From oral history to digital assets
News of the week in the realms of archives, libraries, and genealogy
I am glad to see a few new subscribers this week. Again, as always, please share this with anyone whom you think would be interested. I don’t have any fancy blogposts, other than one on my great-great grandfather, Robert “Rob” B. Mills and the hotel business, using trade journals, city directories, and censuses. So, those genealogists among you will probably enjoy that post or the one I just wrote about Packardsville, Massachusetts. At the same time, I’d like to see some more people purchase my e-book (Tales of the Maryland Extra Regiment) before I put out my next one, also focusing on the revolutionary war period. Other future e-books will be in different topics, of course.
On a related note, I’ll be presenting at the 2nd iSchool Symposium this upcoming Wednesday, with the poster session beginning at 4:00 pm in the Grand Ballroom of Stamp Student Union, while awards will be announced at 5:00 pm followed by a reception. I’ll be presenting my “Diverse Connections: Making the 1850-1870 Calvert County Census Come Alive!” poster, with visualizations of these censuses I have been working on all semester, including word clouds, bar charts, and much more! If you can make it, that would be great. If not, that’s ok as well. In fact, I sent out this newsletter one day earlier than I usually do because of this symposium.
Here are the stories of the week!
An interview of Caitlin Burch, the Digital Collections and Oral History Archivist for the Rauner Special Collections Library at Dartmouth College, by Juli Folk, a friendly and kind fellow student also in the MLIS program at UMD. I say that because I am acquainted with her personally as she is in my appraisal class
Fire, water, light and luck: Bealtaine traditions in Ireland, a fascinating article by Dr Marion McGarry, who calls herself an art historian, author, independent researcher and lecturer
One of the most interesting posts by genealogist Gwen Kubberness on her blog “criminal genealogy”: investigating if a man named Charles M Phelps was a serial killer or not. Fun (in a weird sort of way)
Interview of Joel Thoreson, Archives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America by COPA member Anna Trammell, focusing on another archivist in an area you might not expect.
Libraries in Colorado Springs add social workers for homeless patrons
Laura Kiniry, a writer for Atlas Obscura, writes about “How to Get a Boat Through a Tiny Tunnel, 19th-Century Style”
Kate Lechtenberg writes on one of the ALA’s blog declaring that “Book Selection is Not a Politician’s Job”
The National Coalition of History’s action alert to “oppose Budget Cuts to the National Archives and Elimination of the NHPRC” in upcoming federal government appropriations bills
National Archives Receives Donation of Diary of Monuments Man, a person who “wrote the official report on Adolf Hitler's looted art collection and supervised the identification and return of more than five million artistic and cultural items to the countries from which they had been taken.”
The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. is seeking a IMLS Digital Assets Librarian to “oversee a 3-year grant funded archives digitization project.” So if that’s you and you have the required experience (MLIS or “equivalent experience” plus at least “two years of professional experience in a library, archive, museum, or similar institution” then go for it!)
- Burkely