2016 Midwest Archives Conference: Session Ideas

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1	Session Idea	Your Name	Your Contact Info	Anything else?	interested folks	Contact info for interested folks

2	Training and Care of Undergraduate Student Workers in Archives	Danelle Orange	dorange@carthage.edu	I'm currently working on training modules for my student workers.	Lisa Huntsha, Laura Schmidt, Melissa Olson	laura.schmidt@wheaton.edu, olsonm@uwp.edu
3	"Objectivity" and collecting "inconvenient/difficult" records	Brad Houston	kir	My own bias is towards Records Management/institutional records but am willing to discuss expanding to manuscript-type collections as well. To expand a little more on this: I'd like to explore the notion of "objectivity" as desireable or, indeed, possible in the Archives world, ideally using real-life examples of collections where being "objective" is not useful. For example, what is the archivist's responsibility for collecting and providing access to records embarrassing to the institution? If those records are slated to be destroyed, what's the archivist's responsibility to intervene to preserve them? On the manuscript side of things, is it desirable to collect "both sides" of a contentious issue? Thinking about some of the issues that were discussed in SAA Session 201 (Mind your own F****** business) and where the archivist comes in to inform or even shape the narrative. This could be a good debate-format session!	Danelle Orange, Eira Tansey (maybe?! I like idea of debate-format), Steve Ammidown, Caitlin Birch (if New Englanders are welcome?)	sammidown@gilman.edu, caitlin.birch@dartmouth.edu
4	Ideas and Inspiration for Designing Archives Instruction Spaces	Michael Szajewski	mgszajewski@bsu.edu	Has your institution designed a space for the purpose of holding archives/special collections instruction sessions/presentations? Have you adapted an existing space for this purpose? Or maybe you've adapted your reading room to also function as an instructional space? We'd love to hear from you! I propose a lightning round presentation where presenters share the design of their spaces, briefly discuss impactful technology that they have incorporated into instruction through their design (if applicable), and briefly discuss how the design has impacted the nature of the instruction sessions offered. Perhaps doing it pecha kucha style would also be interesting! I'm looking for a strong emphasis on images in the presentations, focusing on spreading ideas and inspiration for design of instructional spaces. Presentations might be around 7-9 mins. each. Interested in hearing from institutions of all types that conduct in-person instruction sessions/presentations/workshops, etc. with students or the public. Interested in hearing about successes, lessons learned, challenges, future plans, etc. Please feel free to share thoughts, feedback, other ideas, etc.!	Sarah Dorpinghaus (I could talk about digitization workspaces and/or utilizing a large open space for a variety of tasks if you are interested in expanding this beyond instructional spaces)	sarah.dorpinghaus@uky.edu
5	Crowdsourcing projects	Laura Alagna	laura.alagna@northwestern.edu	There's been talks at previous MACs on using crowdsourcing for transcription, but what other crowdsourcing initiatives are out there in the archives world? Has anyone done projects with crowdfunding, to solve mysteries in the archives, etc.? At Northwestern we are starting a campaign this fall to collect equipment for obsolete media, which I would love to talk about! Am enthusiastic about doing a non-traditional session, maybe world cafe or lightning. Add a note here or email me if interested!	Melissa Olson; Jen Wolfe	olsonm@uwp.edu
6	Language/Writing Challenges in Collections (UPDATED was: “Engaging students with foreign language collections in college archives”)	Lisa Huntsha	lisahuntsha@augustana.edu	Many materials in archives take a form that may be a challenge to the modern patron. Foreign language collections, challenging handwriting, cursive, shorthand, and changing/evolving language can all hinder a patron’s comprehension of a collection. To what extent does the archivist “translate” these collections? What is our role in assisting patrons with these collection materials? How can we help aid comprehension of these materials? I work with Swedish foreign language materials. It would be nice to have others speak to other language/writing challenges in the session (e.g. Old English, cursive, shorthand, etc.)	Emil Hoelter	emil.hoelter@wisconsinhistory.org
7	Collaborative outreach	Ashley Gosselar	agosselar@uchicago.edu	The Chicago Area Archivists have been hard at work all year planning our first "Chicago Open Archives": Over twenty local archives, research centers, and cultural institutions in the Chicago area will offer special events open to all members of the public over 3 days in October (Archives Month). City-wide or regional outreach events are a growing trend, and we would love to share our lessons learned and hear from others who are working collaboratively with other institutions on community outreach. How can we work with one another to spread the message about the importance of archives? Has anyone planned an event with another non-archival institution in the community? Has anyone thought beyond the format of the history fair?	Carrie Schwier, Susan Hanf	clschwie@indiana.edu
8	"The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good"	Daria Labinsky	daria.labinsky@gmail.com	Lightning round? Brief case studies that focus on situations when archivists have had to sacrifice what they really wanted to do for what was practical. Could include reference archivists, processing archivists, preservationists, digitization folks, etc.	Meagan Kellom, Stephanie Bennett, Megan Mummey, Anna Stadick	meagan.kellom@mnhs.org; bennetse@wfu.edu; megan.mummey@uky.edu; stadick@uwp.edu	We could also think about doing a fishbowl or open fishbowl session! See wikipedia for more info
9	Building an archive from the ground up / starting an archives program	Samantha Abrams	sabramse@gmail.com	Probably a panel for this one, I'm thinking. I thought it would be interesting to assemble a team of archivists who have recently – or, at some point – been tasked with building at an archive / collection at an organization / corporation / etc. that has never had one. I'd like to assemble a team that represents the wide archival world: I'm a corporate archivist, and I think it'd be interesting to compare and contrast beginnings as they happen at corporate / community / university / private etc. archives. The panel could be a discussion of our experiences / of failures and successes / of resources that worked (and those that didn't), and on.	Heidi Marshall (started two archives). April Anderson (started 4, including current institution) Anna Stadick (my experience is twice, in religious communities, transforming stacks and cabinets of materials that were called archives into what we would recognize as an archive today in terms of organization, collection policy, facilities, preservation, etc.). Lori Lindberg - done that a few times now, for companies ranging from a major candy brand to a pipe organ manufacturer to a branch of the Federal Reserve.	hmarshall@colum.edu , aander2@ilstu.edu, stadick@uwp.edu, msarchive@yahoo.com
10	Good Intentions v. Good Results: an evaluation of the effectiveness of promoting women's history collections	Valoise Armstrong	valoise.armstrong@nara.gov	I'll be comparing use statistics against various efforts to promote women's history collections to see how effective (or not) these efforts have been. This would fit nicely with either a panel on promoting collections, on evaulating researcher use or on women's history collections in general. I need to eigher find a panel to join or to get more panelists to join me.	Lindsay Hiltunen; Pamela Campbell; Rachel Senese	lehalkol@mtu.edu; pamela.d.campbell@sts.frb.org; Rachel.senese@cpl.org;
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13	Teaching Primary Source Instruction in MLIS programs	Shaun Hayes	hayes29@uwm.edu	Teaching with primary sources can be a very valuable subject for archivists to learn. Doing to helps us craft public activities that can increase public awareness of archival holdings. And yet, this skill is very rarely taught to MLIS archives students. Should this change? Why or why not?	Shaun Hayes, Lori Lindberg - would love to develop a course model for this; Lyndsay Smanz, Abbi Nye	hayes29@uwm.edu, msarchive@yahoo.com
14	ArchivesSpace Fest: Managing a new Archival Management System	Alexandra Orchard	alexandra@wayne.edu	ArchivesSpace is increasingly becoming the archives management system of choice, but how does its implementation impact administrative and management decisions within an archives, particularly those related to archival workflows and content? Does the archives’ experience with the resulting ArchivesSpace instance match the initial implementation and data importation plans, and if not, what types of changes were necessary, and how were those decisions made and carried forth? What changes does the adoption of ArchivesSpace have on archival methodologies? Presenters will discuss the impact of ArchivesSpace on their institutions, particularly the necessary administrative and management decisions that arose as a result of its implementation. These will range from decisions surrounding the initial execution and importation plans, as well as changes resulting from the new (or lack of) capabilities after beginning ArchivesSpace use. Particular focus will be given to decisions surrounding the management of policies, procedures, and workflows of archival practices, including physical and intellectual description, processing, finding aid creation, etc., including how these decisions were influenced or driven by the structures and/or available fields provided in ArchivesSpace.	Ruth Bryan	alexandra@wayne.edu, ruth.bryan@uky.edu
15	Big Data in the Archives	Angela White	angwhite@iupui.edu	How can your collections be used for data analysis? This could include using data about collections, but I'm particularly interested in how you have transformed (or could transform) materials in your repositories into data sets that could tap into the data science trend.
16	Processing Techniques	Stefanie Caloia	SCaloia@wayne.edu	In my grad school experience, we spent very little time on mostly broad discussion of arrangement and description. But how do you process a collection, exactly? Of course there is no one right way, but I have found some strategies that work well for me during the processing projects I have completed. I would like to present on the specific techniques I have learned or come up with for processing collections, down to the nitty-gritty details. My presentation would probably focus on conducting surveys of a collection, and physically handling the material during processing. If anyone out there wants to talk specifically about arrangement and/or description – tips and tricks you’ve come up with that work really well for you – I think that we could piece together a very informative panel! I’m open to refining the topic if people have ideas and all format suggestions.	Megan Keller (Hi!) -I actually cowrote an article in Archival Outlook (March/Apr 2014) that touches on processing tips for large collections Meg Hixon: I would like to present about the processing of a large manuscript collection, but would like to consult with others involved before committing	megank@uic.edu mhixon@illinois.edu
17	Creative and challenging collaborations	Anne Thomason/Jordan Radke	thomason@lakeforest.edu/jordan@railphoto-art.org	I'd like to talk about creative and challenging collaborations. In my relatively new job, I inherited a somewhat unorthodox collaboration with the Center for Railroad Photography and Art. They pay us to house some of their collections, as they do not have much space, and we provide paid graduate student interns to help process the collections. The Center is about two hours away from us, and there have been many challenges and benefits to this collaboration. At first I was skeptical, but it has worked out great for both of us. So I would like to have a panel on creative collaboration that may challenge some of what we have been taught about archives--for me, I have been challenged to think about collections on deposit, working with an organization that may not at first glance fit our overall College mission but has in ways I never though of, and learning about new ways of delivering collections to the public that are not traditional. I'm open to any kinds of collaboration that have challenged your way of thinking. Looking for one or two more speakers--right now it is me and the Archives Manager from the Center for Railroad Photography and Art		angwhite@iupui.edu
18	Implementing and publicizing new services/tools	Megan Badgley Malone	badgle10@msu.edu	Michigan State University Archives recently implemented an Electronic Records Submission Tool (ERST). In a nutshell, ERST is a new online tool available to MSU colleges, departments, and other units to transfer electronic records of permanent historical value to the University Archives. We are now in the process of publicizing this new tool. I'm looking for other people who would like to share their experiences implementing and/or publicizing new services, tools, etc.
19	Corporate History Center – When the Word ‘Archives’ is not Enough	Tammy Goss	tgoss@wppienergy.org	As a result of being committed to the good stewardship of our unique history, WPPI Energy has an accumulation of ‘stuff’ that has been painstakingly collected and saved. Tasked with finding a way to catalog, tag, describe, and organize the collection, I will pass along the tips, tricks, and traps for creating a corporate history collection. Review my journey as I work with shovels and scrapbooks, posters and placards, floppies and photos to create the WPPI Energy Corporate History Center on a limited budget. And this does not even begin to include the proclamations, hats, and coffee mugs that have been generated in 35 years of existence.WPPI Energy is a not-for-profit regional power company serving 51 small municipalities. Our mission is to deliver reliable, low-cost wholesale electricity, as well as provide superior services and advocacy that offer exceptional value to our member utilities and the customers they serve.		tgoss@wppienergy.org or 608-834-4500
20	Developing or updating a Records Management program	Kelly Kress	kressk@newberry.org	My colleague Alison Hinderliter & I are currently working on a project rewriting the Newberry's Records Disposition Schedule (1992) to accommodate changes in library structure as well as electronic record keeping. As archivists as a small research institution, we are responsible for our collections as well as our own institutional archive. We're interested in talking about our experience with this project and also hearing about how others dealt with similar challenges in developing or updating a records management program.	Brad Houston; Hillary Gatlin- Michigan State University is also in the process of revising our records retention schedules and programs.I could certainly speak on some of the issues we've faced here.	houstobn@uwm.edu; gatlinhi@msu.edu
21	Pedagogical approaches to teaching with archives/special collections materials to curriculum courses, visiting classes, and/or continuing education students.	Craig Simpson	crasimps@indiana.edu	One more person needed for panel on this topic.
22	Preparing for AV digitizing, including presentations from two different archivists working in University AV archives	John Walko	jwalko@scenesavers.com	I would like to propose a session to discuss what goes into preparing for an AV digitization project, including what you need to know to get started, decisions that need to be made, selection criteria and a discussion of proper procedures. This will include presentations from two AV archivists who are working in University archives discussing the challenges they face and decisions they must make, including trade-offs between archival quality and practical resources. It will include a discussion of matching file types to source formats to help conserve storage and ways to maximize digitization for a given budget. Additional it will include the challenges of setting up digitizaton basically from scratch and the unique challenges faced	John Walko, Session Chair, Joshua Harris (AV archivst at University of Illinois) and Nathan Tallma, AV archivist at University of Cincinnati	jsharrs@illinois.edu, tallmann@ucmail.uc.edu
23	Improving access and outreach for records documenting underrepresented groups	Kristen Chinery	kristen.chinery@wayne.edu	Use of tools such as audio and image galleries, blog articles, digital collections, and social media as a blueprint for improving both access and outreach; digitization priorities and standards, content selection, and copyright issues; how issues surrounding bias and discrimination factor into methodologies for processing, digital technology, and outreach.
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