Last Week-end in Portland (Spring Semester)

The Oregon EDI students (me, Chau, Terrilyn, Max, and Toan) and Dr. Agada.

Oregon Multicultural Archives Related Resources

Last summer I took a class in repackaging information and wrote an annotated bibliography of digital web exhibits featuring Native American materials in the states served by the Northwest Archivists Association (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska). I included exhibits which appeared to have potential as well.

These have now been incorporated in the Oregon Multicultural Archives Related Resources page. Thank you, Erika.

Navajo Nation Likely to Lose Internet Service

I recently completed an annotated bibliography on the underserved Native Americans for one of my classes and have just returned home from Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I made many Navajo friends.

I was very saddened to read this on CNN.

Indigenous Graduate Student Research Conference

What is Indigenous Self-Determination in Education? Panelists

Tiffany Lee (Dine, Lakota)
Assistant Professor, Native American Studies UNM
Glenabah Martinez Taos Pueblo/Dine’
Assistant Professor, College of Education,UNM
Carlotta Bird (Santo Domingo Pueblo)
Indian Education Consultant
Kara Bobroff(Dine’/Lakota)
Principal, Native American Community Academy (NACA)
Trisha Moquino (Santo Domingo/Cochiti Pueblos)
Founder, Iiwas Katrusini Immersion Preschool


I have just returned from Albuquerque, New Mexico where I presented a paper at the Indigenous Graduate Student Research Conference held at the University of New Mexico. Sponsored by the Institute for American Indian Research (IFAIR), it brought together twelve Masters Degree and Ph.D candidates from the United States and Canada who presented their research papers in various disciplines.

I am honored to be have been provided with an opportunity to both share my passion for archival work and learn from others who are passionate about their fields. It was so wonderful to be a part of this community and spend time connecting with others who face many of the same challenges as I.

I am very thankful to Dr. Beverly Singer, Director of IFAIR, who organized this conference and made it possible for me to attend. Dr. Beverly Singer (Tewa/Navaho), Associate Professor of Anthropology and Native American Studies, UNM and Director of IFAIR
Zimmerman Library, University of New Mexico

With Only One Eye

In the class I attended last weekend, we discussed how data, information, knowledge and wisdom form an information hierarchy where each layer adds certain attributes over and above the previous one. I have a concern here as I believe wisdom encompasses far more than data, information, and knowledge. Wisdom requires being aware of when and how to apply knowledge. It also requires experience and intuitive understanding and more.

Among the Sioux there is a saying, “The white man ….sees with only one eye’. That is because the white man is taught to see only with the mind—facts—and he forgets to combine or add that imaginative and moral aspect of nature which alone makes facts meaningful and beautiful to human beings.

From: Bunge, R. (1987). Language; the psyche of a people. In Our Languages, Our Survival. University of South Dakota: Bismark, Vermillion, S.D.

Conferences

I've been asked how I can afford to go to so many library/archive conferences and the answer is: I can't. I am very selective about the conferences I decide to attend, I give preference to those in which I will be presenting or at least, would consider presenting at at a future date, and then I only go if I can obtain a scholarship to pay most of, if not all, my expenses.

Next week I'll be in New Mexico presenting a paper at the Institute for American Indian Research's (IfAIR) Indigenous Graduate Students Conference, Planting the Seeds of Our Research. If I had not been awarded a very generous scholarship which pays airfare, hotel, and meals, I would not be attending.

Next month I'll be on a panel discussing the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials at the Northwest Archivists Conference in Alaska. I'm paying for this trip by using some scholarship funds I was awarded. Again, if it weren't for that scholarship, I would not be going to this conference.

If you are seriously interested in attending conferences then pick a few you think you would really enjoy and which fit in with your career goals and interests and begin looking for ways to finance them. There are many scholarship and grant opportunities if you look and are willing to apply.

The Red Leather Diary

The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal (HarperCollins, April 8, 2008) by Lily Koppel.

Kept by Florence Wolfson Howitt in the 1930's, the diary was found in a steamer trunk in a dumpster outside the author's apartment building. The journal reveals what life was like for Florence in 1930s New York—-horseback riding in Central Park, summer excursions to the Catskills, and an obsession with a famous avant-garde actress. It has nearly two thousand entries, written in faded black ink, covering every day from 1929 to 1934.

The book's author, a New York Times reporter who has found her niche writing about the hidden characters of New York, such as Manhattan's last typewriter repairman, set out to find the owner of the diary with her only clue being the inscription on the frontispiece--"This book belongs to Florence Wolfson" and found her, now 90 years old.

A New York Times article can be found here

Wales and Dust

Here's a link to an archives conference, Archive Fervour /Archive Further Literature, Archives,and Literary Archives to be held in Aberystwyth, Wales this July. A keynote speaker will be Professor Carolyn Steedman who teaches history at the University of Warwick and whose research interests include the construction of self-identity. She is the author of Dust: The Archive and Cultural History.

An SAA review essay, published in American Archivist (Vol. 66, No.2, Fall/Winter 2003) includes this:

To begin with, Dust is heavily steeped in the academic brew of postmodernist semiotics. For the gleefully uninitiated, semiotics involves seeing human experience, in all its minute expression, as signs or symbols. The word “refrigerator” does not identify an appliance, it connotes humanity’s desire/need to safeguard food stuffs.

Yes, I can relate to this. The Ojibwe word for freezer translated into English means "stingy box". I found a copy of this book at the university library and began reading it. My favorite sentence in the book is this one, which can be found on page 81:

The Archive is (the) kind of place that is to do with longing and appropriation. It has to do with wanting things that are put together, collected, collated, named in lists and indices; a place where a whole world, a social order,may be imagined by the recurrence of a name in a register, through a scrap of paper, or some other little piece of flotsam.

Oregon Historical Society Field Trip

Our archives class visited the Oregon Historical Society again, this time so that students could give reports about the collections they had examined.


Our instructor, Mary Jo Pugh, talking with Robyn.







Special thanks to Senior Archivist, Geoff Wexler, for making arrangements to open the reading room for us, retrieving the collections we examined, and granting me permission to take these photographs.

Tools and Users, Part 2

Here's a follow up on one of my previous posts. It's a comment recently published in Information Wants to Be Free

To do a better job of preparing LIS graduates for the 21st century we need to equip them with the ability to be self-motivated and adept at learning technology skills. I don’t think it matters whether you can set up a wiki on your own server or use a free web-hosted service. I’d like LIS graduates who understand when and why a specific technology makes sense to meet users’ needs (and when it doesn’t) - and how to go about making good implementation decisions. The technology tools will always be changing. Many of them can be self-taught (as you indicated). Where we might fail our LIS students is not in letting them graduate without an HTML course, but in not providing them with good analytic and learning skills - and a thirst for “keeping up”.

Planting the Seeds of Our Research

I have been informed that I am one of six students selected to receive a scholarship from the Institute for American Indian Research (IFAIR) which will allow me to attend the Native American Graduate Students Research Conference, Planting the Seeds of Our Research, and present a paper on the power of stories and how they can be used to introduce Native students to tribal archives. This conference will include graduate students from the United States and Canada and the papers presented will cover all disciplines. The conference be held at the University of New Mexico, April 3-4.

Along with the research sessions, the conference will include keynote speaker Dr. Gerald Vizenor, student talking circles, an indigenous evening social and give away, and tours of research programs. Indigenous professors at the University of New Mexico will also comment on the papers presented in panels and sessions at the conference. I am honored to have received this opportunity and proud to be able to represent Emporia State University and SLIM.

Here the title and abstract for my paper.

The Power of Stories: Using Constructivism and Sense-Making to Introduce Native American Students to Tribal Archives

While the focus of information sharing and communication is shifting to a social bookmarking, web.2, technological, Internet, and digital viewpoint, the human-to-human, face-to-face, storytelling, oral ways of connecting families and communities remain powerful and compelling. Both constructivism (constructing our individual knowledge of the world by experiences and then considering the meaning and value of these experiences), and sense-making, (a continual process of making sense of a body of knowledge when there is a gap by gathering information and looking for patterns and connections), are influenced by cultural constructs. Both of these theories can be utilized as effective tools to make tribal archival repositories meaningful to Native American students by effectively connecting thought with emotion.

Tribal archives are like elders who protect and share our stories; they honor our ancestors, bridge generations, and share knowledge, thus preserving the history of our people. Recognizing Native American learning styles, including the use of storytelling as a teaching technique as well as language which is picture and emotion based , are techniques which can be utilized to help Native American students begin the process of recognizing that tribal archives places where we can connect with each other through time and space, providing us with a vibrant view of our history through records, letters, treaties, oral recordings, and photographs.

L-Net and Meebo

Every week I answer questions on L-net at the Oregon State University Library for two hours. L-net is an online, chat reference service provided by Oregon librarians. I answer questions both for both academic and K-12 students so I usually get a nice variety of questions. Today I answered questions about medieval clothing, who were the major actors in Shakespeare's time, how hot air balloons work, how the Swiss and U.S. Constitutions are the same and different, and when the Vietnam Paris Peace talks were held.

I've been told that many of the academic librarians don't particularly like doing L-net but I do as I not only learn about many new things I'd never thought of before, I'm also learning how to conduct good, quick reference interviews. I think part of why they don't like it is because some of the younger students are sometimes rude. My method of dealing with this is to ask them to please be polite and then just continue on and answer their questions. I've found I'm often successful that way and we are able to complete our sessions.

The questions, too, aren't usually as difficult as the ones university students ask using Meebo on the library's webpage. I usually do the Meebo when I'm working a shift at the general reference desk. I enjoy those as well, and as I don't have the luxury of backup librarians on Meebo as I do on L-net, I have found myself juggling three or four complex questions at a time and that is certainly challenging!

The Archives World and the Library World

I am comfortable in and relatively knowledgeable about both of these worlds, but sometimes I forget that others are not. I was in a small group of archivists the other day and, in the course of the conversation I told one who I know is also comfortable in both worlds how honored I was that Loriene Roy had added a comment to a post I'd written for the SLIM-Oregon Student Chapter of the ALA blog about a webcast of a lecture she'd given at the Library of Congress entitled Guiding Our Destiny.

One of the archivists listening to this conversation looked confused. "Who's Lori and Roy?", he asked me. "It sounds like a Las Vegas lounge act." I was taken aback at first and then realized that he, as an archivist, wouldn't know that Loriene Roy is the current President of the American Library Association. He doesn't need to know that. It's not really a part of his world.

Oregon State University Valley Library

Where I work!

One Day in the Life of ......

In all the years we've been married, John has never come home and asked me "So, what did you do all day?" It's a good thing too. If he'd asked me that when we owned and manged a mobile home park and I was taking care of a slew of farm animals and we had four small boys running underfoot, I probably would have clobbered him.

My life is less complicated now. We no longer own a mobile home park or farm animals and all the boys are grown. Well, at least my life should be less complicated, but it doesn't always seem that way. Perhaps it's just complicated in different ways. There are times when, at the end of the day, I wonder myself, "So, what did I do all day?". It helps if I write down what I did because then I can see I accomplished more than I thought I had and didn't just fritter the day away.

Here's my list for yesterday:

1. Finished the first of a two part article for the AILA newsletter entitled Sharing Our Stories which is about how LIS students can address the library-related needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives by incorporating this topic into their class assignments and discussions and emailed it to the editor.

2. Received an email informing me that I'd been nominated to run for the Northwest Archivist Association Oregon representative position. After reading the description of the duties, I emailed my professional mentor to ask how appropriate it was for a student (i.e., not a professional archivist) to run for this position.

3. Joined the wiki for Chapter and Loose Papers, the official SAA newsletter for students of Archival Science, and submitted a research paper abstract for their next newsletter.

4. Read the assignment for my Copyright class and began writing a post to add to the Discussion Board, but haven't posted it yet.

5. Searched for resources for the annotated bibliography for my Special Populations class.

6. Updated my blogs and EDI journal.

Add to that the usual basic housekeeping chores plus grocery shopping, laundry, and making meals and that was my day.

Today I'm working at the Oregon State University library. That will make answering the question about what I did all day much easier.

Tools and Users

I recently read an article by Tefko Saracevic entitled Information Science, published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science [50(12): 1051–1063] in 1999. In the last paragraph he states:

In all of this, I am afraid that the greatest danger facing information science is losing the sight of users, of human beings.

In 1999 libraries were still focused on their collections, on what they owned, and not on their users and how they could best help them access what they needed. That began to change until now we claim that we are user centered. But are we really? When I read descriptions of conference sessions in the library and archival worlds, there is a strong focus on social bookmarking and web2.0 tools. We look at all these wonderful playthings--Meebo ,Twitter, wikis, RSS feeds, del.icio.us, Library Thing, flickr, and yes, blogs-- and wonder how can we use them in archives and libraries instead of looking at our users and wondering how can we use these tools to better provide them with what they want and need.

We seem to be moving again towards the tools, the blocks, and away from the users and their needs and the human, face-to-face, storytelling, spiraling oral ways of connecting families and communities and sharing information, ways which are and will remain powerful and compelling.

Boxes

I love boxes in all kinds of shapes and sizes. These are just a few of my favorites. Whenever I go to a thrift store I look for more. So what does this have to do with anything? I think part of my interest in archives has to do with containers which hold treasures. The archival ones are functional only but the mysteries of what they might contain fascinates me.

25 Useful Social Networking Tools for Librarians

Oh, good! Another fun place to find toys to play with!
25 Useful Social Networking Tools for Librarians

"From academic libraries like that at MIT or renowned research centers like the Library of Congress, the following beta research tools feature innovative tricks to connect you with the most relevant, valid results - including books (real and digital), articles, documents, web sites, and more."

I attended a workshop on Zotero (#15) last week and plan to use it as I began working on my thesis.

Field Trip!

I'm taking a class this semester taught by Mary Jo Pugh, editor of the American Archivist and author of the classic, Providing Reference Services for Archives and Manuscripts .

This past week end we visited the Oregon Historical Society and spent Saturday morning examining collections for papers and presentations. I looked through one collection in order to participate in the discussion at our next class meeting. As I don't live in Portland, my paper and presentation will be done using a collection from the Oregon State University Library Archive .

Archivist Charged with Hundreds of Thefts from New York State Library

This article , which begins,

A New York state archivist has admitted stealing hundreds of historical artifacts beginning in 2002 from the New York State Library in Albany that he sold on the internet to pay for household repairs and his daughter’s $10,000 credit card bill.

and published a few days is old news now to many interested in archives. It's been discussed on the Archives and Archivists list , but the focus has been on security measures and how it will affect archivists applying for positions. I saw no outrage that this man apparently stole things, not just from the New York State Library, not just from the people of New York. He stole from the American people. He stole our history and he did it for selfish reasons, out of pure greed. That he betrayed our trust saddens me deeply.

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Internship Program/Summer, 2008

Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library welcomes applications from current graduate students in library science, information studies, preservation, archives or a related program for its newly constituted internship program. The program has been designed to provide practical experience to current graduate students interested in pursuing a career in technical services in a special
collections setting.

The Beinecke Library, one of the world's largest buildings devoted entirely to rare books and manuscripts, is Yale's principal repository for literary archives, early manuscripts, and rare books as well as strong collections of historical materials. Its collections are internationally known and heavily used by scholars from around the world. For further information about the Beinecke Library, consult the
library's web site at: http://www.library.yale.edu/beinecke.

Responsibility for receiving, accessioning, processing and cataloging as well as the preservation and conservation of materials in the Beinecke, regardless of format, resides with the Technical Services Department. Printed Acquisitions, Preservation, Manuscripts, Metadata and indirectly the Rare Book Cataloging Team are all units in
Technical Services.

Interns will work in an area of their specific interest and have the opportunity to learn more about how special collection libraries and major research libraries are organized and function. Interns will undertake and complete a project based on their interests, skills and the needs of the Library.

The Beinecke Library has four internships available for the summer of 2008, and is looking to host an intern in each of the following areas(see the list at end for additional details):

- Archival and manuscript processing
- Digital library and metadata development
- Preservation
- Rare book cataloging and acquisitions

Interns will work closely with staff in each of these areas and will be integrated into the broader operations of the library through tours, meetings with staff in the Beinecke Library and the Yale University Library, and participation in special projects as available and necessary.

Eligibility and requirements

- Applicants must be current graduate students in good standing in a library science, information studies, preservation, archives or related program
- Applicants must have completed at least three courses before the start date of their internship
- Applicants must commit to 10 consecutive weeks of employment between June 1st and August 31st, 2008
- At the end of the internship, interns will be required to submit a final report describing their experiences or participate in an exit interview
- Applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S.
- Successful applicants will need to pass a security background check

Interns will receive a stipend of $7,500 to be used for housing,travel and other expenses. The stipend will be divided into three payments: one upon starting, the second halfway through and the third upon completion of the internship.

The Library strongly encourages applicants from underrepresented communities to apply.

Applicants should submit the items below by Feb. 29, 2008, with a decision made in the beginning of April. Successful candidates will be contacted in the beginning of April.
- Cover letter indicating internship area preference, as described below
- Current resume
- Three letters of reference and contact information, including one from your current institution
- List of completed classes (unofficial transcripts accepted)

Send these to:

Diane Y. Turner, Associate University Librarian for Human Resources
Staff Training & Community Development
P.O. Box 208240
New Haven, CT 06520-8240
fax: (203) 432-1806
email: hrlibrary@yale.edu,:

Please send any questions concerning the internships to hrlibrary@yale.edu

POSSIBLE PROJECTS

Archives and manuscript processing
- Arrange, describe, and preserve manuscript collections from the Yale Collection of American Literature, the Yale Collection of Western Americana, and/or the General Collection of Modern Books and Manuscripts.
- Create inventories and collection level descriptions encoded in EAD and MARC.
- Participate as needed in Manuscript Unit initiatives related to archival processing, accessioning, and manuscript cataloging.

Digital library and metadata development
- Gain a broad introduction to digital library development, metadata, and mass digitization programs with an emphasis on the digitization of rare books and archival materials in special collections
- Create metadata records across a wide range of materials that may include medieval and renaissance manuscripts, modern manuscripts and photographs, books, artwork, and maps, according to local and national cataloging standards including AACR2, LCSH, LC Authorities, and AAT/TGM II
- Develop and manage structural metadata using software such as MS Excel
- Working with library staff, design and implement web interface usability studies of digital library technologies and make recommendations on web-interface improvements
- Receive a broad introduction to various types of modern digital capture equipment (e.g., large format digital camera, flatbed scanner and film scanner), and gain an overview of scanning and editing workflows

Rare book acquisitions and cataloging
- Broad introduction to technical services functions for rare books with an emphasis on rare book cataloging for a wide range of material from the 15th century to the present
- Introduction and experience using Voyager, OCLC/Connexion and other bibliographic databases
- Introduction and experience with AACR2, DCRM(B) (Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Books)), LCSH, genre headings, and authority control.
- Specific projects will depend on a person's language skills,cataloging background, and interests (e.g. early books, artist books,maps, serials, or music)
- Acquisitions workflow including accession records, physical processing and tracking of materials prior to cataloging.

Preservation and conservation
- Condition assessments and treatment proposals
- Collection surveys, including printed materials, manuscripts,photographs, and A/V materials
- Coordinate environmental monitoring program and analyze data
- Liaise with vendors, including RFPs, contracts, and proposal reviews, for conservation treatments, housing, reformatting, and mass deacidification
- Assist with disaster preparedness and planning
- Aid in developing documentation including policies, procedures, best practices for workflow

Yale University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer
See: http://www.library.yale.edu/lhr/jobs/intern/brbl-intern.html

The What? Family??

This photograph on the LC Flickr site is titled "Coney Island, the Whole Drand Family" but someone has realized that it actually says "the whole Darnd family" and what a family! Take a close look and you'll see the children aren't children at all--they're monkeys!

Thank you, John, for bringing this photo to my attention.

It's All About Access

Vachon, John,, 1914-1975, photographer. [Grand Grocery Co.], Lincoln, Neb. [1942]

Check out this post on the Library of Congress blog. LC is now using Flickr to post images.

If all goes according to plan, the project will help address at least two major challenges: how to ensure better and better access to our collections, and how to ensure that we have the best possible information about those collections for the benefit of researchers and posterity.

You can find their Flickr account here. I am enrolled in a class on copyright this semester and I was especially interested to note that LC will "include only images for which no copyright restrictions are known to exist."

And as the blog poster wrote the really exciting part will be when people begin tagging the photographs! See "The Commons" for more information.

Dear readers....

An article in last Sunday's Oregonian newspaper, written by Jim Carmin, the John Wilson Special Collections librarian at Multnomah County Library, which is entitled
Dear readers, The letter must not die begins

The practice and art of writing letters is dying; for most of us it may already be dead. E-mail has taken over. Written communication in our daily lives now is made up of snippets of prose stored on our electronic desktops.

I agree that letter writing has become a lost art. It's rare to get one in the postal mail. A huge amount of communication is done using email. A great deal is also done through texting on cell phones and there's a lot of communication done through wikis and blogs as well. The problem with all of those is there's no way to really save it unless one is willing to print it out. And somehow, a pile of printed out text messages, even if they are love notes, just doesn't have the same cachet. I cannot imagine keeping them, tied with a ribbon, as one might with handwritten notes. An email just doesn't have that "magical" value.

There certainly seems to be more communication now but it seems harder to find anything which is thoughtful, reflective, and creative. I also have realized that even though I have only been using computers for the past 15 years or so I find it more difficult to compose a letter when writing by hand than when typing. I can copy and paste, easily insert additional sentences, and use a spell check feature when I write an email or write a blog or wiki post. My brain seems to be working differently. Or perhaps that's just age.

And there's no time lag with emails. I wrote a note to Mr. Carmin thanking him for his article and the irony, of course, was that I wrote him an email and not a handwritten note sent by postal mail. If I'd done that it would have taken one or two days to get there. I'd have had to find a stamp and make sure I remembered to actually mail it. With an email I only had to hit "send". That, too, is a lost part of the "magic". There's no delicious anticipation waiting for the postman to deliver the day's mail to see if there's a special personal letter.

NOTE: The online version of the article does not include the illustrations of a letter written by Charles Dickens or a postcard from Allen Ginsberg to William Burroughs. You'll need to find a print copy of the article to see those. You can find it in Section O, on page 10.

Two Roads: Ancient/Future Libraries

This article, Future Reading:Digitization and Its Discontents , by book historian Anthony Grafton and published in last November's New Yorker, is a fascinating read.

I especially intrigued by his description of the two ways that we now have to access information:

For now and for the foreseeable future, any serious reader will have to know how to travel down two very different roads simultaneously. No one should avoid the broad, smooth, and open road that leads through the screen. … If you want deeper, more local knowledge, you will have to take the narrower path … The narrow path still leads, as it must, to crowded public rooms where the sunlight gleams on varnished tables, and knowledge is embodied in millions of dusty, crumbling, smelly, irreplaceable documents and books.

When we digitally reformat our historical collections or build institutional repositories for new digital material, we are merely reinventing the old. There are historical precedents for such practices—in ancient and medieval librarianship and, in the more recent past, the historical manuscripts tradition—that show us how in the past libraries and archives supported a range of textual activities that enabled the sharing of knowledge.