Archives Found

We found out in mid-June that we were selected as a recipient of the IMLS Connecting to Collections Bookshelf in the final round of awards. Since then, I’ve been itching to receive the materials from the American Association of State & Local History (AASLH) so that I could review them and put together a short presentation for the department.

The intent of the Bookshelf, as stated (in part) by the press release:

To help raise the conservation IQ of museums, libraries, and archives, IMLS, in cooperation with the American Association of State and Local History (AASLH), is offering 2000 free copies of the Connecting to Collections Bookshelf, a core set of books, DVDs, online resources, and an annotated bibliography that are essential for the care of collections.

Over at Spellbound Blog, Jeanne provides a great overview of the contents of the Bookshelf here, and points out that some of these resources are freely available online. For example, the Guide to Online Resources is divided into six sections, such as Preparing and Responding to Emergencies, and then further broken down into the categories of Prepare and Respond. Having dealt with a collection-related environmental disaster and written a disaster plan over the past year, I think that being able to find all of this information in one easy place is a boon to any archivist, librarian, curator, or director. While having a plan in place prior to disaster is important, no plan will cover every contingency– and having these resources at your fingertips could be very useful. A group of resources for discovering funding, the Increase Support for Collections section breaks down into three parts: Funding, Promoting, and Informing the Public.  Think there’s something missing? You can email the IMLS to suggest other resources for inclusion on the site.

The intent of the Bookshelf is to help smaller institutions establish better preservation/conservation practices. While we’re a larger state institution (and a regional repository), I do spend a lot of my of time working with individuals and local programs that really need a helping hand when it comes to basic preservation practices. Because this is the largest city (and largest archive/library) within a six hour drive, we’re a resource for many small historical societies, town archives, and local genealogical researchers. My hope is that the Bookshelf can be utilized in this area as a source of preservation knowledge and as a starting point for some small local workshops and outreach programs.

Look for more on the books and other materials once they appear on my doorstep.

Those of you who visit the site (versus reading along via feed reader) may notice a few changes. I completed several major WordPress upgrades on Sunday (from 2.2.3 to 2.8.1– gulp!), and hopefully that will fix some of the attendant issues that have been plaguing Archives Found headquarters. The layout, blogroll, links and theme here haven’t changed for awhile, and I’ll probably be monkeying around with that over the next few days. Please let me know if you’re having trouble with leaving comments, or with anything else on the site– you can send me an email (archivist at archivesfound.com).

As a result of my post on the certified archivist exam, I’ve been receiving some email about study groups for the CA exam in August. I’m not taking the exam this year (I’m already a CA), but for those who want to study, I understand that there are forums over at the ACA website for that purpose. If you’d like to link up with someone, that’s probably the best place to do so. There are fourteen test sites this year, and so I’d guess that there are a lot of potential “study buddies” out there.

Something I’d like to mention on the personal front– I’ll be leaving my archivist job at the end of August, and starting in the doctoral program at Pitt in the fall.  Never fear, dear readers– I’m certain that I will still have things to talk about here. In fact, as I’ve started to clear out my inbox, I’ve found that I have lots and lots to talk about– as soon as I have time. Fingers crossed for at least one new post this week, and for a few more prior to SAA- Austin. Thanks for reading along!