In Chester, the editor of a new publication, Chester Neighbors, asked me to contribute a monthly piece on the area's history on behalf of the Library. I'm always happy to write for a local publication, so I agreed. It's a great opportunity to raise awareness of the Library and its Local History collections, and it allows readers to get to know their Local History Librarian (me) a bit through my writing.
So far, I've written about the Chester Optimist Club Collection, Chester Little League Collection, our 1860 topographic map of NJ, and the Andy Rogers Collection. After the story of the Optimists hit the collective front porches of Chesterites in the Borough and Township, I received a call from a local person whose late husband not only was an active member of the club, but also served as an officer. We set up an appointment, and she donated her son's t-shirts from the famous Turtle Races, her husband's Optimist International lapel pins, and a Turtle Races hat he wore each year. She also lent us some photos that I digitized and returned to her.
She and I talked a bit, and I told her about using t-shirts in my current Chester Little League exhibit. She also had her son's team shirts (6 of them!), which she also donated to the Library on a visit the following week. She specifically said that she wanted the Optimist materials to go into the collection on her husband's behalf, and the baseball textiles to go into that collection. I am happy to honor her requests because of the nature of the two collections.
Both started with analog items, as well as the video interviews (think oral histories, but that's now an outdated term that doesn't apply to non-verbal researchers and/or interviewees). Both have contributions from more than a handful of individuals. I can't call them artificial collections, because they're not. They both contain records of volunteer organizations created by the donating members, as well as their artifacts. I like to think of them as living, active collections because as soon as someone hears about them, they come to visit me with a donation and/or they post to You Know You're From Chester If... on Facebook with a story.
I'm excited to see the feedback when our locals who don't know about the map (likely new or non-library-going-people) read the story and check online to read more about it. I'll have a few legacies when I move on from Chester, and the map is definitely one of them. Another is the Memories of Chester video interview series, with everyone from Tommie Barker to Andy Rogers.
Andy and I spent the better part of a year together, at least once a month, while he sat with me and told me his life story. It is fascinating, with many twists and turns. Frankly, I think there's a book, and possibly, a movie in it. Throughout is the continuing thread of the love story between Andy and his lifelong (her life long -- she died about 10 years before he did) partner, his wife Jan.
During the interviews, Andy became sicker and sicker. He'd been in treatment for a very rare skin cancer that had gotten the better of him, and he died last November. Currently, I have a volunteer who just transcribes interviews for me. She's about 12 sessions into the Andy videos -- there are 15. When he felt like he could, he would sit for 2 hours with me. In the beginning, he spoke about how he was the first member of the Chester Lions Club. In the end, he spoke about Jan's death. I nearly wept aloud, but kept it in due to the recording.
Even when we had completed our time together, I still called once in a while to check on him because even with all his treatments and advanced age, he was still the kind of guy to get up on a ladder to fix something on the roof. Mind you, he fell off and broke his hip, but he got himself into the house to call for help. I'd already known that he was extraordinary, but each week held its surprises.
Writing the little features gives me a chance to shine some light on our collections, sharpen my skills, and take another look at materials I haven't spent much time with in a few years. It also allows me to show our Board and others the value of the Local History department and the Archivist/Local History Librarian professions. I think the next one will be on the Superfund site records. That collection is always an adventure.
Showing posts with label library. Show all posts
Showing posts with label library. Show all posts
Monday, July 08, 2019
Sunday, May 01, 2016
Service to the Profession
It's been a very busy year, as far as service to the profession goes. Since July 2015, I've been serving as President of the New Jersey Library Association's (NJLA's) History and Preservation Section (H&P). Besides representing the Section and NJLA at meetings and events, it's been my responsibility to develop a year's worth of meetings with tours and/or workshops, as well as plan for professional development opportunities for members and non-members in the archives, local history, and special collections fields. I recently gave the Section's annual report to the NJLA Executive Board. During the report, I spoke about our meetings and workshops:
I'm happy to be moderating one session and speaking in the other. My specific area in the Starting from Scratch session will be documentation. I'll be presenting a brief overview of all the documentation needed for a local history department. In preparation for the session, I created a "hidden" page on the Chester Library web site where attendees could obtain PDFs of forms I created for the Library and use them as templates for their departments. Essentially, I wanted to make it as straightforward as possible, so that no one would need to reinvent the wheel.
My experience with creating the documentation for Chester Library focused on reaching out to fellow archivists who had to create their own forms, policies, and procedures. I used the list servs, especially the Lone Arrangers Roundtable list because the members have always been so helpful. Also, because they're like me -- one-person shops, where you have to be all things to all people -- they were able to give me guidance and perspective particular to my situation. Fast forward to five years later, I'm able to do the same for others, and grateful to be able to do so.
Even though I'll be cycling out and becoming Past President in July, I'll still be connected to H&P. The Past President heads the Awards Committee. And, I'm always happy to mentor those who come after me, as I've done with the current P-E and Secretary. I can already see that they're well positioned to keep up the mentoring with those who come after them. It is gratifying to be part of that legacy.
- Meeting and workshop: July 27, 2015 at swanky Lawrenceville School's gorgeous Bunn Library – after the meeting, we had a tour of the archive and had two 1-hour photo preservation workshops by The Better Image photo conservators (and luncheon).
- Meeting: Sept. 30, 2015 our traditional meeting at the Monmouth County Archives/Library during Archives Week. The lunch meeting is sandwiched between great programs on local history and archives.
- Workshop: Dec. 1, 2015, a concentrated, hands-on, half-day Photo Process Identification and Care Workshop, produced by and held at The Better Image in Milford, NJ. The conservators own a great old opera house, and even have an original theatrical background that was conserved.
- Meeting: Dec. 7, 2015 a meeting at the Morristown National Historical Park, Washington’s Headquarters, after which, we had a tour of the archive and viewed very cool samples of the special collections.
- Meeting: March 14, 2016 meeting at Trenton Free Public Library in the Trentoniana Room, co-hosted by the NJ Caucus of MARAC (Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference), after which, we had a tour and saw the treasures of the special collections.
- Workshop: March 22, 2016, a hands-on, half-day, Archival Basics for Librarians workshop, in Alexander Library’s Pane Room, taught by Rutgers’ Associate University Archivist, Erika Gorder. We received very good feedback from students who attended the workshop, and will likely make it an annual program.
I also spoke about the new About Us page, which grew out of an elevator-type speech that I put together to explain H&P to another "sister" organization. After the first draft had been sent to the Section for comment, we were able to post it online as the new About Us page on the NJLA H&P Section page. It's too long to include here, but click this link to view it for yourself. Please let me know what you think.
Other significant accomplishments include Bylaws changes that create a Web Presence Coordinator and an H&P Archives Committee, as well as edits that simplified wording, clarified responsibilities, and updated areas that had not yet included electronic publications and social media.
Last, but far from least, the current P-E Carolyn Dorsey did a phenomenal job putting together the six sessions (and one pre-session) from H&P for the annual NJLA conference taking place on May 16-18 in Atlantic City. She did amazing work obtaining co-sponsorship (as you'll see below). Here's a bit about each, but check out the conference site and the individual links below for complete info:
- Municipal Records in Public Libraries, presented and moderated by Sarah Hull, Plainfield Public Library; Ellen Callahan, NJ State Archives; Tuesday, May 17, 2016, 11:30 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. Sponsoring Groups: History & Preservation Section, Intellectual Freedom Subcommittee, Reference Section, and Urban Libraries Section.
- Telling Your Library's Story, moderated by Janet Torsney, and presented by Tiffany McClary, NJ State Library; Ellen O'Keefe, Northvale Public Library; William A. Peniston, Newark Museum; and Michele Stricker, NJ State Library; Tuesday, May 17, 2016,-3:10 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Sponsoring Groups: History & Preservation Section and Small Libraries Section.
- Fundamentals of Preservation Care Part 1: Book Repair Demo and Part 2. Presentation: The Fundamentals of Managing Preservation Efforts in Libraries; moderated by: Michele Stricker; presented by: Kim Avagliano, Monmouth County Library; Deborah Mercer, NJ State Library; Tuesday, May 17, 2016, 4:10 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Sponsoring Groups: College & University Section, History & Preservation Section, Small Libraries Section, and Technical Services Section.
- Starting from Scratch: The Challenges and Triumphs in Creating a Local History Collection moderated by John Beekman, Jersey City Public Library and presented by: Debra Schiff, Chester Library; Aimee Fernandez-Puente, Elizabeth Public Library; and Marian Bauman, archivist; Wednesday, May 18, 2016, 11:30 a.m. to 12:20 p.m.; Sponsoring Groups: College & University Section, History & Preservation Section, Reference Section, Technical Services Section, and Urban Libraries Section.
- New Jersey Authors Speak, moderated by Jessica M. Myers, presented by Maxine N. Lurie, Seton Hall University and Chair, NJ Historical Commission and NJ Studies Academic Alliance; Richard P. Carlin, Executive Editor, Music & Art in Higher Education, Oxford University Press; Richard Rockwell, Bloomfield Morris Canal Greenway Committee, Bloomfield Historic Preservation; Wednesday, May 18, 2016, 11:30 a.m. to 12:20 p.m.; Sponsoring Groups: College & University Section, History & Preservation Section, and Reader's Advisory Roundtable.
- Keeping Up with Copyright to Protect Your Library moderated by Gary Saretsky, Monmouth County Archives and presented by Greg Cram, J.D., Associate Director of Copyright and Information Policy, The New York Public Library, Wednesday, May 18, 2016, 2:30 p.m. to 3:20 p.m.; Sponsoring Groups: Administration & Management Section, Emerging Technologies Section, History & Preservation Section, Intellectual Freedom Subcommittee, Reference Section, and Technical Services Section
- Yes, Our Collections Have Been Digitized: How Lyrasis' Digitization Collaborative Gets "Hidden" Collections Online, moderated by Debra Schiff, Chester Library and presented by Laurie Gemmill Arp, Director of Digital and Preservation Services, Lyrasis and Paul Martinez, Cataloging Librarian and Archivist, Sprague Library, Montclair University, Pre-conference Monday, May 16, 2016, 10:00 a.m. to 10:50 a.m. Virtual (Adobe Connect) – all conference attendees are free to attend. Sponsoring Groups: College & University Section, Emerging Technologies Section, History & Preservation Section, Reference Section, and Technical Services Section
My experience with creating the documentation for Chester Library focused on reaching out to fellow archivists who had to create their own forms, policies, and procedures. I used the list servs, especially the Lone Arrangers Roundtable list because the members have always been so helpful. Also, because they're like me -- one-person shops, where you have to be all things to all people -- they were able to give me guidance and perspective particular to my situation. Fast forward to five years later, I'm able to do the same for others, and grateful to be able to do so.
Even though I'll be cycling out and becoming Past President in July, I'll still be connected to H&P. The Past President heads the Awards Committee. And, I'm always happy to mentor those who come after me, as I've done with the current P-E and Secretary. I can already see that they're well positioned to keep up the mentoring with those who come after them. It is gratifying to be part of that legacy.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Work Updates: The Big Exhibit and a Third Gig
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| From Plainfield Public Library Detwiller Architectural Drawings Exhibit 2014 |
The Big Exhibit
Shown above is the terrific Charles H. Detwiller, Jr. Architectural Drawings Collection exhibit at Plainfield Public Library created by Sarah Hull, Senior Archivist and Head of Local History, Special Collections and Genealogy; Jeff Wassen, Visual Materials and Exhibition Coordinator; Jane Thoner, Genealogy Librarian; and Sandy Gurshman, Special Collections and Reference Librarian. My contribution to this impressive display (which covers walls in the main reading room, Plainfield Room, and Meeting Room 2, as well as 4 exhibit cases) took place much earlier during my processing of the collection favorites in 2010 and 2011. The favorites are a small percentage of the now 16,000 sets of architectural drawings that represent each of the Plainfield architects, each type of structure in the city, and the best examples to use for exhibits.
When I took on that project, I applied the condition-reporting techniques I'd learned working at the Zimmerli Museum. My documentation included, among other things, taking measurements of each set and making recommendations for future exhibits. At the time, I didn't know where I would be working when those objects would be displayed, but I did know that the information I collected would be useful at some point. Since beginning his work on the exhibit, Jeff has let me know that my measurements, recommendations, and information slips kept with the rolled blueprints/drawings were helpful in their decision-making process.
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| From Plainfield Public Library Detwiller Architectural Drawings Exhibit 2014 |
The exhibit is extraordinary. It covers a wide range of architectural styles from the first building permit in 1896 to mid-century split-levels (the collection itself spans nearly 150 years). There are houses of worship, schools, homes of different types, apartments, stores, and even a drawing of a fancy snack cart for Muhlenberg Hospital. Below is a truly unique example -- a Central Railroad of New Jersey documentation of a train derailment in Cranford from 1924.
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| From Plainfield Public Library Detwiller Architectural Drawings Exhibit 2014 |
There are 25 architects' work on display. The archivists and librarians were able to locate information on 11 of them. For example, Col. Evarts J. Tracy, Jr. lived from 1868-1922 and was the great-great grandson of Roger Sherman, who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Then there was Oscar S. Teale (1848-1927), who wasn't just a Plainfield architect, he moonlighted as a magician known as "Ottilidio," and called Houdini a close friend.
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| From Plainfield Public Library Detwiller Architectural Drawings Exhibit 2014 |
While those are notable stories, one of my favorite architects in the collection is Augustus L.C. Marsh (1865-1942). His attention to detail and flourish made his designs and talent famous with the wealthy families of Plainfield, as well as New York City, where he worked at the firm Marsh & Gette until he moved his offices to Plainfield.
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| From Plainfield Public Library Detwiller Architectural Drawings Exhibit 2014 |
The great collector and architect Charles H. Detwiller, Jr. (1916-1991) (shown above) saved this collection from certain ruin. As the story goes, Plainfield had been storing all the drawings and blueprints at the Wardlaw School until Wardlaw moved to Edison and the duCret School of Art bought the building. The city would have disposed of all the historical documents had it not been for Charles Detwiller. Son of an architect and father of two architects, Detwiller rented a storage facility for the thousands of sets of plans to save them for future generations until he donated them to the library in 1982.
Detwiller worked on many historical preservation projects including the Drake House in Plainfield, East Jersey Olde Towne in Piscataway, and others along the Atlantic coast. His residential works make up a fair amount of the collection. I've worked with many of the now fragile and acidic sketches of additions and new homes in locations as far flung as Montana (where he designed a fishing library with shelves bolstered by carved wooden fish). He's also the man behind the fancy snack cart I mentioned earlier.
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| From Plainfield Public Library Detwiller Architectural Drawings Exhibit 2014 |
I am sorry that I didn't have the opportunity to meet Charles Detwiller. Because I've spent so much time with his collection, as well as his own work, there are questions I wish I could ask him. For instance, what types of concerns arise when you speak with a client about the miniature golf course he wants for his garage (see the image below).
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| From Plainfield Public Library Detwiller Architectural Drawings Exhibit 2014 |
The Third Gig
Speaking of Detwiller, he and his wife Catherine also were active members of the Plainfield Historical Society (PHS). Earlier this year, PHS wrote me into a small grant to take a survey of their collection, make recommendations to bring the collections under intellectual and physical control, and do some processing (time permitting). I'm still at PHS one day per week, and very much enjoying the small and large discoveries in the Drake House. The volunteers and staff are lovely people who are dedicated to making the House and its collections more accessible and interesting to its visitors. On many a Sunday, I find much-needed and long missing photos of the House during a pivotal time period or a letter giving more insight into the relationship between a famous spinster and her mentor. Each week, there is an exciting new discovery, and I'm very grateful to be a part of that excitement.
Other Work News
Additionally, I recently celebrated two years as the Local History Librarian at Chester Library. The universe's gift to me on the occasion was to send a wonderful 83-year-old lifelong resident to me with a collection of postcards. It seems to be our trend now to digitize items on loan to us in order to increase their accessibility to our patrons both far and wide. His collection is no different, although this time, I have the great pleasure of video recording our patron talking about his Chester postcards and what the town was like during the 1940s and 1950s. My plan is to post an online exhibit on the postcards (much like this one), and add these short oral histories to each postcard page. I think it will add a wonderful new dimension to experiencing these postcards of Chester.
Our patron also has lent us his collection of The Mendham-Chester Tribune newspapers to digitize. I'm in the process of writing a grant for that project. Those papers add to our current collection of local papers and fill in an important gap -- the 1936-1939 time period. I can't wait to read those papers!
Overall, it's been an exciting time at Chester Library. This week, I give a Genealogy 101 presentation and have another video recording session with our soon-to-be internet sensation. He really is a natural at it. I'll be posting a link to the exhibit here when it's available. Because he has many postcards and we're taking quite a bit of footage, I expect the finished exhibit will be online in early 2015.
Until then, I encourage you to visit the Plainfield Public Library at 800 Park Avenue in Plainfield, NJ to see the remarkable Charles H. Detwiller, Jr. Architectural Drawings Collection exhibit. It will be available for viewing until November.
Friday, January 03, 2014
Doing More with Less -- Using Newspaper Ads and Loaned Postcards for a Holiday Exhibit
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| Holidays in Chester Exhibit. Photo credit Deb Schiff, copyright 2013. |
Later that week, Joan came to my office with a giant smile and a three-ring binder filled with the most marvelous holiday postcards from the early 1900s and 1910s. They had been sent to her mother and uncle when they were children. The cards were in excellent condition and properly housed in polyester sleeves. Importantly, they scanned and printed well when I made facsimiles for the months-long exhibit (November through early January). While I'd love to use the originals in an exhibit, it would be a shame for these gorgeous cards to fade while on display under UV lights.
All of the items in the exhibit (with the exception of a turkey-shaped salt shaker and some fabric leaves I'd bought at the dollar store) were facsimiles. Because the postcards were overwhelmingly Christmas-themed, I needed to supplement them with a diverse array of holiday items. I also required enough items to populate the main display case by the front desk and the new small, wall case I recently purchased. The little case is mounted on a wall adjacent to my office. The facsimiles in that case show the backs and fronts of holiday postcards, so that patrons could see the warm greetings sent to Joan's family members.
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| Holidays in Chester Exhibit. Photo credit Deb Schiff, copyright 2013. |
The remaining items in the exhibit originated in The Mendham-Chester Tribune and the Observer-Tribune, its successor newspaper. These materials included local stories that highlighted the season, as well as advertisements. Surprisingly, there weren't many holiday stories that could be used in the exhibit. Perseverance pays, however, because I did manage to find one item highlighting former Mayor (and famed chicken farmer) Janet Abeles cooking in her kitchen (lower center of the photo above).
The early (1950s) Tribunes' publishers kept a tradition of selling ads to local businesses for a special holiday section. These notices included thank yous to patrons, holiday greetings, and reminders of items for sale. Often, they featured lively holiday designs.
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| Holidays in Chester Exhibit. Photo credit Deb Schiff, copyright 2013. |
The advertisements include one for a Jeep on sale at Apgar's Garage, as well as two New Year's Eve parties at the Chester Inn and Red Cricket Inn.
Two major exhibits are in the works for 2014:
- Celebrating the 350th anniversary of New Jersey, I'll be mounting an exhibit showcasing select sections of our 1860 New Jersey Topographical Map. The exhibit will be coordinated with a featured speaker, Maxine Lurie, on April 29th.
- The 10th anniversary of the Chester Library addition and renovation takes place in 2014. We have many blueprints and photographs that will be highlighted in the exhibit occupying the cases during the second half of the year.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Work Update: Exhibit
“Chester’s ‘Tommie’ Barker – a Year in Professional Women’s Baseball, a Lifetime of Memories” exhibit, Rossney E. Smyth Memorial Display Case, Chester Library, Chester, New Jersey. Photograph © Debra Schiff 2013.
I'll admit it. I'm a bit envious of libraries with multiple display cases and areas dedicated to exhibits. While the image above shows a fine, sizable display case, it's the only one we have at Chester Library. If we had, perhaps a square museum case, I could place it in that corner all the way in the back by the quiet study rooms. I could outfit the case with one of our not-quite-rare, but certainly scarce, old books. For now, I'll be happy with the one above.
The exhibit shown in the image above is focused on the terrific Tommie Barker, our resident sports legend. She played professional women's baseball in 1950, not long before the end of the All-American Girls' Baseball League. Tommie (whose father wanted a boy and whose real name is Lois) played softball on a team she helped create, the Chester Farmerettes and previously on the Roxbury High School team before the League's tryouts in Irvington, New Jersey.
After earning a spot in the "camp" phase of the tryouts she took several trains to finally arrive in Indiana. Tommie earned her spot as the oldest rookie in the League at age 27, although she fibbed about her age and said she was 21. She was signed to the Grand Rapids (Mich.) Chicks for the 1950 season, and quickly made new friends in her teammates. The framed photo in the upper right corner of the image above shows her team photo.
Because Tommie's items are on loan from her personal collection, she agreed that I could make digital facsimiles of all the materials for a future online exhibit. The yearbook in the center bottom of the case is from the Chester Library collection, although it was a donation from a former Chester resident who wanted it to go to a good home. You can see Tommie in the yearbook on the left page, top-most photo.
When I visited Tommie to talk with her about her life and experience as a professional women's baseball player, I learned that she only played for one year because her father had become ill. "Back in those days," she said, "You had to come home and take care of your parents." When the League mailed her a renewal contract for 1951, she returned it unsigned due to her devotion to her father.
She didn't keep her uniform, but she did hold on to the round sweater patch (on the right) and the shield-shaped uniform patch (on the left). They are in excellent condition, and I placed them on top of some black velvet cut in a way that I hoped would make them pop even more against the light blue background. The blue paper is actually archival wrapping paper which is acid-free and buffered. I thought that it would provide a stable background for the items in the case.
The other framed items include a tinted black and white portrait of Tommie and her certificate from the Baseball Hall of Fame, which had inducted the League in 1998. When I unframed the items to make digital facsimiles, I discovered two other photos in the portrait's frame. First, there was black and white signed portrait of Tommie in the same pose, and a baby picture with three children. When I see Tommie next, I'll ask her about that baby photo.
I used small bench weights to keep the framed items in a tilted standing position, hiding them with other items. For future exhibits, I will likely wrap them in black velvet to make them less noticeable. One of the items used to camouflage the weights is a digital facsimile I received from the Grand Rapids Public Library. It is a copy of a 1950 program from a Grand Rapids Chicks game. The Special Collections librarian at GRPL made a digital copy of a few of the inside pages, including one that shows the team photo. I'll hang onto that one for the online exhibit.
The baseball is held in place by a coiled string weight that you cannot see from above. These types of weights are typically used to hold book pages open. They resemble white shoelaces. Finally, I also used the tilted frames to hide some silica gel packets to help prevent humidity from causing damage to the items.
On top of the case, I used an acrylic stand to hold a list of the items within the case. I hope that it helps to discourage patrons from using the case as a stand for their items. Because the case is currently located between a copier/print station and another copier, I've seen my share of people setting items on top of it.
Last, but far from least, I was able to locate an historian who is an expert on women in baseball for a companion program on July 25. Leslie Heaphy is the author of the Encyclopedia of Women and Baseball, and is an associate professor of history at Kent State University. Tommie Barker has the date on her calendar, and although the 90-year old has had some health challenges, she can't wait for an evening of women's baseball history in her hometown of Chester.
The exhibit shown in the image above is focused on the terrific Tommie Barker, our resident sports legend. She played professional women's baseball in 1950, not long before the end of the All-American Girls' Baseball League. Tommie (whose father wanted a boy and whose real name is Lois) played softball on a team she helped create, the Chester Farmerettes and previously on the Roxbury High School team before the League's tryouts in Irvington, New Jersey.
After earning a spot in the "camp" phase of the tryouts she took several trains to finally arrive in Indiana. Tommie earned her spot as the oldest rookie in the League at age 27, although she fibbed about her age and said she was 21. She was signed to the Grand Rapids (Mich.) Chicks for the 1950 season, and quickly made new friends in her teammates. The framed photo in the upper right corner of the image above shows her team photo.
Because Tommie's items are on loan from her personal collection, she agreed that I could make digital facsimiles of all the materials for a future online exhibit. The yearbook in the center bottom of the case is from the Chester Library collection, although it was a donation from a former Chester resident who wanted it to go to a good home. You can see Tommie in the yearbook on the left page, top-most photo.
When I visited Tommie to talk with her about her life and experience as a professional women's baseball player, I learned that she only played for one year because her father had become ill. "Back in those days," she said, "You had to come home and take care of your parents." When the League mailed her a renewal contract for 1951, she returned it unsigned due to her devotion to her father.
She didn't keep her uniform, but she did hold on to the round sweater patch (on the right) and the shield-shaped uniform patch (on the left). They are in excellent condition, and I placed them on top of some black velvet cut in a way that I hoped would make them pop even more against the light blue background. The blue paper is actually archival wrapping paper which is acid-free and buffered. I thought that it would provide a stable background for the items in the case.
The other framed items include a tinted black and white portrait of Tommie and her certificate from the Baseball Hall of Fame, which had inducted the League in 1998. When I unframed the items to make digital facsimiles, I discovered two other photos in the portrait's frame. First, there was black and white signed portrait of Tommie in the same pose, and a baby picture with three children. When I see Tommie next, I'll ask her about that baby photo.
I used small bench weights to keep the framed items in a tilted standing position, hiding them with other items. For future exhibits, I will likely wrap them in black velvet to make them less noticeable. One of the items used to camouflage the weights is a digital facsimile I received from the Grand Rapids Public Library. It is a copy of a 1950 program from a Grand Rapids Chicks game. The Special Collections librarian at GRPL made a digital copy of a few of the inside pages, including one that shows the team photo. I'll hang onto that one for the online exhibit.
The baseball is held in place by a coiled string weight that you cannot see from above. These types of weights are typically used to hold book pages open. They resemble white shoelaces. Finally, I also used the tilted frames to hide some silica gel packets to help prevent humidity from causing damage to the items.
On top of the case, I used an acrylic stand to hold a list of the items within the case. I hope that it helps to discourage patrons from using the case as a stand for their items. Because the case is currently located between a copier/print station and another copier, I've seen my share of people setting items on top of it.
Last, but far from least, I was able to locate an historian who is an expert on women in baseball for a companion program on July 25. Leslie Heaphy is the author of the Encyclopedia of Women and Baseball, and is an associate professor of history at Kent State University. Tommie Barker has the date on her calendar, and although the 90-year old has had some health challenges, she can't wait for an evening of women's baseball history in her hometown of Chester.
Sunday, April 08, 2012
Brief Tour of the Morristown & Morris Township Library
Last week, the New Jersey Library Association's History and Preservation Section met at the fully renovated Morristown & Morris Township Library. Because my parents are locals, I was familiar with the library prior to the May 3, 2010 explosion that damaged the historic 1917 and 1930 wings of the building. The Newsletter of the North Jersey History & Genealogy Center of the Morristown & Morris Township Library does an excellent job of documenting the experience of the librarians/archivists that day, as well as the steps taken along the way to protect and preserve the archival materials in that part of the library. If you start at the March 2010 issue and read through the seven subsequent issues, you will see how these professionals persevered and continued their good work even though they were displaced and the vast majority of their materials were stored off site.
I was very excited to see the kinds of changes that had taken place throughout the library. It was updated in many ways, but yet, remained true to the style of the building, right down to the door knobs specially made to mimic the windows (see the photo below, my apologies for the strange angle).
As we walked through the building, Chad said that the biggest blessing after no one being hurt was that the library had taken out extensive insurance on the building, its holdings, and, most importantly, for code upgrades. The code upgrades made up a huge chunk of the overall cost, he said. Because the 1917 wing had been built in a "fireproof" way, it had to undergo extensive asbestos abatement. Materials had to be thrown out, unfortunately.
All of the water pipes are new, as are some of the gas pipes. All the the shelving had to be replaced. The Friends lost all of their book sale materials. The explosion caused massive flooding to the basement, including special collections. The archives room itself, miraculously, was safe, but emptied of all collections because although the materials were stored high enough up on the shelves not to be directly affected, there was water that would likely be standing while the major clean-up occurred.
Behind the far wall, the library added a Sprinkler Room. One of the major code upgrades was the installation of an updated sprinkler system. The library also added a gas detection system.
Upstairs, in the Reference area, there were many changes. Below is a photo of the stacks area of Reference.
I'm sorry that I was unable to take good photographs of the beautiful stained glass in the building. However, I hope that you will visit the Morristown and Morris Township Library to see it for yourself. During the restoration process upstairs, the librarians researched the original colors of the stained glass in the Reference rooms and were able to bring them to life in a vibrant and attractive way.
At what seemed like the end of the tour, I asked Chad if we could see Special Collections, since that's our area of expertise. He said, "Sure!" and shared the remainder of the tour with Mary McMahon, outgoing President of the H&P section.
In the photo below, behold the beauty that is the North Jersey History & Genealogy Center and Special Collections reading room of the library. The far walls, which you cannot see in this photo, are lined with encapsulated, antique wall maps.
Now for my favorite part -- behind the scenes, inside special collections and the archives. Directly inside the offices, right before the processing area, was a vertical file cabinet I had not seen before in an archive (photo below).
You sometimes see these in doctors' offices or in hospitals, but not often in special collections. Because these are only working files, and not archival files, it's not controversial. However, this system is not recommended for irreplaceable items due to the possibility of materials being caught in the machine as it cycles through shelves of folders.
On our way to the collections, we walked through the processing area, where a few in-process collections were stored (see photo below).
I didn't take many photos within the archives room because the library just got their collections back from storage, and were sorting out spacing and labeling. However, we did get into the vault and art bins, which held some treasures. Someday, I will go back, and Mary will show me some of the treasures in the collections. But for now, a final photo of their John De Pol collections (see photo below).
I was very excited to see the kinds of changes that had taken place throughout the library. It was updated in many ways, but yet, remained true to the style of the building, right down to the door knobs specially made to mimic the windows (see the photo below, my apologies for the strange angle).
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| From Morristown and Morris Township Library |
Our host for the tour, Chad Leinaweaver, is the Assistant Library Director. He is pretty new to the library, and wasn't there when the explosion happened. In the photo below, Chad is taking our group through the Preservation Lab, in the basement (not far from the meeting room, where we began our journey). The conservator is an outside contractor who uses this lovely space to work on a variety of projects.
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| From Morristown and Morris Township Library |
As we walked through the building, Chad said that the biggest blessing after no one being hurt was that the library had taken out extensive insurance on the building, its holdings, and, most importantly, for code upgrades. The code upgrades made up a huge chunk of the overall cost, he said. Because the 1917 wing had been built in a "fireproof" way, it had to undergo extensive asbestos abatement. Materials had to be thrown out, unfortunately.
The photo below shows the new ceiling that had to be built in the "Friends" of the Library room, which took most of the damage. Chad told us that this room, in the 1930s wing, had its doors blown nearly off their hinges by the explosion -- the steel doors curled back on their hinges like tops of sardine cans. We all were enormously grateful that the fire alarm had gone off in advance, and everyone had emptied the building beforehand.
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| From Morristown and Morris Township Library |
All of the water pipes are new, as are some of the gas pipes. All the the shelving had to be replaced. The Friends lost all of their book sale materials. The explosion caused massive flooding to the basement, including special collections. The archives room itself, miraculously, was safe, but emptied of all collections because although the materials were stored high enough up on the shelves not to be directly affected, there was water that would likely be standing while the major clean-up occurred.
Behind the far wall, the library added a Sprinkler Room. One of the major code upgrades was the installation of an updated sprinkler system. The library also added a gas detection system.
Upstairs, in the Reference area, there were many changes. Below is a photo of the stacks area of Reference.
 |
| From Morristown and Morris Township Library |
If you search Google Images for Morristown & Morris Township Library explosion, you will find "before" photos of the room above, as well as those taken during the clean-up efforts. It had been tightly arranged with many stacks. During the renovation, the staff decided to open up the room more, so that patrons could enjoy its natural beauty, while still finding the materials they needed. Additionally, the renovation gave the librarians the opportunity to weed out some of the previously unused materials they had intended to do, but hadn't yet had the time.
From the perspective of the above photo, looking to one's right shows the other end of Reference, as well as a footbridge above the first floor. In the photo below, Chad shows a few H&P section members some of the changes to the room. He mentioned that some of the weeded items from the area were replaced with digital materials.
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| From Morristown and Morris Township Library |
I'm sorry that I was unable to take good photographs of the beautiful stained glass in the building. However, I hope that you will visit the Morristown and Morris Township Library to see it for yourself. During the restoration process upstairs, the librarians researched the original colors of the stained glass in the Reference rooms and were able to bring them to life in a vibrant and attractive way.
About midway through Reference is the entry to the 1930s wing of the building. It is home to the South Street or main entrance to the building, beautiful wood carvings and stained glass, and the original firescreen for the fireplace (see the photos below). For more information on the architecture of the building, visit the library's site here.
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| From Morristown and Morris Township Library |
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| From Morristown and Morris Township Library |
At what seemed like the end of the tour, I asked Chad if we could see Special Collections, since that's our area of expertise. He said, "Sure!" and shared the remainder of the tour with Mary McMahon, outgoing President of the H&P section.
In the photo below, behold the beauty that is the North Jersey History & Genealogy Center and Special Collections reading room of the library. The far walls, which you cannot see in this photo, are lined with encapsulated, antique wall maps.
 |
| From Morristown and Morris Township Library |
Now for my favorite part -- behind the scenes, inside special collections and the archives. Directly inside the offices, right before the processing area, was a vertical file cabinet I had not seen before in an archive (photo below).
 |
| From Morristown and Morris Township Library |
You sometimes see these in doctors' offices or in hospitals, but not often in special collections. Because these are only working files, and not archival files, it's not controversial. However, this system is not recommended for irreplaceable items due to the possibility of materials being caught in the machine as it cycles through shelves of folders.
On our way to the collections, we walked through the processing area, where a few in-process collections were stored (see photo below).
 |
| From Morristown and Morris Township Library |
I didn't take many photos within the archives room because the library just got their collections back from storage, and were sorting out spacing and labeling. However, we did get into the vault and art bins, which held some treasures. Someday, I will go back, and Mary will show me some of the treasures in the collections. But for now, a final photo of their John De Pol collections (see photo below).
 |
| From Morristown and Morris Township Library |
The take-home message for me during our April 4 tour of the Morristown and Morris Township Library was that sometimes, great destruction can lead to great improvements. That, and make sure to have very good insurance, especially for code upgrades.
For more information, visit the library here.
Monday, April 02, 2012
Tour of Seton Hall University’s Archives and Special Collections
Introduction
When I was in high school (in a small, northern New Jersey
town), I knew Seton Hall University as a local college with a winning
basketball team and solid Catholic education. These days, the school still
boasts a Catholic mission, but it also focuses attention on a wide array of other
academic specialties, including diplomacy and international relations, education,
law, and, business. According to the school’s web site,
it also educates more than one-third of New Jersey’s nurses through its
undergraduate, masters, Ph.D. in nursing programs.
Perhaps one of the unsung jewels of Seton Hall is the Msgr.William Noé Field Archives and Special Collections Center.
It is home to an incredible variety of materials from textiles (think vestments
and items bearing Seton Hall emblems) to manuscripts of previous N.J.
governors, to portraits, and much more. Notably, Seton Hall holds the archives
of the Archdiocese of Newark (much more on that later).
Although the school dates back to 1856, its first archivist,
a professor of archeology, Dr. Herbert Kraft was hired in 1960. Later,
Monsignor William Noé Field developed a formal archives program in 1970.
According to my tour host and friend Alan Delozier, Director of Special
Collections/University Archivist, “the establishment of the New Jersey Catholic
Historical Commission and the archives of the Archdiocese of Newark transferred
to Seton Hall University
The current home of the Archives and Special Collections, on
the ground floor of the Walsh Library, was built in 1994. As you might expect
of an archives that receives records on a regular basis (including a new
arrangement with the United Nations Association, thanks to the school of diplomacy
and international relations), they have quite run out of space and also use
another storage facility for materials in addition to the main area I visited.
However, this small, but prestigious school squeezed into a neat corner of
South Orange, makes great use of the space it does have to care for and provide
access to the marvelous collections in its archives and special collections.
About the Director of Special Collections/University Archivist
I first met Alan Delozier at the fall 2011 MARAC (Mid-Atlantic
Archives Conference) in Bethlehem, Pa. In his very engaging way, he was
promoting next week’s spring meeting in Cape May. A long-time contributor to
the Conference in a variety of ways, Alan explains his work with MARAC in the
short video below.
At Seton Hall since 1999, Alan also
served as a Historical Interpreter at Washington Crossing State Park (NJ),
College Archivist at Richard Stockton College, College Archivist at St. Peter’s
College, and the Archival Technician for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
Prior to his professional career in the field, Alan interned
in the archives at St. Bonaventure University as an undergraduate, then later,
at Villanova, he had a practicum in Archival Studies as part of his graduate
degree in History. Topping off his formal education with a Master of Library
Science at Rutgers, he has always put a high priority on continuing his
practical education.
Here is Alan speaking to the topic of continuing education
on both practical and theoretical levels.
After an earlier career in radio, Alan joined the archives
field because he always liked the study of history and working with unique
materials. He says, “I am living the dream, so to speak, professionally!” In
particular, his favorite collections at Seton Hall include “those that
represent the early- to mid-twentieth century religious collections because
this echoes my own research interests. However, each has its own merit and
value,” he explains.
As Director and University Archivist, he mainly functions as
an administrator, but he also is a faculty librarian and occasionally teaches a
course or two. “The primary job is research assistance along with acquisitions,
coordination, committee work, publicity and outreach among other duties,” says
Alan. His favorite part of the job? He says, “helping others to find answers. Seeing
that look of success is worth everything!” On the other side of the coin, “the
biggest frustration is when a full answer cannot be found, or at least a lead
in another direction is not evident. Providing quality aid is the priority and
always a challenge in a good and bad way alike,” he says.
Alan also mentors quite a few people in his work, whether
the mentee is a History student intern, an archives student, or a volunteer
from the Archdiocese. In the short video below, he talks about how he helps
people along their professional journey.
Alan has some good advice for new archivists in the
profession, “definitely know the basics of Archival Science, but most
importantly have a solid and even advanced knowledge of technology in the field.
Experience and education in abundance also is key, especially with the lack of
positions available in today’s job market.” In the short video below, he shares
with me his employee wish list.
About the Collections
Seton Hall’s approximately 1,000 to 1,500 linear feet of collections
are supported by four full-time workers (Director/University Archivist, Archdiocesan
Archivist, Archives Assistant, and Records Management Clerk). There are two
part-time workers who focus on the Archdiocese of Newark and the New Jersey
Catholic Historical Commission. Additionally, there is the Director of the
Library Gallery. Alan says, “We also currently have four volunteers. Three come
in once per week for roughly two-to-five hours at a time. A gentleman, Mr. Jessie Reich from Jespy House comes in three days per week for three hours per day.”
Between 5 to 10 people per week visit the collections during the academic term. One family history researcher has a monthly
standing appointment. “In addition, we have a professor who has been working on
the institutional history of Seton Hall University
for approximately 12 years,” says Alan. Seton Hall’s Archives and Special
Collections also have phone, email, and postal mail requests.
Along with the Sacramental registers, the most utilized
collections include the Irish Book Collection, course catalogs, school
yearbooks, and newspapers. In the following series of short videos, Alan shows
me some examples of each.
A quick overview of the rare book collections at Seton Hall:
In introduction to the Irish Collections and how they are
used at the school:
A brief look into how the community uses the Irish
Collections:
An explanation of the value of course catalogs:
A peep inside Seton Hall’s first yearbook:
Early newspapers at Seton Hall:
Along with each of the aforementioned formats, Seton Hall
also collects photographs, three-dimensional objects, ephemera, and others. Alan
says, “we are the de-facto Seton Hall and Archdiocese of Newark museum
collection.” In the short video below, he and Msgr. Robert Wister show me some
of the textiles in the collection.
Whenever I tour archives, special collections, and other
cultural heritage institutions, I always ask my host about the undiscovered
and/or underutilized gems of their collections. In the case of Seton Hall’s
special collections, Alan mentioned a few that could probably see more usage.
He elaborates, “I think that within our Archdiocese of Newark holdings, the
clergy and auxiliary bishop papers are not used to their full potential. Also,
our general manuscript collections including the Shanley, Hughes, and Dreyfuss
Papers for example,” are underutilized.
To help folks discover the value of the manuscript
collections at the school, Alan uses the example of the papers of former N.J.
Governor Richard Hughes in the short video below.
Because a good portion of the manuscripts in the collection
originate with the Archdiocese of Newark, sometimes church researchers such as
the Monsignor (shown in the textiles video above) will be the first to find
amazing treasures such as the hologram shown below (from the Bishop James
Roosevelt Bayley Papers – Bayley was the founder of Seton Hall).
The Bishop Bayley Papers also include a number of scrapbooks
that document a variety of events. Alan shows us one example in the short video
below.
During my tour of Seton Hall’s Archives and Special Collections,
I also met Kate Dodds, Archival Assistant. Her title really doesn’t do justice
to the amount and variety of work she does with the collections. I asked her to
tell me what a day in the life of Kate Dodds was like, and the types of
materials she helps researchers to find. She does that and more in the video
below.
Some of the Seton Hall collections have finding aids to
better help researchers locate materials. Their EAD finding aids are found
here: http://shudigitallibraries.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/search/collection/p13025coll7.
Additionally, some of the collections have been digitized. Those materials can
be found online here: http://www.shu.edu/academics/libraries/digital-collections.cfm.
Archives and Special Collections regularly displays select materials from the
collections to invite people to interact with artifacts in a different way.
Examples of exhibits currently on display and previously displayed may be
viewed here: http://blogs.shu.edu/archives/2012/02/historic-archdiocesan-artifacts-on-exhibit-in-archives-special-collections-center/.
Conclusion
It was a pleasure to visit the Seton Hall University
Archives and Special Collections and learn more about the types of materials
available for research. Alan and his team focus heavily on service, and are
dedicated to helping patrons find and use the items they need to answer their
questions. As you can see, I took a lot of video at Seton Hall (partly because
my still camera is on the fritz), and there are other short bits I did not
include here, but you can see them at my YouTube page here: http://www.youtube.com/user/hereandthere123.
Finally, I hope that this peek into Seton Hall’s treasures will inspire you to
visit the school, as well as its online resources.
Contact Information
Alan Delozier
Director of Special Collections
University Library
400 South Orange Avenue
South Orange, NJ 07079-2671
(973) 275-2378
My contact information includes e-mail: Alan.Delozier@shu.edu, or via phone at: (973) 275-2378. The main phone is: (973) 467-8558.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Guest Blogger Ken Cleary on Ben Vershbow’s “Hacking the Library” Talk
Introduction
Ken Cleary always posts interesting links and ideas on the Rutgers SOURCE (the Student Organization for Unique and Rare Collections Everywhere) Facebook page. For that reason, I thought he would be an excellent candidate for a guest blogger. Ken is working his way through the Master of Library and Information Science program and expects to graduate in May. He also is co-president of SOURCE and serves as the current Archives Assistant for the University Archives at Rutgers. Suffice to say, his time is tight. However, he managed to squeeze in an article on his experience attending the March 6 “Hacking the Library” talk at Rutgers.
Please welcome Ken to Here and There. The rest of this post is his (except my Editor's Note), including the accompanying photos.
“Hacking the Library”
I recently had the pleasure of attending a talk titled, “Hacking the Library,” given by Ben Vershbow, head of the Digital Labs at New York Public Library (NYPL). He spoke to a small crowd of graduate students and faculty at the School of Communication and Information on Rutgers University’s New Brunswick campus. The phrase, “hacking the library” is certainly an attention-grabbing title for a talk, but Vershbow quickly clarified that his use of the term “hacking” is meant to convey a desire to make information more widely accessible.
Vershbow began his talk with a frank admission that he never expected to work at a library or as a “digital humanist.” However, after graduating from Yale with a B.A. in Theater Studies, he became the editorial director for The Institute for the Future of the Book. There, he immersed himself in an environment that experimented with how technology influences the ways people interact with information. This environment comprised a wide range of people, including new media gurus, literary scholars, gamers, writers, and philosophers. Their conversations and work explored such topics as the democratization of information, the book as a social object, the networked book, virtual environments, popular culture, blogs, and the future of reading and writing.
One of Vershbow’s notable examples was his customized blog for author and philosopher McKenzie Wark. The blog allowed for interactive, paragraph-by-paragraph public commentary of an early draft of his work “Gamer Theory.” Consequently, Wark’s online “editors” helped to refine his ideas and shaped revisions to the final text.
Below is a photo of Vershbow speaking at Rutgers.
NYPL Digital Labs
After spending four years within the eclectic and imaginative realm of The Institute for the Future of the Book, Vershbow joined the New York Public Library as part of a larger effort by NYPL to enhance their digital humanities services. At first, his work focused on overcoming cultural and technological barriers to implement a more open-source and decentralized information technology practice across NYPL. Finding new ways to bridge the gap between technology and collections is one of his top goals, and Vershbow said that his untraditional background helps him to more easily “work against the grain” to find innovative solutions. To support this ongoing process, NYPL created a digital labs unit where he and a small team could tinker with new ideas. Vershbow sees the lab functioning as a “hybrid space” that sits between the library technologists and the curators and archivists who care for collections, allowing his team to incorporate both points of view into their work.
According to NYPL Labs,
Vershbow described the Labs’ recent work and how some of their successful projects were born. Many of the experiments began with an awareness that NYPL has a small, but growing, collection of digitized items that are displayed on their web site in much the same way as other libraries’ digital collections.
Vershbow could see information in the images of 19th century maps or century-old menus that was visible to the human eye, but which could not be discovered by searching the library’s catalog or Google. The digital versions of these objects only had a simple title and a very basic description, which limited the ways they could be searched. He then began to imagine how much more useful these images could be if all of the latent information could be transcribed into digital form, and thus become “findable” to a Google or library catalog search. The drawback was that accomplishing that task would be extremely labor intensive.
Even an institution as large and distinguished as NYPL does not have the resources to transcribe the information contained in tens of thousands of images. So Vershbow turned to a technique called “crowdsourcing.” This practice has been used by the scientific community (think bird counts during migration), as well as in libraries all over the world.
[Editor’s note: I’ve seen many examples of crowdsourcing, but most commonly, I see it in “tagging.” Instead of using uniform terms (such as those found in the Library of Congress authority terms), the user tags an item with terms familiar to them to describe objects. This method is intended to help other users familiar with the same terms to search for items in a more “natural” way.]
One way to explain crowdsourcing is to highlight an example of how the NYPL Digital Labs utilized it. The Library holds more than 40,000 restaurant menus dating back to the 1840s, making it one of the largest collections of its kind in the world. More than just an historical curiosity, the menus are a treasure trove of economic, social, and cultural history. As Vershbow explained, being able to search for the term “oyster” could be of great interest to scientists who are trying to connect the dots between culinary trends and data on the health of the oyster population. But the only way that the details on prices, ingredients, dishes, and more, can be transcribed is with a lot of help. So, the Digital Labs created a web site called, “What’s on the Menu?” that invited the public to help transcribe menus, one dish at a time. As of today, over 75,000 volunteers have helped transcribe 812,361 dishes from 12,796 menus, and the project is still going strong.
The Stereogranimator
The most recent project to emerge from NYPL Digital Labs takes crowdsourcing a step further by incorporating aspects of Vershbow’s previous work at The Institute for the Future of the Book. The Stereogranimator web site allows the public to choose from over 40,000 stereographs to create their own shareable animated gif or 3D anaglyph.
Below, Vershbow demonstrates examples of 3D anaglyphs created with the Stereogranimator.
Vershbow explained that the inspiration for the Stereogranimator grew from a patron who created their own animated gifs from NYPL stereographs and publicized them on the web. Vershbow emphasized that this is an important example of the library listening to its patrons and providing useful and creative tools for interacting with the collections.
The photo below shows Vershbow's audience learning how to use special glasses to appreciate the 3D anaglyphs created with the Sterogranimator.
Vershbow’s talk, including questions and answers, lasted for an hour and a half, but could easily have gone on much longer. Other projects that the NYPL Digital Labs have completed, or are working on, can be found on their web site. Many of the projects rely on public participation for their success, but if the response they have received so far is any indication, NYPL will be able to accomplish a great deal using this technique. I am grateful for having had the opportunity to hear Ben Vershbow speak and I will certainly be following his work more closely in future. I believe that the creative and thoughtful approach that the NYPL Digital Labs is taking towards the digital humanities is an excellent example of how technology can be harnessed to make collections more accessible and engaging to both researchers and the general public.
----------
Ken Cleary is a graduate student in Library and Information Science at Rutgers University. His digital calling card is at: http://about.me/kencleary.
Ken Cleary always posts interesting links and ideas on the Rutgers SOURCE (the Student Organization for Unique and Rare Collections Everywhere) Facebook page. For that reason, I thought he would be an excellent candidate for a guest blogger. Ken is working his way through the Master of Library and Information Science program and expects to graduate in May. He also is co-president of SOURCE and serves as the current Archives Assistant for the University Archives at Rutgers. Suffice to say, his time is tight. However, he managed to squeeze in an article on his experience attending the March 6 “Hacking the Library” talk at Rutgers.
Please welcome Ken to Here and There. The rest of this post is his (except my Editor's Note), including the accompanying photos.
“Hacking the Library”
I recently had the pleasure of attending a talk titled, “Hacking the Library,” given by Ben Vershbow, head of the Digital Labs at New York Public Library (NYPL). He spoke to a small crowd of graduate students and faculty at the School of Communication and Information on Rutgers University’s New Brunswick campus. The phrase, “hacking the library” is certainly an attention-grabbing title for a talk, but Vershbow quickly clarified that his use of the term “hacking” is meant to convey a desire to make information more widely accessible.
Vershbow began his talk with a frank admission that he never expected to work at a library or as a “digital humanist.” However, after graduating from Yale with a B.A. in Theater Studies, he became the editorial director for The Institute for the Future of the Book. There, he immersed himself in an environment that experimented with how technology influences the ways people interact with information. This environment comprised a wide range of people, including new media gurus, literary scholars, gamers, writers, and philosophers. Their conversations and work explored such topics as the democratization of information, the book as a social object, the networked book, virtual environments, popular culture, blogs, and the future of reading and writing.
One of Vershbow’s notable examples was his customized blog for author and philosopher McKenzie Wark. The blog allowed for interactive, paragraph-by-paragraph public commentary of an early draft of his work “Gamer Theory.” Consequently, Wark’s online “editors” helped to refine his ideas and shaped revisions to the final text.
Below is a photo of Vershbow speaking at Rutgers.
 |
| From Guest Blogger Ken Cleary |
NYPL Digital Labs
After spending four years within the eclectic and imaginative realm of The Institute for the Future of the Book, Vershbow joined the New York Public Library as part of a larger effort by NYPL to enhance their digital humanities services. At first, his work focused on overcoming cultural and technological barriers to implement a more open-source and decentralized information technology practice across NYPL. Finding new ways to bridge the gap between technology and collections is one of his top goals, and Vershbow said that his untraditional background helps him to more easily “work against the grain” to find innovative solutions. To support this ongoing process, NYPL created a digital labs unit where he and a small team could tinker with new ideas. Vershbow sees the lab functioning as a “hybrid space” that sits between the library technologists and the curators and archivists who care for collections, allowing his team to incorporate both points of view into their work.
According to NYPL Labs,
NYPL Labs is an experimental unit at the Library developing ideas and tools for digital research. A collaboration among curators, designers and technologists, NYPL Labs is dedicated to rethinking what a public research library can be and do in the new information commons. We develop everything from proof-of-concept pilots to fully realized web applications and digital archives, as well as hosting a variety of staff workshops and public talks.
Vershbow described the Labs’ recent work and how some of their successful projects were born. Many of the experiments began with an awareness that NYPL has a small, but growing, collection of digitized items that are displayed on their web site in much the same way as other libraries’ digital collections.
Vershbow could see information in the images of 19th century maps or century-old menus that was visible to the human eye, but which could not be discovered by searching the library’s catalog or Google. The digital versions of these objects only had a simple title and a very basic description, which limited the ways they could be searched. He then began to imagine how much more useful these images could be if all of the latent information could be transcribed into digital form, and thus become “findable” to a Google or library catalog search. The drawback was that accomplishing that task would be extremely labor intensive.
Even an institution as large and distinguished as NYPL does not have the resources to transcribe the information contained in tens of thousands of images. So Vershbow turned to a technique called “crowdsourcing.” This practice has been used by the scientific community (think bird counts during migration), as well as in libraries all over the world.
[Editor’s note: I’ve seen many examples of crowdsourcing, but most commonly, I see it in “tagging.” Instead of using uniform terms (such as those found in the Library of Congress authority terms), the user tags an item with terms familiar to them to describe objects. This method is intended to help other users familiar with the same terms to search for items in a more “natural” way.]
One way to explain crowdsourcing is to highlight an example of how the NYPL Digital Labs utilized it. The Library holds more than 40,000 restaurant menus dating back to the 1840s, making it one of the largest collections of its kind in the world. More than just an historical curiosity, the menus are a treasure trove of economic, social, and cultural history. As Vershbow explained, being able to search for the term “oyster” could be of great interest to scientists who are trying to connect the dots between culinary trends and data on the health of the oyster population. But the only way that the details on prices, ingredients, dishes, and more, can be transcribed is with a lot of help. So, the Digital Labs created a web site called, “What’s on the Menu?” that invited the public to help transcribe menus, one dish at a time. As of today, over 75,000 volunteers have helped transcribe 812,361 dishes from 12,796 menus, and the project is still going strong.
The Stereogranimator
The most recent project to emerge from NYPL Digital Labs takes crowdsourcing a step further by incorporating aspects of Vershbow’s previous work at The Institute for the Future of the Book. The Stereogranimator web site allows the public to choose from over 40,000 stereographs to create their own shareable animated gif or 3D anaglyph.
Below, Vershbow demonstrates examples of 3D anaglyphs created with the Stereogranimator.
 |
| From Guest Blogger Ken Cleary |
Vershbow explained that the inspiration for the Stereogranimator grew from a patron who created their own animated gifs from NYPL stereographs and publicized them on the web. Vershbow emphasized that this is an important example of the library listening to its patrons and providing useful and creative tools for interacting with the collections.
The photo below shows Vershbow's audience learning how to use special glasses to appreciate the 3D anaglyphs created with the Sterogranimator.
 |
| From Guest Blogger Ken Cleary |
Vershbow’s talk, including questions and answers, lasted for an hour and a half, but could easily have gone on much longer. Other projects that the NYPL Digital Labs have completed, or are working on, can be found on their web site. Many of the projects rely on public participation for their success, but if the response they have received so far is any indication, NYPL will be able to accomplish a great deal using this technique. I am grateful for having had the opportunity to hear Ben Vershbow speak and I will certainly be following his work more closely in future. I believe that the creative and thoughtful approach that the NYPL Digital Labs is taking towards the digital humanities is an excellent example of how technology can be harnessed to make collections more accessible and engaging to both researchers and the general public.
----------
Ken Cleary is a graduate student in Library and Information Science at Rutgers University. His digital calling card is at: http://about.me/kencleary.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Museum Visit: Museum of Early Trades & Crafts in Madison, NJ
 |
| From June 2011 |
Last week, my mom and I had a lovely time visiting two Morris County museums, the one profiled in this post and the Morris Museum, where she's a member. (We also enjoyed a very tasty lunch at the newly re-opened Sirin Thai restaurant.) We hadn't originally planned to visit the trades and crafts museum, but we usually pass the building, so we decided to visit this time.
The Museum of Early Trades & Crafts started as a way for Edgar and Agnes Land, who lived in Madison and collected thousands of 18th and 19th century objects, to share their collections and educate people about the lives of the early artisans, craftspeople, and farmers in New Jersey. The building housing the museum is nothing short of gorgeous. It is often mistaken for a church, but carved into the stone over the entryway is the word "Library."
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| From June 2011 |
Opened on Memorial Day 1900, the Madison Free Public Library was a gift to the town from D. Willis James, a wealthy New York (originally from Liverpool, England) industrial capitalist. James had a summer estate in Madison, now known Giralda Farms (you may know it as the estate of Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge). We need another James today. He was so invested in the financial well-being of the library that he set up a trust fund for it based in the income raised from a commercial building he owned across the street from the library.
In the photo above, you can see one of the many beautiful architectural elements of the building. The archway to the Trustee Room shows seven seals from some of America's earliest colleges. Included are Queen's College (later Rutgers College, and eventually Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey), University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Harvard University, College of William and Mary, Princeton University, and Columbia University. Above the wood with the embedded seals you can see hand-painted designs that continue throughout the building.
Below is an example of a painted column.
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| From June 2011 |
In each room with stained-glass windows are beautiful glass-art medallions or plaques within the windows that display inspirational quotations. I can only imagine how stirring it must have been to have sat in the building when it was a library, surrounded by all of the grandeur. It made me a wee bit jealous of the folks who have the good fortune of working in it today.
Below are just a few of those windows that I photographed while walking around the exhibits.
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| From June 2011 |
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| From June 2011 |
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| From June 2011 |
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| From June 2011 |
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| From June 2011 |
As we explored the building, I was particularly impressed by the main exhibit "Mariners, Merchants, & Pirates." The clever curators use mock magnifying glasses to spotlight items found at the port of Perth Amboy. They also use rope to frame educational materials. It is one of the niftiest exhibits I've seen.
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| From June 2011 |
In the exhibit, there is a wealth of information about the tools sailors used to navigate, keep time, build ships, and generally do their work. There also are facts on pirates and privateers (separated only in category by a legal agreement). The exhibit will be featured at the museum until September 4, so add a visit to your summer calendar.
If you can't make it now, the museum has permanent exhibits and changing exhibits, as well as a research library worth exploring if you're interested trades and crafts topics. The permanent exhibits show how craftsmen and artisans created everyday objects like barrels, shoes, cabinets, and more. There also are exhibits on printing (complete with a large press) and other trades.
For more information and to plan your visit, contact the very nice folks at the Museum of Early Trades & Crafts.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Tour of the University of Arizona’s Special Collections
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| From University of Arizona |
Introduction
During my April trip to Arizona, I looked forward to touring the University of Arizona’s Special Collections (in the Main Library whose exterior is shown above), especially the school’s book collections and the photographs. However, my time to visit shrank to 30 minutes due to an accident on the only major road between Phoenix and Tucson. An overturned tractor trailer had spilled a container-load of strawberries onto the freeway and caught fire about two miles ahead of me.
Once all the local radio stations had announced that the freeway was closed and I had been sitting in the desert sun for 25 minutes, I took out my cell phone and hoped for coverage. I saw a single, small bar on my phone and called my tour host, Chrystal Carpenter, who was very gracious and understanding. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived in Tucson (more than 2 hours late for our appointment), we didn’t have much time because her guest speaker for that night’s event was about to arrive at the airport and she needed to leave to collect him.
Despite the major snag, Chrystal gave me a great short tour and inspired me to return when we both have more time for a visit.
Background on the School
When I read the early history of the University of Arizona, I thought, "This is a story of the wild, wild West." It begins in 1885, when the Arizona Territorial Legislature convened in Prescott, the then-capitol, to discuss a variety of topics including where the territory’s insane asylum would reside and where the University of Arizona would be established. Those early settlers must have been very confident that Arizona would eventually become a state to start planning its university. Statehood didn’t occur until 1912.
The Tucson delegation intended to petition the Territorial Legislature to have the capitol moved from Prescott to Tucson. However, their wagons had gotten stuck in the mud from torrential rain, and they didn’t arrive until after the monies had already been divided. (Today, it takes between 4 and 5 hours to drive north from Tucson to Prescott – imagine how long it must have taken with a horse-drawn wagon on dirt roads and paths.) Because the Tucson delegation was so late, it missed out on the $100,000 that went with the asylum, and instead received $25,000 for the University of Arizona. Six years later, the school’s first student (a 14-year-old girl) signed her name in the registration book. Special Collections contributed materials to an excellent video about that girl’s experience with the school. Watch Clara Fish’s story here.
About the Archivist
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| From University of Arizona |
Allow me to introduce my affable and accommodating tour host, Chrystal Carpenter, the Manuscript & Congressional Archivist at the University of Arizona’s Special Collections. Chrystal has been in her current position for three years. Previously she served as the photo archivist at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson, and an archives and library assistant at the Arizona State Museum. She earned her Master in Information Resources and Library Science from the University and later obtained her certification from the Academy of Certified Archivists.
She fell in love with the profession as an anthropology/archaeology undergraduate student at the University. Chrystal explains, "I had the opportunity to work at Special Collections, and it is here that I developed a passion for archives. I found that an archival career would be similar to an archaeological career except I wouldn’t get as dirty!"
While she knew she wouldn’t get as dirty, Chrystal certainly didn’t expect that she would be called in to oversee the collection of mementos and personal tributes to the victims of the January 8th attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Arizona Public Media’s interview below shows Chrystal describing her process of working with the many volunteers who helped collect and package the materials, as well as decisions she made about how to handle this collection. She also does an excellent job of explaining the archival process and Special Collections without being technical or jargony.
I asked Chrystal about her upcoming and current projects. She told me about some of the fascinating work she’s doing and the big projects on schedule for the summer.
A priority for Special Collections is our Borderlands Cultural Community project. With this in mind I have been working toward acquiring collections that fit its scope, as well as prioritizing our processing activities. This summer, we will be processing the Humane Borders archive as well as a bilingual education collection. I also will be integrating the Arizona Architectural Archives (AAA) into our collection. The AAA materials contain about 600 linear feet of architectural and business records and include over 22 collections that were curated by the University’s Architecture department.
I found Chrystal to be particularly impressive in the area of training. In an innovative move, she trained a subset of catalogers from Technical Services to provide archival processing services as well as their regular work. This initiative allowed her to add 100 hours a month of processing to Special Collections and yielded 2.5 full-time processors. Her work, as well as that of her colleague Erika Castano, also helped add value to the metadata of the digital collections and taught the catalogers highly marketable skills.
Exhibits and Public Outreach
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| From University of Arizona |
Whenever I visit an archive, university special collections, or any other cultural heritage institution, I am often intrigued by the displays and exhibits. The University of Arizona’s exhibit space (renovated in 2001) shown above and immediately below provides the archivists with a great deal of attractive, modern space where they show the role played by archival materials in history.
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| From University of Arizona |
The Special Collections department changes its exhibits every six months. At the time of my visit, the exhibit space focused on the life and impact of Stewart Lee Udall ("I’m for Stew" was its apt title). According to the Special Collections web site, he was an Arizona congressman who also served as Secretary of the Interior from 1961-1969 (under both Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson). Udall was "a champion of civil rights, an avid conservationist, a lawyer, a B24 gunner during WWII, and a University of Arizona alumnus," says Special Collections. The next exhibit will focus on Arizona history from 1600-1912 in commemoration of the 2012 Arizona Centennial.
Remember Chrystal’s guest speaker for the night of my tour? He was the second speaker in a three-part lecture series on "Stew." Robert G. Stanton, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior and Director of the National Park Service from 1997-2001, spoke on Udall’s environmental work and how he became a leading voice in American environmentalism.
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| From University of Arizona |
The photo above shows the public reading room used for lectures like Stanton’s. There also is another large space inside Special Collections that is frequently used for meetings and other University events.
About the Collections
The University of Arizona’s Special Collections was established in 1958 to house materials on Arizona, the Southwest, and the U.S./Mexico Borderlands. Today it includes audio; video; film; cassettes; electronic records; photographs; and paper-based collections including personal and corporate records, sheet music, maps, and blueprints in a wide variety of areas.
The processed manuscript collections come in at about 12,000 linear feet and growing. The unprocessed materials are about 3000 linear feet and shrinking. Below is a photo of Special Collections’ unprocessed stacks.
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| From University of Arizona |
Because the University also has a library school, Special Collections makes use of paid graduate and undergraduate student assistants as well as interns to help the seven full-time and two part-time employees accomplish their work. Three of the seven full-timers are archivists.
Most of Special Collections’ patrons are associated with the University, whether undergraduates, graduates, faculty, and/or visiting researchers. However, Chrystal notes "We also have a number of researchers from around the country and internationally, as well as local users." They see approximately 50 visitors per week, and host a long-term researcher utilizing the political collections. "More often than not, our long-term researchers are working with our political collections, University-related materials, or early Tucson research," explains Chrystal.
Because the school is renowned for its astronomy, among other research areas, the Special Collections reflects that focus in its rare books holdings. Chrystal showed me a particularly interesting volume by Galileo, published in 1610. (She holds the volume in the photo above in "About the Archivist.") A researcher, who had located the book in World Cat discovered through his descriptive bibliography work that the book was one of three existing hand-edited works by the astronomer. Below are three photos of the book (the first is the title page, the second shows a hand-edited page, and the third is a close-up of the edit).
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| From University of Arizona |
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| From University of Arizona |
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| From University of Arizona |
The University of Arizona’s Special Collections also contain a small percentage of three-dimensional objects such as wigs, trunks, costumes, and paintings. Below are two examples of objects that are part of the school’s very popular American Vaudeville Museum collection and related vaudeville collections. First is a pair of pants decorated with shell buttons, worn by a vaudeville actor.
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| From University of Arizona |
Next is a box of wigs, also worn by vaudeville actors.
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| From University of Arizona |
Chrystal also showed me some of Special Collections’ Western Pulp Fiction holdings. Below is some of the creative labeling used for that collection. Following the photo is a very short video of Chrystal in the stacks talking about the Western Pulp Fiction.
Embed photo:
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| From University of Arizona |
Other popular Special Collections at the school include the Josias Joesler collection of architectural renderings and blueprints and the Stewart L. Udall and Morris K. Udall political collections. Chrystal’s favorite collections are the Stewart L. Udall and the Don Alonzo Sanford Collections. She likes Udall’s because it contains so much documentation "from his early life growing up in a rural Arizona town and his life as a WWII B-24 bomber, to the vast documentation on his eight years as the U.S. Secretary of the Interior," she says.
Chrystal is especially interested in the Don Alonzo Sanford collection because it "provides a snapshot into the everyday life of a pioneer businessman/politician and his family in the Arizona Territory--from what it would cost for Tucson to install street lights to what it was like for a Eastern woman to travel across country and take up residence in an unfamiliar western territory."
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| From University of Arizona |
Some of the undiscovered or underutilized gems of the collection include the incunabula holdings (books that were printed prior to 1501), science fiction and fanzines collections, and de la Torre family collection which focuses on the Cristero Movement in Mexico.
Conclusion
The University of Arizona’s Special Collections makes significant contributions to the effort to preserve the region’s collective historical memory. Its acquisition, processing, and digitization programs related to projects like the Borderlands Cultural Community program allow its archivists and librarians to work with community groups in the borderland region to acquire collective histories. With proactive and innovative leaders such as Chrystal Carpenter, the future of Special Collections looks especially bright.
Contact Information
Chrystal Carpenter
Manuscript & Congressional Archivist
University of Arizona Libraries, Special Collections
1510 E. University Blvd.
Tucson, AZ 85721
(520) 621-6423
carpenterc@u.library.arizona.edu
http://speccoll.library.arizona.edu/
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