2011 Archives Fair Webcast Live Now

Opening remarks from Bill Tompkins, National Collections Coordinator at SI.

As many of you may know, today is the 2011 Smithsonian Archives Fair on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The webcast of the 2011 Archives Fair lecture series is live right now. Topics range from emergency preparedness to Wonder Woman to Sir Isaac Newton! Come and listen from now till 5 pm on the Archives Month website.

Here is today's schedule:

 

            10:00-10:30 AM Sarah Stauderman, Collections Care Manager, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Emergency Preparedness & Response for Personal Archives, Expert advice on how to protect personal collections from permanent loss from manmade and natural disasters.

    10:30-10:55 AM Sonoe Nakasone, Cataloging Coordinator, Field Book Project, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Field Books: Primary Sources of Biodiversity, This lecture will provide an overview of the scope and purpose of the Field Book Project by highlighting what they are, research questions they address, examples, management and preservation. In addition, the talk will review how to care for field notebooks if you have them in your own family papers.
    11:00-11:30 AM Rachael Cristine Woody, Archivist, Freer|Sackler Archives Excavations in the Archives, How to repurpose catalog record information and digitized item images into dynamic and accessible web resources that further promote the use of a collection. This presentation will outline the multi-step process it took to preserve, digitize, and catalog the internationally-known collection of archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld; leading to the creation and heavy use of a variety of web resources. An exploration of piecing together grants, budget technology, and labor force needed, will also be discussed.
    11:30-11:55 AM Jennifer O’Neal, Head Archivist, and Rachel Menyuk, Archive Assistant, National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center Preserving the History of the Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation Collection, The MAI/Heye Foundation collection provides a glimpse into the evolving nature of a museum seeking to document and preserve the culture and history of Native Americans. This presentation will provide an overview of this collection and detail the on-going project to process and fully digitize portions of the collection.
    12:00-1:00 Intermission
    1:00-1:25 PM Christine Hennessey, Chief, Research and Scholars Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum Documenting America’s Outdoor Sculpture Across America, in nearly every town square or city park there are monuments to the past and to the people who shaped it. Our outdoor sculpture tells the stories of this nation’s history; yet as one of society’s most accessible art forms, outdoor sculpture is also one of its most endangered cultural resources, threatened by extremes of weather, pollution, vandalism and neglect. In this presentation, you’ll hear how the Smithsonian American Art Museum, through its Save Outdoor Sculpture (or SOS!) program, has taken a leading role in documenting and preserving our sculptural heritage for future generations to come.
    1:30-1:55 PM Abby Clouse-Radigan, Contract Researcher, National Anthropological Archives Working Across Collections: Reconnecting the Photographs, Artifacts, and Papers of Matilda Coxe Stevenson, This talk will give an overview of a project to reconnect the disparate collections of ethnologist Matilda Coxe Stevenson, held in the Smithsonian's Department of Anthropology ethnology collections and the National Anthropological Archives. Through photographs and other materials, this talk will illustrate the rich readings that become possible when working across collections to read photographs against both papers and artifacts.
    2:00-2:25 PM Gina Rappaport, photo Archivist, National Anthropological Archives, The Archival Legacy of Edward S. Curtis The National Anthropological Archives has recently acquired a rare collection of original negatives made by photographer Edward S. Curtis during his work on The North American Indian, as well as a body of Curtis’ papers. This talk will present highlights from the acquisition and discuss the research-in-progress into the archival “Diaspora” of Curtis’ photographs and manuscripts.
    2:30-2:55 PM Jake Homiak, Director, Anthropology Collections and Archives Program, National Museum of Natural History Secrets of the Tribe: the Asch-Chagnon Collection, Archives speak to ethical and methodological issues in the disciplines related to their content. This presentation addresses one of the most heated ethical debates in anthropology in the last half century, and the role played by the archives in this debate.
    3:00-3:25 PM Lynda Schmitz Fuhrig, Electronic Records Archivist, and Jennifer Wright, Assistant Archivist, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Preserving the Smithsonian’s Institution Web Presence, Although it first began capturing institutional websites in the late 1990s, the Smithsonian Institution Archives initiated a project in 2009 to capture the explosion of public websites and social media instances maintained by its many museums, research centers, and programs. Lynda Schmitz Fuhrig and Jennifer Wright will discuss appraisal, accessioning, and capture issues in documenting the Smithsonian’s web presence in the early 21st Century.
    3:30-3:55 PM Diane Shaw, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Manuscripts of the Dibner Library, Highlights from the Manuscripts Collection of the Dibner Library of the History of Science & Technology, An overview of the surprising number and variety of manuscripts in the Dibner Library, ranging from medieval astrological literature to the notes of Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, to materials from William Moulton Marston (creator of Wonder Woman), with details about related issues of cataloging, preservation, and access.
    4:00-4:25 PM Jason Stieber, Archives of American Art Collecting Manuscript Collections, This presentation will relate experiences of collecting archival materials out in the field, including appraisal, selection, negotiations and donor relations.
    4:30-4:55 PM Amy Staples, Senior Archivist, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art The Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives: Creating Access to a National Treasure, An illustrated overview of recent cataloguing and digitization projects funded by the Smithsonian Institution CIS/IRM Pool (FY2006 – 2011). Projects include the Eliot Elisofon negative collection and historic postcard collections from Africa. The black-and-white photographs of Eliot Elisofon, Life magazine photographer and a major donor to the National Museum of African Art, will be featured in this presentation. Elisofon traveled in Africa from 1947 – 1972 and focused on many aspects of African life and culture, including architecture, artists, masquerades, natural landscapes, political leaders and rituals. The Elisofon project involved the cataloguing and digitization of over 13,000 negatives that are now accessible to the general public on the Smithsonian Research and Information System (SIRIS). The historic postcard project involves the cataloguing and digitization of over 16,000 postcards from every region of Africa (c. 1890s – present). This project began in FY2010 and now involves the use of Google interactive mapping of African locations on SIRIS.

 

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