Billy Graham Center Archives Oral History Interviews Online
Bob Shuster, Archivist, Billy Graham Center Archives at Wheaton College
In 2017, the staff of the Billy Graham Center Archives at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois transcribed over 38 hours of oral history interviews, filling 646 pages. Most of these transcripts have been put online and can be found, along with the audio file, at: http://www2.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/newtran.html They are also all available for viewing in the BGC...
by Dave J. Moore, Brand Archivist and Historian
Three dollars could buy you a good sized order of overalls at the turn of the 20th century. This check was submitted to Hamilton Carhartt & Co., based in Detroit, from D.L. Powers of Jonesville, Michigan in 1898.
120 years later, Powers Clothing is still going strong… and still selling Carhartt. When you have retail partners that old, you know you must be doing something right. Financial records like this are just one example of the materials...
A press release announcing the approval of the Standardized Statistical Measures and Metrics for Public Services in Archival Repositories and Special Collections Libraries was jointly issued by ACRL and SAA on January 25, 2018.
The new document was approved by the ACRL Board of Directors in October 2017 and by the SAA Council in January 2018. Standardized Statistical Measures and Metrics for Public Services in Archival Repositories and Special Collections Libraries is available on the ACRL...
Happy 2018! For the new year, the incoming PLASC Steering Committee will be focusing on the following projects:
Conducting a survey to determine how PLASC can better serve its members
Determining the best modes of communication for members to share news, research, and other resources
Identifying possible collaborations with ALA, PLA, and other organizations
Streamlining internal documents and processes for the Steering Committee
Planning the 2018 annual section meeting
Please note that moving...
The inaugural issue of Archival History News, the official newsletter of the Archival History Section, was released in October 2017, just in time for Archives Month. Brighten up your winter months by enjoying the Winter 2018 issue!
Featuring excellent writing and the most up-to-date information, Archival History Newscommunicates the value of archival history to a broad public, through the publication of ongoing research, biographical notes, book reviews, and announcements.
In this issue, read...
Detail illustration from the 200 East 42nd Street marketing brochure, 1958. Illustration features the front entrance of the building, located on 42nd Street and Third Avenue. Durst Archives.
By Ryan Donaldson, Senior Manager of Heritage and Information Services
Founded in 1915, The Durst Organization (“Durst”) is a family-run business dedicated to the principles of innovation, integrity, community, and sustainability. Durst develops, builds, owns, and manages premier office towers and...
Congratulations to the 29 new Digital Archives Specialists (DAS). These archivists, who represent a variety of repositories from around the country, earned a DAS Certificate from SAA after completing required coursework within twenty-four months and passing comprehensive examinations in November 2017.
The innovative DAS Curriculum, developed by experts in the field of digital archives, is structured around seven core competencies: understanding the nature of records in electronic form; defining...
Something important to you missing from this newsletter? Send a submission my way and let me know what you would like to see.
Please submit newsletter items about archives and human rights (writ broadly) to hilary.h.barlow@gmail.com. These can be recent publications, upcoming events or exhibitions, opportunities and scholarships, or something else entirely as long as it connects to archives and human rights. For the December newsletter, please send you submission by December 18, 2017.
Admitting and identifying personal biases can be difficult. Nearly two decades of scientific research has persuasively demonstrated that each of us harbor implicit bias even if we seem to hold no explicit prejudice. Society is saturated with attitudes and stereotypes about social groups and people encompassing a range of intersectional identities and over time these feelings and beliefs can become more ingrained.
The Open Your Mind learning lab is designed to assist the public in...
Five historical volumes covering the period 1863-1975 are available online in PDF format. They provide an overview of the ICRC operational and legal activities and therefore provide an ideal springboard for more in-depth research in the ICRC archives.
Read more here.
This report presents major points of discussion and analysis from the first global student conference on open source human rights investigations, hosted by the University of California, Berkeley’s Human Rights Center and Amnesty International, 26-29 June 2017, at UC Berkeley. More than 50 people participated, including students from human rights centers at the University of Pretoria, University of Essex, University of Toronto, and UC Berkeley who are part of Amnesty International’s Digital...
[T]he presentations I attended during the Oral History Association’s 2017 annual meeting delivered critical historical narratives and resources that can help us to further challenge some of the nationalist myths that obscure the experiences and perspectives of various marginalized communities in American history. These presentations helped to illuminate important lessons we can learn from an engagement with the histories and contemporary concerns of marginalized peoples in the US. In honor of...
Is there an issue that really irks you and you have something to say? Is there something in the news that can benefit from an archival perspective? Did you work on an incredible project related to archives and human rights and you want to share you insights? See a conference session or other event related to archives and human rights that you'd like to cover?Send blog post pitches to hilary.h.barlow@gmail.com. Include a short summary of your idea and why you're the best person to write it....
How are collections processed and presented regarding race and ethnicity? What is not collected and why? Who gets to say what is worth collecting? Operating from three distinct but interlocking perspectives, the authors will discuss their experiences navigating collection development and collection development policies as a Black woman archivist, a White woman anti-racist public librarian, and a Black woman academic librarian. The authors will look at the ways in which Black women as...
Our latest at the Human Rights Archives Section blog examines the challenges and rewards of curating an archival collection documenting capital punishment in the United States. The post summarizes presentations from the University at Albany's National Death Penalty Archive at the Fall 2017 Mid-Atlantic Region Archives Conference.
Content note: this post contains references to execution, violent death, rape, harm to children and racism in the justice system.
Read it here.
On December 7, 2017, we held the first VMCAS Google Hangout to discuss cataloging guidelines. 37 people attended, sharing experiences, challenges and advice. A transcript of the session is attached below.
By Suzanne E. Shapiro, PVH Historian / Heritage Brands Archivist
Cluett, Peabody and Co. (makers of ARROW brand) factory photo circa 1900. Image courtesy PVH Archives.
Overview
The PVH Archives is a digital and physical resource created to preserve all archival materials pertaining to PVH Corp. and its portfolio of iconic apparel brands including CALVIN KLEIN, TOMMY HILFIGER, and the Heritage Brands—Van Heusen, IZOD, ARROW, Warner’s, and Olga....
The Congressional Papers Section formed the CSS/CMS Task Force in August 2016, and the Task Force has pulled together the most comprehensive report to date about archiving Constituent Services Systems (CSS) in the Senate and Correspondence Management Systems (CMS) in the House of Representatives.
The report, released on November 15, 2017, provides an overview of how CSS and CMS developed over time, which vendors and systems are currently in use, how systems are deployed in congressional offices...
The Reference Access and Outreach (RAO) Section of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) has established a new standing committee, the Exhibits and Events Committee (E2), and we are recruiting potential members through December 13, 2017. Visit https://goo.gl/X9r18i to volunteer.
Background and rationale for the establishment of E2:
Several members of the Reference Access and Outreach (RAO) Section of the Society of American Archivists led by Jill Severn, Amy Schindler, and Jessica...
The 2016-2017 Preservation Section Annual Report is now available on the Reports Page for members to review: https://www2.archivists.org/groups/preservation-section/reports
The proposed standard was approved by the SAA Standards Committee at its July 2017 meeting. The next step in the SAA approval process is review by SAA Council.
An update on the review and approval process from our ACRL colleagues:
The ACRL Board of Directors has approved the new Standardized Statistical Measures and Metrics for Public Services in Archival Repositories and Special Collections Libraries. In order to support increasing demands on archival repositories and special collections...
Kerri Anne Burke, Global Curator of Citi Heritage Collections, addresses a meeting of the New York Corporate Archivists group, hosted by the AP Corporate Archives at New York headquarters, Oct. 3, 2017. Valerie Komor, director of AP’s Corporate Archives, and Burke discussed demonstrating the business value of archives. (AP Photo/Chuck Zoeller)
The Associated Press (AP) Corporate Archives, founded in 2003, documents the history and operation of...
Not sure why the NYT and CBC were so full of archival news this month. Something important to you missing from this newsletter? Send a submission my way and let me know what you would like to see.
Please submit newsletter items about archives and human rights (writ broadly) to hilary.h.barlow@gmail.com. These can be recent publications, upcoming events or exhibitions, opportunities and scholarships, or something else entirely as long as it connects to archives and human rights. For the...
“We will put special emphasis on new leads,” said the retired special agent, Vince Pankoke, 59, who is leading the effort. “We need to verify stories as they come in, and we know that is going to lead to further investigation.”
In the search for new leads, he and his team are digitally combing through millions of pages of scanned material from the National Archives in Washington as well as archives in the Netherlands, Germany and Israel.
Read more here.
While the Agency deserves credit for compiling a basic guide to searching their FOIA reading room, it still omits information or leaves it spread out across the Agency’s website. In one egregious example, the CIA guide to searching the records lists only three content types that users can search for, a review of the metadata compiled by Data.World reveals an addition ninety content types. This guide will tell you everything you need to know to dive into CREST and start searching like a pro....
