winter meeting, without a special tour/visit. All members agreed a strictly business meeting would be beneficial. Members will bring forms such as reader registration and deed of gift for comparison and discussion.

Minutes submitted by Tracey Kry

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Worcester ARC Chapter minutes July 20, 2011

Minutes for the Worcester ARC Chapter
July 20, 2011
Tower Hill Botanic Garden


Present:

Kathy Bell, Tower Hill Botanic Gardens; Sarah Campbell, Holy Cross; Alice Howe, New England Jesuit Province; Tracey Kry, American Antiquarian Society; Mott Linn, Clark; Kathy Markees, WPI; Ellen More, UMASS Medical School; Colleen Previte, Framingham State University; Kris Reinhard, UMASS Medical School; Mark Savolis, Holy Cross; Eugenia Tsantinis, Assumption; Fordyce Williams, Clark

New Business:

On Wednesday, July 20th , the ARC Archives and Special Collections Special Interest Group (SIG) held a meeting at Tower Hill Botanic Gardens. The group was guided on a tour of the library by Kathy Bell, Tower Hill’s Archivist. Following the tour elections were held. Kathy Bell from Tower Hill will serve as the new chair and Tracey Kry from the American Antiquarian Society will serve as Secretary. The group then adjourned to Twigs Cafe for lunch.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Sarah Campbell, Secretary

Worcester ARC Chapter minutes May 12, 2011

Minutes for the Worcester ARC Chapter
May 12, 2011
SAA Archon Webinar

Present:

ARC Members:

Sarah Campbell, Holy Cross; Alice Howe, New England Jesuit Province; Tracey Kry, American Antiquarian Society; Colleen Previte, Framingham University; Kris Reinhard, UMASS Medical; Mark Savolis, Holy Cross


NEA Members:


Nancy Barta-Norton, Johnson and Wales; Mary Rita Grady, Regis; Merlyn Liberty, Dwyer Memorial Library; Nova Seals, Connecticut College; Jen Tuleja, St. George’s School; Val Simpson, St. George’s School

New Business:

On Thursday, May 12, 2011 ARC members attended a SAA webinar titled “Archon…making it work for you!” As this meeting was opened to the public several member of NEA also attended the webinar. Hosted by the College of the Holy Cross, this presentation provided an overview of Archon, an online collection management program. The webinar was very informative and the presenters made every effort to answer the audience’s questions.

Respectfully submitted by Sarah Campbell, Secretary

Worcester ARC Chapter minutes March 7, 2011

Minutes for the Worcester ARC Chapter
Thursday March 7, 2011
Iron Mountain, Northborough Facility


Present:

Margaret Anderson, WPI; Kathy Bell, Tower Hill; Lora Brueck Assumption; Mary Brunelle, Assumption; Sarah Campbell, Holy Cross; Alice Howe, New England Jesuit Province; Tom Knoles, American Antiquarian Society; Mott Linn, Clark; Kathy Markees, WPI; Ellen More, UMASS Worcester; Colleen Previte, Framingham State; Kris Reinhard, UMASS Worcester; Mark Savolis, Holy Cross


New Business:

On March 7, 2011 the Worcester ARC Chapter toured the Iron Mountain Northborough Facility. We also heard presentations from members of their staff as well as from a representative of the Kirtas Company. The Kirtas Company is a company that sells book scanners. Iron Mountain and Kirtas have partnered to provide high quality scanning at a reasonable rate.

The meeting adjourned at 1:00pm. The location and date for the next ARC meeting have not been set.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Sarah Campbell, Secretary

Thursday, October 21, 2010

ARC Meeting Minutes for October 20, 2010

ARC Meeting Minutes October 20, 2010
Location: WPI

Present: Margaret Anderson, WPI; Mary Brunelle, Assumption; Sarah Campbell, Holy Cross; Alice Howe, New England Jesuit Association; Tracy Kry, American Antiquarian Society; Mott Linn, Clark; Colleen Previte, Framingham State; Mark Savolis, Holy Cross; Corinne Smith, Anna Maria; Eugenia Tsantinis, Assumption; Keith Vezeau, Mass Military

Discussion

Following an introduction of members three topics were discussed:

1. Outreach

The members had several ideas about how best to promote their institutions' archival and special collections. Some of the ideas that were mentioned were: a fun-filled Library Faire that introduced Holy Cross students to the Archives; UMASS Medical's annual lecture series held during American Archives Week; Clark's Friends of the Library's events that take place in the Rare Books Room; and the American Antiquarian Society's blog. The consensus was that outreach is most effective when it includes very visual elements and a spirit of fun.

2. Possible Program Ideas

The members had several ideas for programs to be held at future meetings. Some of these ideas were: a tour of Iron Mountain's digitization facilities; a meeting with members of Worcester County's Emergency Management Team; A session on best practices for off-site storage of digital materials; a session on developing effective collection management policies; and a session on how best to asses archives.

3. Institutional Repository
Mott wished to make the group aware that there has been a push for the creation of an institutional repository held jointly by members of the Worcester Consortium.

Facility Tour:

Following the discussion portion of the meeting the group was given a tour of WPI's new archival facilities and exhibit space. Currently, WPI is featuring an exhibit of the Diaries of Theo Brown, an alumnus of WPI and a principal engineer for John Deer.


The meeting was adjourned at 12.30. A site and date for the next meeting have not been chosen.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Sarah Campbell, Secretary

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Minutes of the August 4, 2010 meeting

Present:

Mott Linn, Clark; Fordyce Williams, Clark; Margaret Anderson, WPI; Jim Massery, WPI; Kathy Markees, WPI; Sarah Campbell, Holy Cross; Mark Savolis, Holy Cross; Alice Howe, New England Jesuit Province; Ellen More, UMASS Worcester

New Business:

1. Updates ARC Members:

Fordyce (Clark)

As Clark's archives department is open two days a week during the summer Fordyce has primarily been handling researchers' questions. She reported that in October the Friends of Goddard Library will be sponsoring a tour of the Stanley Kunitz house. There is a link on Clark's web page that provides the details about this event.

Kathy (WPI)

Kathy reported that the Dickens project is still ongoing. They have successfully uploaded into Digitool three of the eleven Charles Dickens' serialized works chosen for this project (dickens.wpi.edu.) They have also been edited for OCR. The grant for this project ends in September. She also reported that WPI will haven an exhibit based on Theo Brown's Diaries. Brown was an alum of WPI and an engineer for John Deere. 2/3 of his diaries have been scanned and are on the web at (theo.wpi.edu) The exhibition will open October 2nd.

Ellen (UMASS Worcester)

Ellen reported that UMASS Worcester has formed a Records Management Committee. The final draft of their collections policy is nearly complete. She also reported that she and Kris Reinhard are preparing for the annual American Archives Month celebration that will focus on the Grad School of Nursing. This event will include several activities including a panel of speakers. The archives has gained a large collection of papers from the grad school of nursing during the process of preparing for this event. Kris has also created online finding aids for several collections pertaining to the history of UMASS Med.

Alice (New England Jesuit Province)

Alice reported that the Shadowbrook online exhibit has been launched on Holy Cross' archives website. This digital exhibit was launched in conjunction with the physical exhibit that can be seen at Holy Cross. She has also finished processing the Jesuit Mission Collection.

Colleen (Framingham State)

Colleen reported that Framingham State's library is currently undergoing renovations. She also reported that Framingham State received a small institution grant from the Digital Commonwealth. They are scanning images from the college including the Christa McAuliffe collection. She is working with Simmons institute to scan the 750-100 images. Finally, she is working with the Security Council on a records retention policy.

Sarah (Holy Cross)

Sarah reported that she has been working on the Program Committee for the fall New England Archivist meeting. She has also been asked to serve on the Digital Commonwealth Executive Board and will be working on the conference committee. She also reported that the Holy Cross Archives website has finally been converted to Drupal. Finally, she has been processing a large collection of photographs from Public Affairs.

Jim (WPI)

Jim has been processing the papers of WPI's first president Charles Thompson. This collection includes transcriptions of Thompson's handwritten letters. He also has entered the papers of Mildred Tymeson who was the author of WPI's history The Two Towers into PastPerfect.

Margaret (WPI)

Margaret reported that WPI has mounted an exhibit of Woodbury and Company's letterheads and drawings of factories. Mr. Woodbury has been very helpful during the process of setting up this exhibit. She also reported that they are also in the process of getting the finding aids for their manuscript collections into PastPerfect and then online.

Mark (Holy Cross)

Mark reported that Holy Cross recently hired a new head of libraries. Kathleen Carney, who was Boston College Library's Associate Directory, started in June. Mark also reported that a large collection of papers was recently sent over from the President's office and the General Council of the College. Finally, Mark reported that he has been working with the Worcester Historical Society on a civil war exhibit

Mott (Clark)

Mott reported that Clark is working on a digital institutional repository. He also provided ARC with an update regarding the status of this organization in light of the demise of the region. There have been on updates regarding the fate of the CRMLS and WRMLS staff. Holy Cross is currently housing ARC's website and listserv. Lyrasis will be taking over the administration of CMRLS and WRMLS. However, while there have been many changes due to the break of the region Mott was confident that ARC will weather the change without interruption.

2. End of Ellen and Kris' terms

After a year of service Ellen and Kris will be stepping down as the Chair and Secretary of ARC. Alice will take on the role of Chair and Sarah will take on the role of Secretary.

3. Next Meeting

The date and location for the next meeting will be set in the future.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Minutes of the January 20, 2010 meeting

A meeting of the ARC Archives and Special Collections Interest Group was held Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. In attendance were Mott Linn, Debby Aframe, Dodie Gaudet, Mark Savolis, Sarah Campbell, Alice Howe, Kathy Markees, Margaret Anderson, Ellen More, and Kris Reinhard.

The first issue discussed was the request from the ARC Directors that the Archives and Special Collections Interest Group plan a presentation related to archives that would be of interest to all members of ARC. It had previously been decided that Gregor Trinkaus-Randall of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners would be asked to present his workshop about disaster planning. His presentation would benefit anyone whose institution does not have a disaster plan and would also be beneficial for institutions with new staff members.

Mott has contacted Gregor. A date needs to be arranged with the ARC Directors. Mott is meeting with them in mid-February. The question was raised as to who would host the disaster presentation. Dodie suggested that having it at CMRLS is a good option and that the event could be put on CMRLS’s Event Keeper calendar. The next steps are to find out when Gregor is available and check into the availability of a room at CMRLS.

We updated each other on our activities since our last meeting.

Mark is hiring a cataloger to work with the rare books.

Alice has just installed the “Shadowbrook” exhibit about two buildings owned by the Province and located in the Berkshires.

Kathy has been working on an OCR program. She’s working with the Dickens Collection and has put Hard Times online. Oliver Twist should be up in the next few weeks and Edwin Drood will be next.

Mott told us that the Goddard exhibition is being reinstalled on the main floor of the library.

Debby is waiting to hear about a NHPRC grant for starting an archive and getting an archivist. She will be meeting with the State Archives.

Margaret continues processing collections. There has been a consultant from NELINET recently and there is some talk about the possibility of getting a digital librarian. She is using Past Perfect to put finding aids online and may use that instead of Archivist’s Toolkit.

Dodie talked about the new CMRLS model being planned. The six existing regions will become one hub and there will be six spokes off of the hub. The intent is to have a new Central Region model ready by July 1st. One of the drawbacks is that there will be no facilities to offer continuing education, etc. She also mentioned a contest that Rob Cox at UMass Amherst and the Friends of the Library had for a student paper done using the archives. We discussed maybe doing something similar perhaps as a consortium project.

Sarah told us she is on the Program Committee for the New England Archivists Fall 2010 meeting in Keene, New Hampshire. She also mentioned that she is now using Drupal, an open source content management system.

Kris discussed the American Archives month celebration events in October. These included an open house in the Rare Book Room and a luncheon and panel discussion with former and current faculty, members of UMMS who were involved with the early history of the school through education, research, or clinical care. A display window exhibit about the school’s first decade was also done. The UMMS Publications finding aid is online and another finding aid is almost ready be put up.

Ellen continues researching to write the history of UMMS and in November gave a talk about a book she co-edited, Women Physicians and the Cultures of Medicine.

We ended our meeting with a tour of the Holy Cross Archives.

Respectfully submitted,

Kris Reinhard, Secretary

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Minutes for October 1, 2009 meeting

Present:
Sarah Campbell, Margaret Anderson, Mark Savolis, Mott Linn, Dodie Gaudet, Kathy Markees, Fordyce Williams, Ellen More (chair), Alice Howe

The group met for conversation and lunch at the Worcester Art Museum café—many thanks to Debby Aframe for organizing this! The following are our updates:
Alice continues to be busy processing collections ("status quo").

Fordyce announced a major weekend of activities at Clark to commemorate the visit of Freud, Jung, Ferenczi and others to Clark University in 1909. It was Freud's only visit to the U.S. He received an honorary degree, and considered this visit instrumental in Americans' growing recognition of psychoanalysis. The Archives have been busy with requests for photographs and other materials to support the event. In conjunction with these events, the Friends of the Goddard Library will host Sophie Freud on Oct. 15. It's open to the public. In addition, she has completed an exhibit for the Digital Archives project.

Kathy described her work as "nothing but Dickens!" The WPI Dickens project to digitize their extensive holdings of original, chapter-by-chapter serial publications of Dickens' works is proceeding on schedule. They are busy capturing images, creating OCR files, etc. Kathy recently received a grant to acquire a series of conservation/preservation volumes. She and the Conservation lab were featured in a story in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette.

Dodie announced that the CMRLS is considering consolidating its several statewide offices into only 2 or 3 regions. The Central MA region is funded until June 30, and they are waiting to see what the reorganization will mean for their office.

Mott reported that the Clark library and archives have finally "settled back in" after months of an extensive remodeling project. He is now working with a university-wide records management team to create a new system for the university, one that will incorporate the Archives. This is the first time they have undertaken this.

Mark Holy Cross is currently preparing for its re-accreditation visits, necessitating much documentation of the Archives' work over the past few years. In preparation for the Information Privacy Act which will go into effect in 2010, the archives has scanned all digital files to "cleanse" them of personal identifiers such as SS #s, dates of birth, etc. Mark recently created an acquisitions advisory committee to help in making acquisition decisions.

Margaret has become a "lone arranger" since the departure of Rodney Obien to the wilds of New Hampshire. (Hi Rodney—we miss you.) She is currently immersed in processing WPI's video games collection, has completed the inventory of the recently acquired Morgan Construction Company papers, organizing files from the Provost's office of former WPI faculty prior to processing them, and generally moving forward with the arranging and describing backlog with which we are all familiar.

Sarah is working on the Holy Cross Archives' web site and has just launched a new exhibition, "Dinand Library Then and Now." She has created a database program for their photograph collection, digitizing the Holy Cross student newspaper collection, and creating a new web exhibit, "Mercy and Martyrdom: The El Salvadoran Martyrs."

Ellen, speaking for herself and for Kris Reinhard, described the work she and Kris are doing to prepare for an event October 13 at UMass Medical School in conjunction with American Archives month, titled "Celebrating the History of UMass Medical School: Look How Far We've Come (and how we got started)." Kris will host an open house at the Archives/Rare Book Room. Ellen has organized a luncheon panel presentation of 6 faculty members from the school's first decade, representing teaching, research, and clinical care. Kris has put together a large window display on the Archives with early pictures of many faculty, administrators, and staff. We're asking people to identify them ("Who Am I?"). Kris is about to complete a finding aid for our publications collection and recently put together a poster on the history of our Graduate School of Nursing in time for its accreditation site visit. Ellen is teaching an elective in History of Medicine and continuing to do archival research and oral history interviews on the history of UMMS. She has written 2 articles on this history in the Library's publication, SouteReview. In August she gave a talk at Washington University in St. Louis for the opening of the NLM/ALA traveling exhibition, "Changing the Face of Medicine."

Our next 2 meetings will be held at Holy Cross in the spring and WPI next fall.
Respectfully submitted,
Ellen More

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Minutes from June 1, 2009 meeting

A meeting of the ARC Archives and Special Collections Interest Group was held Monday, June 1, 2009 at the Sahara Restaurant in Worcester. In attendance were Dodie Gaudet, CMRLS; Kathy Markees, WPI; Rodney Obien, WPI; Margaret Anderson, WPI; Alice Howe, New England Province of the Society of Jesus; Mark Savolis, Holy Cross; Sarah Campbell, Holy Cross; Fordyce Williams, Clark University; Debbie Aframe, Worcester Art Museum; Ellen More, UMass Medical School; and Kristine Reinhard, UMass Medical School.

Ellen is now Chair and Kris is now Secretary of the Interest Group.

The luncheon meeting opened with everyone’s best wishes expressed to Rodney Obien who will be leaving WPI to assume the position of Archivist at Keene State College in New Hampshire. Rodney leaves WPI at the end of June and will be greatly missed.

Ellen reported that the UMass Medical School Archives formed an Archives Advisory Committee. Their first meeting was held May 21, 2009. Ellen said the meeting was very successful.

Sarah has been working on putting issues of the student newspaper “The Crusader” online. She is also hoping to get some old photographs identified during Alumnae Weekend and has been busy working on case exhibits.

Mark reported that there is a new Archival Assistant, Susan Selby at the Holy Cross Archives.

Alice told us she has been making preparations for new accessions of material being transferred to the Jesuit Archives due to an incoming Provincial and the closing of one of the Province’s supported organizations.

Kathy is working on the Dickens digitization project and scanning old student projects. Kathy reported that she is working on implementing the DigiTool content management software.

Dodie reported that the Local History and Genealogy Roundtable will be meeting at Old Sturbridge Village on June 22, 2009.

Margaret described the Archives' move from the third floor to the ground floor.

Rodney reported that the Archives had received material from Morgan Construction Company. He also recently received a call from someone who has radio equipment that Admiral Byrd had taken to the South Pole.

Fordyce reported that things are back to normal after their renovations and move. Hours have been reduced since Mott became Head of Collections Management and Fordyce started as Coordinator of the Archives and Special Collections. She has received many requests for copies of theses and dissertations.

Debby told us that the Worcester Art Museum still has no archivist. Slides of the history of the museum continue to be digitized. She also reported that they are getting ready for an upcoming book sale and the Nathan Hale exhibit.

We discussed having our next meeting at the Worcester Art Museum possibly in September. We also talked about letting other ARC members know about the Archives and Special Collections Interest Group.


Respectfully submitted,

Kristine Reinhard, Secretary