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  Katie presented about her McNair Scholar research today online and did a wonderful job. Here are a few more slides. I'm so proud of her! All the McNair scholars are generating interesting research.

  Recent rainstorms and severe changes in weather, typical of Michigan springs, are occurring of late. We've gone from below freezing to nearly 70 in a day. Above is a view from my window this week. This got me thinking about weather of various kinds, rain, snow, sleet, hail, ice storms, floods, tornados, forest fires, etc., that are documented in the Clarke collections. We have books and articles about the weather, and weather is always found in newspapers and travel and tourism information. While the secondary sources discuss weather on land or aboard a vessel on the Great Lakes, our primary sources mainly focus on weather impacting the land. In our primary source collections weather most often is recorded in the diaries of farmers whose crop success depended on the weather. It is usually the first thing they note in each diary or journal entry. The second most likely place weather is recorded is in Civil War soldier's letters and diaries because they were usually outside mar...

The Clarke's reading room exhibit case had not been rotated (changed) for nearly two years. Inspired by Chris Clare's suggestion of focusing on summer fun and relaxing activities, my students Emily Moran and Mitchel Watts and I researched Clarke primary and secondary sources about Michigan summer activities like beach time, picnics, Tigers baseball, vacation destinations like Mackinaw, and summertime holidays. They selected a wide variety of formats and designed several layouts. Mitchel and Emily installed their favorite layout design and learned some new skills in the process. Great job Mitchel and Emily! What a nice way to end a year of excellent work processing, describing and encoding primary sources in the archives. Thank you. Also, thanks to student Leah Ryal who ran the labels.

2021 Marilyn McNitt Memorial Scholarships As circumstances have changed this year, so must our memorial scholarships. Usually, the Marilyn McNitt Memorial Scholarships fund the recipients' attendance and travel expenses at the Michigan Archival Association Annual Meeting. As we are virtual this year, each scholarship will change as follows: 1) For the Memorial Student recipient, they will still receive free conference registration and a one year membership, but the $250 travel stipend they also receive will go towards an educational use (or uses) of their choosing. 2) For the Memorial Diversity recipient, they will still receive free conference registration and a one year membership, but the $250 travel stipend they also receive will go directly to them to use as they see fit. Both scholarship winners will still be invited to write an article for the MAA newsletter, Open Entry, about their conference experiences. To apply for The Marilyn McNitt Memorial Student Scholarship, which i...

  This blog entry is copied from Ed Busch. Thanks Ed! This year's Preservation Week begins tomorrow, April 25 and runs through May 1, 2021. The theme for Preservation Week 2021 is Preserving Community Archives. As stated   here , " Community archives are organized by members of physical or self-identified communities-specifically those marginalized by traditional collecting institutions-and are focused on documenting and interpreting their own histories." Archival advocacy is important in any archival institution, but is especially important to the support of community archives. Here is a sampling of resources/articles/etc. related to community archives and advocacy work:  A post from SAA's Issues & Advocacy Section blog in 2016 discussing a survey at the time designed to delve into the practical needs of community archives:  https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/2514-9342/vol/68/iss/8/9   The New England Archivists has...

The Library of Congress Preservation Directorate is excited to present a Topics in Preservation Series (TOPS) for Preservation Week 2021! We are hosting free  webinars every weekday of Preservation Week at 11am (EST). The five webinars will feature preservation related projects conducted at the Library. You can find the registration links on our webpage or use the links below.   Preservation Meets Public Health: Enduring Lessons from Pandemic Planning Monday April 26, 11am EST Presenter: Jacob Nadal, Director for Preservation This presentation will explain how the Library of Congress staff used information from the REALM project in conjunction with public health guidance to develop safe operations plans for activities that involved the Library's collections. Jake will unpack the decision-making processes that staff used to allow the agency to operate safely, adapt to developments in the pandemic, and incorporate lessons-learned to improve future operating plans....

 Need to know how to disinfect a book, write a grant, about digital archiving, creative fundraising, how to host a community scanning day, vacuum a dusty book? Introducing NEDCC's YouTube Channel www.nedcc.org/videos. Subscribe for webinar recordings on caring for collections and NEW 'Conservation Shorts" - brief video demonstrations of collections care tips and techniques. see https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWQIZ-UfCR-z-EbkQ7SWOyg/videos  COVID RELIEF GRANTS NOW AVAILABLE: ALA COVID Library Relief Fund Application Deadline: May 20, 2021 Awards between $30,000 and $50,0000 Eligible expenses may include, but are not limited to, the following: Staff time; Collections; Technology; Equipment; Materials; Promotion; Operation expenses COMPLETE ALA COVID LIBRARY RELIEF GUIDELINES: www.ala.org/aboutala/... -NEH American Rescue Plan Grants Application deadline: May 14, 2021 Awards between $50,000 and $500,000 Eligible Expenses may include, but are not limited to: Personnel costs;...

I bet the U of Cape Town wishes it could beam up.   The African Studies Library and Special Collections at the University of Cape Town, South Africa,  was ravaged by a fire on April 18 , with significant losses of rare and invaluable resources. The library houses printed and audiovisual materials,1,300 sub-collections of unique manuscripts and personal papers, and more than 85,000 books and pamphlets on African studies, including contemporary materials as well as works on Africa and South Africa printed before 1925. In addition, the library contains one of the most extensive African film collections in the world, according to the university's website. The University of Cape Town asks that archivists  put a call out at their respective institutions to researchers to archive and digitize any materials they may have copied, photographed, or recorded at the library and upload them here:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1reMSaVXCFyGjIXTVGXfRcJmQWgbNKRHDHcH0KbNke...

Several of my students have presented or won scholarships over the years. Here's Cassie on the left, 2018. The Michigan Archival Association Program Committee is currently seeking poster proposals for MAA’s 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting! This year the Annual Meeting will be held Monday-Tuesday, June 21-22, 2021, Virtually! See the linked flyer below for details! To submit a proposal, please fill out the MAA Poster Proposal Form by April 30th, 2021.  Any questions can be directed to Elizabeth Nicholson ( elizabethanicholson@gmail.com ) or Elisa Landaverde ( elandav@msu.edu ). Please feel free to distribute to all interested parties. For more details:  MAA 2021 Call for Posters.pdf Announcement: 2021 Marilyn McNitt Memorial Scholarships As circumstances have changed this year, so must our memorial scholarships. Usually, the Marilyn McNitt Memorial Scholarships fund the recipients' attendance and travel expenses at the Michigan Archival Association Annual Meeting. As we a...

 Here's my blog about processing Ernest Hemingway-related collections that is going out on the Clarke's blog. Enjoy.  Hopefully, while you enjoyed the Ken Burns Ernest Hemingway special you considered how wonderful it is that these primary sources are preserved and accessible to researchers. This is possible because of the work and dedication of archivists, like me. Since 2002, I have processed Ernest Hemingway-related materials almost every year, either documents created by a Hemingway or one of their friends or family members, or material created about or inspired by them in multiple formats. Following archival standards, best practices, and theory, I process and describe collections of permanent historic research value. Processing primary sources is both a physical and intellectual process. Ernest Hemingway’s 1923 passport image of 1923 on a cover of   New York Times Magazine First, I archivally appraise each collection, deciding what to retain and why. Most collection...

Katie H. just completed processing 2 boxes of 9&10 film reels from 1977. That's a lot of film to view, describe, splice, view and rehouse. Some of it did not want to splice together. She's worked on this since August. Good job Katie! What a positive way to end the week. This leaves a few larger reels in 1977 and then reels for 1978-1981 and a few 1982 reels. 

Unprocessed postcards In my time at CMU I have seen thousands of postcards, maybe 10 thousand. Postcards were a cheap, pretty, popular way to correspond with friends and family before cell phones, showing where you lived or had visited, as a keepsake of your trip, and were a boost to tourism. Your friends saw the postcard and thought, we should visit there! Most postcards were and are 3.5x5.5 inches, traditional postcard size, but larger sizes were and still are created. Some of the postcards were mailed and have writing and stamps on the back. Originally, postcards were black and white as they were created from black and white film, then some images were hand tinted, which proved popular. Later, they were created from color film. Some of the images were and still are reproduced on kitchen tablecloths, hand towels, and other items.  Most early postcards included images of major government buildings, businesses, streets and parks, monuments, and other stationery objects. Later you s...

 As of Thrs April 8, 2021 I have 555 online Google-searchable finding aids for the Clarke's collections! What does that mean for you and other researchers? It allows you to access the description of our primary source collections (to the folder level) at your convenience without coming into the Clarke.  This is a huge help and time saver to researchers, especially those beyond campus, as well as Clarke staff. Please remember that you do not have to be a CMU student, faculty or staff member to research in our collections. Here's how online finding aids works.  The easiest way to begin is to Google Clarke Historical Library Finding aids. If you want to browse the finding aids, simply click browse (image below) and type a name or word into the search box, for example,  Mount Pleasant.  Browse searches the creator's name, whether a person or organization, with Mount Pleasant in the name somewhere. So XYZ (Mount Pleasant, Mich.) or Mount Pleasant XYZ Company will bot...

 Welcome to the new edition of my blog archivistrising321.blogspot.com !!! Please join it! I'll cover a wide range of archival, informational and related topics. If you have questions, please let me know. Today's topic is a 1994 1-inch videotape. This is the first I have ever seen in my career in my institution's collections. This was a professional format used in tv stations and by professional recording companies. This is part of the collection of David Schock who owned a video recording company and recorded a variety of mid-Michigan and Mount Pleasant events.  Here are some images of the original box and tape: We do not have the equipment to play it, but we know the topic is Planned Parenthood, a sensitive topic, so I'm sure it is of historical interest. If a researcher wants to view it, we will have to reformat it into a more current digital format.