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Showing posts from January, 2023

Kenndall wins regional semi-final award for her play!

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I'm very proud to share that Kenndall Wallace, one of my film project students, seen above in the beret, won the regional semi-final playwriting award from Region III of the Kennedy Center/ American College Theater Festival (KCATF)! She is now in the running as a national finalist. Kenndall won the National Playwriting Program John Cauble award for her one act play,  Mosaic Woman.  The KCACTF annually recognizes student playwrights in several categories of excellence. Region III applicants met in December 2022 for a week at the University of Michigan where they participated in workshops, cast actors for their play, got their feedback to enhance their writing and supervised production on stage. These students, including Kenndall, are also competing for scholarships. If Kenndall wins a scholarship she plans to put it towards studying abroad to learn more about playwriting in London.  She is also applying for an internship in the television academy in August 2023. Kenndall really enjo

My intern Halsey Riesberg

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I interned in the Clarke Archives fall term 2022. With another intern, Josh, I was responsible for processing the bulk of CMU Athletics team folders, typing up the box and folder listing, and merging their boxes with boxes processed by other students, and encoding the majority of the CMU Athletic teams boxes. For undated material, I researched names to identify the dates.  I also helped identify which folders and boxes certain Michigan maritime stereographs were housed in, to help Marian link the digitized images to the catalog records.  Congratulations Halsey! As a new CMU graduate she is on her way to earn a higher degree in another state. I wish her well and will miss her. 

Wayne State U Digital curation & preservation archivist position

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    Digital Curation and Preservation Archivist (Archivist II/III)   Apply online at jobs.wayne.edu .  Description   The Walter P. Reuther Library of Wayne State University seeks forward-thinking, creative, and collaborative applicants for the position of Digital Curation and Preservation Archivist. The successful candidate will join a user-centered community of colleagues pursuing innovative and transformative approaches to archival work. Reporting to the Reuther Library Director, the position will provide leadership and vision in developing sustainable digital preservation infrastructure, policies, and workflows, and work closely with peer Archivists to oversee the long-term preservation and use of born-digital and digitally reformatted collections.  The position is a full-time, regular, 12-month, benefits-eligible appointment as Academic Staff, and an AAUP-AFT represented po

ingenuity fixed the broken film crank

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This week with some ingenuity I fixed a broken film crank. Thanks to my husband who cut up a wire hanger so we could have something of the correct diameter to poke through the holes in the crank and the shaft. You can see the wire which is perpendicular to the body of the crank. The cranks were bought used, as most moving image film equipment needed for preservation is no longer manufactured. Now we can proceed with the film preservation project this term. 

Flooding disaster recovery resources and advice

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  Archivists, librarians and curators know they should have disaster prevention and recovery plans, but with the catastrophic flooding in California, many people, including the professionals, need extra help. Here are some resources.  For archivists: for immediate advice or assistance: contact the National Heritage Responders at 202.661.8068 or  https://www.culturalheritage.org/resources/emergencies/national-heritage-responders Flood Recovery Resources https://culturalrescue.si.edu/hentf/resources/response-and-recovery-resources/ (HENTF) Disaster Response and Recovery Guides  https://www.culturalheritage.org/resources/emergencies/disaster-response-recovery (FAIC) Archivists can request grants from SAA Foundation National Disaster Recovery Fund for Archives (NDRFA) for up to $5,000 for immediate recovery needs. https://www2.archivists.org/groups/saa-foundation-board-of-directors/national-disaster-recovery-fund-for-archives SAA Crisis Collecting Assistance Team provides direct assistance

Catholic history research resources in the Clarke

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a page from [Officium beate Marie virginis] or Book of Hours, 1490s After His Holiness Pope Benedict died, I thought it would be interesting to note the breadth of research resources we have in the Clarke documenting the history of Catholics and Catholicism. Most of our resources focus or have a connection to Michigan and the Northwest Territories, but some are broader in scope. We have primary and secondary sources in multiple languages, predominantly English, French, Anishinaabe languages, and Latin. Catholics, Baptists and Methodist missionaries were the first to try to convert the indigenous in Michigan, so much of the early material focuses on missions and missionaries.  While most of our material is 18th century and forward, we have earlier items, including two very early examples of Catholic publications, as our illuminated manuscript, the  Officium beate Marie virginis] or Book of Hours, 1490s, and Directorum chori: introitus missarum cum canticis alleluia, iuxta graduale Roman

Josh Bradley archives processing intern

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  Josh Bradley interned in the Clarke archives unit last term.  Hello! My name is Josh Bradley, and in the image above I am looking at the scorebooks from various years in Central Michigan University Softball.  The issue at hand was how to categorize them according to the years listed in the book itself, not so much what was written on the front.  From there I had to make a folder detailing the span of years the scorebook tracked, but sometimes there were dates from different months or years in various books.  This was part of the process I enjoyed because trying to make sense of chaos and bring order to the collections was almost like detective work (especially if game or match results didn’t have a date attached to them).  Overall my internship at the Clarke Historical Library was a great experience, one I hope to continue there volunteering this semester!  Josh and Halsey were both my interns last term. They accomplished the bulk of processing for CMU Athletics collection last term,

Job Posting--Digital Processing Specialist, Clarke Historical Library

The Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University, is looking for a Digital Processing Specialist. Among the responsibilities of this position are digital scanning; editing digital files; quality assurance tasks; excellent recordkeeping; and other duties as assigned. The successful candidate will be a team-oriented, organized, and flexible individual with technical skills. Prior experience in photography and/or digitization and related tasks is preferred but not required. The position reports to the Clarke's Digital Project Manager.  For a fuller description of primary duties and responsibilities, required qualifications, and to apply: https://www.jobs.cmich.edu/postings/37218 . Position will remain open until filled.

Blake Maxwell - archives volunteer, future teacher, makes a cast of Lincoln's head and his own stereoscopic viewer with a 3-d printer

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                                                                                             ve is  Above is my volunteer processing student Blake w a 3-d life mask of Lincoln he printed from Scan the World, an online site of scanned museum artifacts and other fun things. This is a great site with a lot of potential for educators. Both of my interns and my one volunteer graduated in December. I wish them all well. Here is a blog from Blake.  Hi I am Blake Maxwell . I am a secondary education history major and math minor. I have been working as a volunteer archival processor in the Clarke Historica l Library in the processing room since late September. The main project that I worked on during my time here is processing the athletic archives for Central Michigan University. I took ea ch folder, organized the documents in them, and rehoused them in the box with a new folder , according to archival standards and best practices . I also typed box and folder listing s and encoded

online January NEDCC preservation training programs

Greetings from the NEDCC | Northeast Document Conservation Center! NEDCC specializes in conservation treatment, digital imaging, audio reformatting, and preservation training. Full descriptions and registration are available at nedcc.org/pt .     Preservation Training Programs 01/10 – Care and Reformatting of Microfilm 01/12 – Creating Preservation-Quality Oral Histories    01/17 – Caring for Paper-Based Collections 01/23 – Fundamentals of Photograph Preservation (6 sessions) 01/24 – Caring for Vellum-Bound Books 01/26 – Caring for Object Collections Additionally, the recordings of free preservation webinars are available online via NEDCC's Preservation Training Videos playlist on YouTube. The topics include Writing Your Preservation Assistance Grant, Celebrating with Collections, Disinfecting Books and Other Collections, and more.   Certified Archivists earn Archival Recertification Credits (ARCs) through the Academy of Certified Archivists for these webinar