Help a librarian/archivist raise money to help elephants

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Kate Theimer

Posted on behalf of Jessica Fisher. As my Twitter and Facebook friends know, I am always happy to help anyone who is trying to help animals. Go, Jessica!

I am a Librarian/Archivist in NYC and I recently signed on to make tracks for elephants at the WCS Run for the Wild at the Bronx Zoo. I would be very grateful if you could support my fundraising efforts with a tax-deductible donation. Your support will go a long way in helping me to protect imperiled elephants and the places they call home. To make a donation online, simply click on the link at the bottom of this message. If you would prefer, you can also send your contribution to the following address:

WCS Run for the Wild
2300 Southern Boulevard
Bronx, NY 10460

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Assistance, please: sources in archives and special collections literature?

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Kate Theimer

I’ve got a project in the offing for which I need to conduct some comprehensive literature reviews. I think I’m familiar with the journals that cover archives, but I am less confident about the sources for special collections. I also, of course, may be forgetting something obvious. So I once again ask for your assistance. In addition to the list below, what other journals (or publications or conferences or online sources) should I be looking at? (This review will address only developments in the U.S., so although I’m not limiting myself to sources published in the U.S. I do want to focus on sources which will have authors from the U.S.)

Journals:

  • The American Archivist
  • Archivaria
  • Journal of Archival Organization
  • Archival Science
  • Archival Issues
  • Archival Outlook
  • College and Research Libraries
  • College and Research Libraries News
  • RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage

Online Publications

Conferences (primarily looking for those for which presentation materials may be available online or for which proceedings are published):

  • SAA Annual Meeting
  • RBMS Preconference
  • ACA Annual Meetings
  • Museums and the Web (I’ve seen some presentations on archives topics there)

I know there must be others. Any suggestions?

 

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Archives book group–still time to talk “Dust” and poll up on the next book

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Kate Theimer

If you want to talk about Carolyn Steedman’s  Dust: The Archive and Cultural History you’re still welcome to come on over to the Archivists Reading Together blog and join in. And if you  weren’t able to read Steedman but want to think about the next book, you can vote in the poll  and help decide what the next book will be. 

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Follow up call for case studies on specific topics in reference

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Kate Theimer

Thanks to everyone who has so far submitted proposals for the book I’m editing on innovative practices in reference for archives and special collections. While I’m still in the process of making the final decisions, there are some topics for which I received no proposals so I’m making a second more targeted call. I would like to include case studies in the areas of:

  • Providing reference services on unprocessed or minimally processed collections
  • Providing online researcher orientation resources
  • Conducting user studies
  • Assisting researchers by providing virtual access to requested materials

Here’s the earlier post with more information about this project. If you think you’d like to write a case study in one of these areas or have a suggestion for who might be a good candidate to do so, please contact me as soon as possible. 

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Now available: Job search experiences and career satisfaction among recent archives program graduates

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Kate Theimer

After posting so many links to surveys, it’s nice to be able to follow up and announce when people have survey results to share. This comes from Rebecca Goldman (aka DerangeDescribe):

Last year, Shannon Lausch and I conducted a survey to evaluate employment and career satisfaction among recent archives graduates. We received over 200 responses, and the data is now ready to share! If you go to http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/libraryconf/4 , you’ll be able to download our survey questions, our presentations from SAA12, and our data.

You are free to use this data for your own research–just cite and link back to it.

Thanks so much to all of you who took the survey, and we hope you find our results useful. Please contact us if you have any questions or suggestions.

I only looked through Rebecca’s presentation, and found the results not as bad as I thought they might be. I do wonder though, regarding the issues of negative effects of career choices on finances, personal and family life and other aspects of life, how similar those results would be across the board for post-graduate programs. I suspect that those issues are not unique to graduates of archives programs (not that Rebecca said they were).

I’ll share here the questions she asked at the end of her SAA presentation:

  • If we repeat our survey of recent grads, how can we make it better?
  • Is there a better way to investigate the “too many grads” problem?
  • Besides offering better salaries, how else can we  improve the quality of life of recent grads?
  • If temp positions and relocation are inevitable, how can we better support new grads through temporary work and help them move into permanent employment?

Any thoughts on those questions or reactions to the data collected by the survey?

Posted in Salary & career issues for archivists, Surveys | 4 Comments

Great opportunity: Digital Stewardship Residency Program now accepting applications

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Kate Theimer

If you are in the DC area or are willing to relocate there for nine months, there are some great opportunities with the LOC/IMLS supported National Digital Stewardship Residency Program.

Residents of the NDSR program will have the opportunity to develop, apply, and advance their digital stewardship knowledge and skills in real-world settings. Starting in September 2013, these paid residency experiences will be hosted in ten Washington, D.C. area institutions, including the Library of Congress.

The other host institutions are the Association of Research Libraries, Dumbarton Oaks, Folger Shakespeare Library, National Library of Medicine, National Security Archive, PBS, Smithsonian Institution Archives, University of Maryland Libraries and Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, and the World Bank Group Archives.

You can learn more about the program on the LOC’s site: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/ndsr/index.html. Note that applications are due by April 5th, 2013, and that unlike many programs of this kind, the NDSR program specifically targets post-masters professionals.  I hope there will be a healthy dose of archivists among the selected residents!

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Call for case study proposals on innovative practices in description and management in archives and special collections

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Kate Theimer

As I announced earlier in the call for case studies on outreach and reference, I have signed on to edit a series of books for Scarecrow Press highlighting innovative practices in archives.

Now, I’m collecting proposals for case studies for the volumes on description and management. [UPDATE: Note that these are two separate books, not one!] If you want to propose a case study, just send me a few paragraphs with a brief description of the problem you set out to solve or the opportunity you wanted to take advantage of, a detailed description of how you responded, and a brief description of your results or findings. Please also include the name of the repository, and your job title. Proposals are due by Wednesday, March 20. The final case studies should be about 5,500 words and you will be provided with a structure to follow.

As I said in the call regarding outreach and reference, don’t be intimidated by that word “innovative.” Sometimes we have a tendency to think what we do isn’t that special or unique. Rather than fixate on whether or not what you did was “innovative,” if you’ve implemented something in your archives or special collections library that you think is effective and other people would be interested in, please send me a proposal.

In addition to this open call, I will also be soliciting case study proposals, so if you know of a person or project that you think would be good to include in these volumes, please let me know about it so that I can follow up. Case study institutions are not limited to any specific type of archives or special collections, and are not limited to the U.S. only.

If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them here on this post or via email. Please send any questions, proposals or suggestions for me  to follow up on to me at kate.theimer [@] gmail.com.

 

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Your input needed for survey on job satisfaction in archives

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Kate Theimer

Again I’m helping promote a survey, so please take a few minutes and help Jack. I look forward to seeing his findings.

I am writing an article for eventual publication on management practices and employee satisfaction in the workplace, and in order to write this article, I would like to survey everyone who is currently employed in the archival field (regardless of type of position). As a result, I’m hoping you can help me by please completing a short survey – it’s less than 30 questions, and it shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes. The questions in the survey have been based on an extensive review of not only the archival literature, but management literature generally. The survey can be accessed at:
 All responses will be anonymous. Your responses will be very important to analyzing the state of job satisfaction in the archives field, and determining what types of management practices can be improved on, if any. Thank you very much for your help.
Sincerely,
Jack Kormos, MLS, CA
Archives Assistant, Wisconsin Historical Society
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Reminder: Archives book group starts Monday with “Dust”

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Kate Theimer

On Monday, the Archivists Reading Together book group will begin discussing Dust: The Archive and Cultural History by Carolyn Steedman. If you’d like to participate or just follow along, visit the book group website: archivistsreading.wordpress.com/.

Looking forward to another lively discussion, and I’ll post a poll in the coming weeks to vote on the next book for the group.

 

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Nominations for SAA Emerging Leader Award due Feb. 28

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Kate Theimer

I’m promoting another newish SAA award that I really believe in. Here’s a chance to recognize someone early in his/her archival career. Last year the award was given to the incomparable Mark Matienzo. Surely there must be another such sterling “early career” archivist or two who deserve to be nominated? Deadline is February 28, so if you know someone, get working on it.

Awarded for the first time in 2012, the SAA Emerging Leader Award celebrates and encourages early-career archivists who have completed archival work of broad merit, demonstrated significant promise of leadership, performed commendable service to the archives profession, or some combination of these.

Eligibility

Nominees must have more than two years and less than ten years of professional archives experience at the time of nomination. The award is given based on the total experience and contributions of the awardee, including knowledge, leadership, participation, and achievements in the profession.

Details on the award criteria, eligibility and the application form may be found at:

www2.archivists.org/governance/handbook/section12-emerging-leader

 

Posted in Leadership, Society of American Archivists (SAA) | Leave a comment