Spring Meeting 1998: Meeting Program
April 25, 1998
Sheraton Inn Riverfront, Lowell, MA
Registration & Coffee: 8:30-9:30
Keynote Address: 9:30-10:30
"2001: An Archival Odyssey" by Brenda Banks, Assistant Director of the Georgia Department of Archives and History
Brenda Banks, former president of SAA, will talk about being an archivist at the beginning of the new millennium. The last half of the 2Oth century, "our time," has shown great growth in the archival profession. What will be the challenges of the 21st century? How will our jobs change? What will be expected of us as professionals? She will focus on education, ethics, new knowledge, and cooperation with each other and with other professionals. Banks's talk will set the tone for the more practical concerns addressed in the other sessions to follow.
Break: 10:30-10:45
Plenary Session: 10:45-11:45
"Changing Demographics in New England" by Kevin Grau, Director, Newell D. Goff Institute for Ingenuity and Enterprise Studies at the Rhode Island Historical Society
Kevin Grau will focus on the challenges of documenting societal changes in the 21st century due to the move from a manufacturing to a service economy. The interaction between technological change and the social and political order will be given special attention. Based on this discussion, consideration will be given, from a historian's perspective, to documentary and access needs we face at the end of the second industrial century.
Lunch: 11:45-1:30
Caroline Preston, former NEA member and author of Jackie by Josie, a novel about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, will provide some food for thought over lunch as she describes the passage from archives to fiction writing.
The NEA Business Meeting will follow Preston 's remarks.
Concurrent Sessions I: 1:45-3:00
A. Documenting Minorities: The Jewish Experience in New England
A historian and a curator will describe the history and the record of the Jewish community in our region, and they will identify traditional and non -traditional methods used to collect and preserve this history. Porter's talk, "Documenting Jewish Women's Lives: Strategies and Pilot Projects Developed by the Jewish Women's Archives," will touch on changes in historical research and the impact on collecting. Montgomery's talk, "The Shapiro Story: Restoring the Shapiro House at Strawbery Banke Museum," will cover the themes of acculturation and immigration by a Russian Jewish family to a small American city.
Presenters: Susan Porter, Visiting Scholar at Schlesinger Library, and Consultant on Jewish Women's Archives; Susan Montgomery, Former Curator, Strawbery Banke Museum
Chair: Nancy Richard, Northeastern University Libraries
B. Spreading the Word: Developing Electronic Finding Aids
As more information is gathered and distributed over the Internet, the traditional paper finding aid is increasingly being replaced by an electronic one. The potential of this new technology brings up some central questions about how archivists distribute information about their collections. What changes in design and presentation are desirable and necessary? Speakers will discuss HTML and SGML approaches to the tried and true.
Presenters: Carolyn Gurley, Bowdoin College Library; Elizabeth Dow, University of Vermont Libraries
Chair: Peter Carini, Ml. Holyoke College
Break: 3:00- 3:15
Concurrent Sessions II: 3:15-4:30
C. Ask a Lawyer: Archives, the Internet, and the Law
"But I'm not a lawyer," is the caveat often offered by librarians or archivists when presenting conference sessions on copyright, privacy, and the Internet. This, then, is an opportunity to ask a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property and Internet issues, those questions, fine -tuned to archivists' concerns, that have troubled us as digitization has affected the uses made of archival materials. The speaker will address previously submitted questions, and then open the floor for discussion.
Presenter: Attorney R. P. Civola, M.I.T.
Chair: Linda Seidman, University of Massachusetts Libraries
D. Archival Education: Some Perspectives
How and where do archivists seek formal and continuing education, and how have these outlets adapted to changes in the field? How does this compare with the educational opportunities offered to those in allied professions? Speakers will address these and other questions, and they will encourage audience participation in a discussion of the needs and nature of archival education. New graduates of archival education programs are particularly invited 10 attend and participate.
Presenters: Megan Sniffin-Marinoff, Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science; Maureen Melton, Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Chair: Barbara Austen, Fairfield Historical Society
Closing Reception: 4:30
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