Spring Meeting: Meeting Program
May 6, 1995
Hartford, CT
8:00-9:00: Registration and coffee
9:00-10:00: Key Note Speech
"A Scholar in Love with the Archives: Personal Thoughts and Reminiscences"
Speaker: John Demos, Professor of History, Yale University
A noted colonial scholar will about his experiences and observations as he researched New England archives for material for his recently published book, The Unredeemed Captive. The work, written in a controversial narrative style, was a finalist for the 1994 National Book Award for non-fiction. By looking at the life of a young girl who was kidnapped at the Deerfield Massacre, Demos' study sheds lights on the perspectives for the `other' cultures in colonial New England - the Native Americans and the Canadians.
10:15-12:00: Morning Sessions
1) Exploring the Dimensions of Community through Business Records.
Speakers: Len Savers, Massachusetts Historical Society; Rick Stattler, Rhode Island Historical Society; Wilma Pappalardo, Connecticut Valley Historical Museum
Chair: Phyllis Steele, The New England Corporate Library
How can archivists, historians, and businesses work together to document the business community? How does one define a "business community"? Can archivists help business preserve its history and raise money for their repositories simultaneously? Are business records under-used as sources for studying the broader community? This session's speakers will address these and other questions while describing three creative, innovative, and sometimes even entrepreneurial programs, including the Boston Business History Project of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Springfield Area Business Documents Project of the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum.
2) Digitization: What Can It Do For Archives?
Speakers: Paul Conway, Preservation Department Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University; Violet Gilboa, Judaica Division, Harvard College Library, Harvard University, Marilyn Lutz, University of Maine System Libraries, University of Maine
Digitization will dramatically change the way that archives handle collections. Microfilm has long been an important tool for preserving fragile and heavily-used materials, as well as for disseminating large archival collections. It, nonetheless, presents many drawbacks that digitization can overcome. The possibility exists for non-linear retrieval of images, color images, storage of highly detailed graphic images, and network sharing of images. Optical character recognition opens the possibilities for searching text instead of just viewing images.
How will digitization for preservation and distribution change archives' arrangement and description practices, as well as access to user populations? Three case studies will address issues such as selection for digitization, copyright, cataloging practice, and user interfaces.
3) American Literary Manuscripts: Access and Use
Speakers: Leslie Morris, Curator of Manuscripts, Houghton Library, Harvard University; George Monteiro, Professor of English, Brown University
Managing collections of literary papers poses special challenges for archivists. Literary researchers are often interested in locating every scrap written by the author they are studying. This can result in a search for correspondence scattered among different collections in a multitude of repositories. In addition, the attractions of literary manuscripts for private collectors can lead to collection fragmentation, which also hampers access to the papers of writers.
The speakers will address the problems of accessing and using the papers of American Literary figures. Leslie Morris will report on a pilot project to update one of the standard finding aids for literary papers, American Literary Manuscripts, by incorporating information on the papers of American authors into MARC-AMC records on RLIN. George Monteiro, a widely published scholar in nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature, will draw on his research experiences with the papers of many authors to illuminate some of the problems of accessing and using such papers.
12:15 -2:15: Luncheon Buffet/business/index.html Meeting
2:30-4:15: Afternoon Sessions
1) No Space: The Final Frontier
Speakers: Patrice Donoghue, Pusey Library Archives, Harvard University; Jeffrey D. Marshall, Bailey/Howe Library, University or Vermont; Jeanne M. Neal, Information Management Consultant
Many archivists face the problem of running out of usable space in their repositories. Use of computer and micrographic technologies can delay the process, but eventually an archives will fill all its space. This session presents three approaches to solving the "no space" problem. The first speaker will discuss using the off-site repository at Harvard University. The second speaker will address the problems and difficulties of adding new space to the archives at the University of Vermont. The final speaker will discus the pros and cons of using hired space at an archival storage company.
2) Archives & the Internet
Speakers: Kim Brookes, UMass-Boston; Greg Colati, Bowdoin College; Diane Ducharme, Beinecke Library, Yale University
The Internet, a global computer network connecting roughly 20 million people worldwide, is a conduit for distributing and seeking information and for conducting business. What does this network of all computer networks mean for archives? This session, explores how some New England archivists are using the Internet. The first speaker will provide a primer on the Internet: what it is; how it can be accessed; and what it can do for archivists. The second speaker will describe the advantages and disadvantages he encountered going on-line at his repository. The final speaker will discuss experiences at her institution and conclude the session by exploring some of the philosophical issues concerning the Internet, including access and copyright.
3) Sunlight and Shadow Researching Women's Lives
Speakers: Joan Hedrick, English Department, Trinity College; Diana Korzenik, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University
Researching women's lives can be a challenge on many levels. Whether the subject is famous in her own right or one whose accomplishments are little- known, it can sometimes be difficult to find basic biographical material, let alone supporting documentation. The public faces of prominent women can mask the identity of their private' lives. For many, the written record reflects only their status within the context of family, requiring an almost impossible reconstruction of a life spent in the shadow of others.
The speakers will discuss their research on the lives of two women from prominent New England families: Harriet Beecher Stowe and Francs Appleton Longfellow. Joan Hedrick author of a recently published biography on Harriet Beecher Stowe, will talk about the process of finding new information and insights on Stowe, a woman whose life and work writers have examined for over a century. Diana Korzenik will describe her project, for a book in progress, of finding the societal, familial, and educational influences on Appleton, an accomplished artist whose marriage to poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow eclipsed her work
4:30 -5:30 Closing Reception
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