Category Archives: Announcements

Archival Volunteer Opportunity: Rothko Chapel

Position Description: The Rothko Chapel seeks a trained archivist or librarian to volunteer in the Rothko Chapel archives. The Rothko Chapel Archives currently amount to over 400,000 items stored in archival quality boxes and filing cabinets documenting the Chapel’s 44-year history. We are in need of support in the ongoing efforts to archive the currently daily activities of the Chapel, ensure that all past materials are stored properly and accessible, and assist with research requests.

Qualifications

  • Trained Librarian or Archivist
  • Flexible schedule and the ability to volunteer during workweek (Monday through Friday, between 9am and 5pm)
  • Reliable transportation
  • The ability to work independently with little to no supervision

About the Rothko Chapel: The Rothko Chapel, founded by Houston philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil, was dedicated in 1971 as an intimate sanctuary available to people of every belief. A tranquil meditative environment inspired by the mural canvases of Russian born American painter Mark Rothko (1903-1970), the Chapel welcomes over 70,000 visitors each year, people of every faith and from all parts of the world. On the plaza, Barnett Newman’s majestic sculpture, Broken Obelisk, stands in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Rothko Chapel is an independent institution, a sacred place open to all people, every day, whose mission is to inspire action through art and contemplation, nurture reverence for the highest aspirations of humanity, and provide a forum to address global issues of worldwide concern. www.rothkochapel.org

Responsibilities may include:

  • Assist contracted archivist in the organization of the archives
  • Assist in the preparation of a finding aid by inputting all contents into Filemaker Pro software
  • Process incoming and backlogged collections by accessioning them into the main collection
  • Organizing archival materials
  • Re-housing documents in acid-free folders and containers
  • Assist on-site researchers at the Rothko Chapel Archive by explaining archival policy:
    • Identifying and retrieving research materials
    • Photocopying documents
    • Monitoring the researcher
  • Correspond with researchers, search for the materials, and produce required reproductions
  • Digitizing the collection (some can be done in-house, others will have to be sent out)
  • Lift boxes of no more than 50 lbs

For more information or to submit your interest, please contact Ashley Clemmer Hoffman at Ashley@rothkochapel.org

Software Preservation Project Survey

This is an invitation to participate in a study entitled “Software Preservation for Cultural Heritage.” Our research is part of an IMLS-funded project to establish a Software Preservation Network. With this study, we want to better understand cultural heritage practices/experiences surrounding long-term preservation and access to digital primary resources stored in proprietary file formats.

While the cultural heritage community has developed tools and workflows for bitstream preservation, the community lacks empirical data regarding the experiences and efforts of cultural heritage repositories to access material stored in proprietary file formats during appraisal, accessioning, description, and reference activities.

As part of this survey, you will also be invited to opt-in for a follow-up semi-structured interview regarding proprietary software challenges. Anonymized data from the study will be made available to the profession and software rights holders, along with analysis of current trends and possibilities for future research.

Take the survey (roughly 20 minutes): https://utexas.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_eJr7lm1aCaC4McJ

Questions? Contact:

Jessica Meyerson
j.meyerson@austin.utexas.edu
Digital Archivist
Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin

Zach Vowell
zvowell@calpoly.edu
Digital Archivist
Robert E. Kennedy Library
California Polytechnic State University

Regional Archival Associations Consortium Report, SAA 2015

The report from the Regional Archival Associations Consortium (RAAC) meeting held at SAA this past August in Cleveland is now available.

The report contains plans from the subcommittee for the next few years on areas such as Disaster Planning, Advocacy, Awareness, Education, Grants, etc.

Many of these areas affect the work which we are doing locally through AHA! and regionally.  Please contact AHA! representative Emily Vinson with any questions you may have.

Meeting minutes: Regional Archival Associations Consortium report 10-2015

 

A Women’s History Symposium at the University of Houston, 10/14/15

“Collaboration: Women Re-Making American Political Culture” October 14, 2015

11:30 AM — The Body Politic: How It Matters When Women Make Policy
University of Houston Libraries, Rockwell Pavilion
$10 general public

2:00 PM — Race, Ethnicity and Activism, Academic Panel Discussion
University of Houston Libraries, Rockwell Pavilion
Free

3:30 PM — Confronting Power Structures, Academic Panel Discussion
University of Houston Libraries, Rockwell Pavilion
Free

7:00 PM — Keynote with National Public Radio White House Correspondent Tamara Keith
University of Houston Student Center Theater in conjunction with the UH Libraries Carey C. Stuart Women’s Archive and Research Collection
Tickets $20 for the general public; free entry for students and faculty

Reservations: http://houstonpublicmedia.org/uhwomen

For more information:
Email wgss@uh.edu or call (713) 743-3214

Parking for all events is available at the Welcome Center Garage. Entrance 1 off Calhoun Blvd.

keith_digitalpostcard

October is Archives Month 2015!

The Archivists of the Houston Area! line up for October 2015, National Archives Month is here! Tours have been confirmed for the following days and locations:

The poster and more details can be found at Archives Month 2015. Please send RSVPs for all events to Andrew Gustafson, andrew@thebryanmuseum.com.

Correction made 10/13, updated time for the 1940s Air Terminal Museum from 10:00 AM to 10:30 AM.

Louisiana Archives and Manuscripts Association Annual Meeting

Mark your calendars!  LAMA’s annual meeting is scheduled for Friday, November 6, 2015 at the Catholic Life Center, located at 1800 South Acadian Thruway, Baton Rouge. Registration is from 8:30-9:00.  We have a great lineup of speakers and topics.

Leslie Bourgeois of Louisiana Public Broadcasting will present on “The Louisiana Digital Media Archive: Preserving Louisiana’s Media History Through Collaboration”.  In our second session, “Reaching Out with Outreach: How to promote your collections with limited staff and no budget”, Cyndy Robertson will discuss ways to reach patrons and get them connected with the best resources.  The final presentation of the day will be given by Annie Peterson of Tulane University, Chris Harter of the Amistad Research Center, Trish Nugent of Loyola University, and Lee Leumas of the Archdiocese of New Orleans in a session on “Strategic Planning for Collaborative Preservation”.

Following the presentations, we will hold our annual business meeting.  The day will conclude with a tour of the Baton Rouge Room at the Main Library of the East Baton Rouge Parish Library system.

If there is interest, a dinner will be planned on Thursday night for early arrivers.

Attached you will find the Louisiana Archives and Manuscripts Association Annual Meeting 2015 registration form with information about hotels, the full meeting schedule and a separate Restaurant Guide for lunch.

The deadline for registration is Friday, October 23, 2015.

In the meantime, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at:koubre@diobr.org or 225-242-0217.

I look forward to seeing you on November 6th.

Katie Oubre, Vice-President of LAMA

 

Astrodome Memories project will host oral history and scanning event, August 8, 2015!

Astrodome rendering

Astrodome Memories is a project of the Houston Public Library in partnership with the Houston Metropolitan Research Center; the Harris County Archives; the Woodson Research Center Special Collections & Archives, Fondren Library, Rice University; Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries; and the Harris County Public Library. The project provides access to a broad collection of Astrodome-related materials, including items contributed by the public as well as from major archives in the Houston area and the state. The collection includes oral histories, photographs, blueprints, and audio-video materials related to the construction of the Astrodome, as well as pamphlets, scrapbook, and memorabilia documenting the use of the Astrodome for the last fifty years.

This project has been made possible in part by support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services provided by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Visit the project website: http://www.astrodomememories.org

The next Astrodome Memories event is an oral history and scanning event:

August 8, 2015
10:00 AM until 2:00 PM
Julia Ideson Building Auditorium
Houston Public Library
500 McKinney Street
Houston, TX 77008
For Appointments Call: 832-393-1522

Drop-in appointments are available, but if you wish to record an oral history or have more than three items to contribute, we recommend making an appointment.

Oral histories and items scanned at the event will be shared online at the project Web site. You can view items that were scanned at the 50th Anniversary Birthday Party at the Astrodome by visiting:

50th Anniversary Event

 

When the Water Recedes: Salvage assistance offered by AHA!

When the Water Recedes: Archivists Provide Salvage Assistance

Members of the Archivists of the Houston Area (AHA!) are available for providing advice and best practices in salvaging photos, books, documents and other priceless records that may have been damaged in the recent flooding.

Vince Lee, archivist at the University of Houston Libraries and president of AHA!, urges those seeking help with waterlogged materials to contact the organization for guidance. “AHA! would be happy to talk with anyone in a situation in which their valuable materials have been damaged by floodwaters,” Lee said.

Flood remediation of family or organizational records involves cleaning, drying and other types of treatment specific to the type of item. Many materials that have been affected can be salvaged with appropriate methods. AHA! archivists can provide specialized expertise in salvage and preservation.

Houston area flood victims seeking help with damaged records are encouraged to contact AHA! President Vince Lee. For more information on emergency salvage of flood damaged papers, visit National Archives Salvage Tips.

Decolonizing the Archive: Chicana por mi Raza and the Challenge of Digital Humanities, March 9 @University of Houston

Event Date: 
Monday, March 9, 2015 – 10:00am – 12:30pm
Location: 
Elizabeth D. Rockwell Pavilion, MD Anderson Library, University of Houston

 

10:00am – Talk by Maria Cotera, University of Michigan
Decolonizing the Archive: Chicana por mi Raza and the Challenge of Digital Humanities

Focusing on the Chicana por mi Raza digital archive, a collection of oral histories and documents from women who were active in social movements during the 1960s and 1970s, this lecture explores the possibilities and challenges that are opened up by the “digital turn” in Humanities scholarship.

Cotera argues that digital archiving projects like Chicana por mi Raza challenge conventional notions of humanistic research and reformat the archive in critical ways by shifting it from a repository to an active site for the co-creation of feminist knowledge. Re-reading the archive as a site of encuentro (encounter) and exchange, Cotera explores how contemporary feminist scholars can teach and learn about the past in ways that recover lost histories and incite new, and unexpected, connections.

Maria Cotera, PhD is an associate professor who holds a joint appointment in theDepartment of Women’s Studies and the Program in American Culture at the Universityof Michigan. She served as the director for the University of Michigan’s Latina/o Studies Program from 2008 to 2011. Cotera’s first book, Native Speakers: Ella Deloria, Zora Neale Hurston, Jovita González, and the Poetics of Culture, received the Gloria Anzaldúa 2009 book prize from the National Women’s Studies Association.

Cotera’s two current research initiatives include Chicana por mi Raza, a national digital humanities project that seeks to create an online interactive archive documenting Chicana Feminist praxis from 1960-1990; and El Museo del Norte, a partnership with Southwest Detroit arts and culture organizations to create a museum without walls that documents Latino history in the Midwest.

11:30am – Panel discussion
Pushing Back: Chicana, Latina, Hispanic Women Preserving Our Narratives

Panel participants will discuss the politics and implications of digitizing the archive, as well as the opportunities increased access provides.

  • Lisa Cruces joined the University of Houston Libraries as the first Hispanic Collections Archivist in 2014. Prior to this position, Cruces was a fellow with the Hesburgh Libraries at the University of Notre Dame. Along with stewarding and growing UH’s Hispanic Collections, Cruces promotes the use of archival materials in undergraduate education and an increase in community inclusivity. Her professional interests and research focus on collecting, preserving and creating access to English and Spanish language Hispanic archival collections.
  • Patricia Hernandez is a visual artist, arts educator, archivist and native Texan.She holds a BA in Art and Art History and a BFA in Painting from Rice University. She received her MFA in Painting from the University of Houston in 2000. In 2011, she began managing the DiverseWorks pilot project, Creating A Living Legacy (CALL), helping Houston artists collect and organize the records of their creative practice. She is the founder of StudioOne Archive Resource, a new service organization whose mission is to work with members of the Houston arts community to preserve their stories.
  • Carolina Villaroel, PhD is the Director of Research for University of Houston’s Arte Público Press, the nation’s largest and most established publisher of contemporary and recovered literature by US Latina and Latino authors. Villaroel, along with Dr. Nicolás Kanellos, leads the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project, a national program that locates, identifies, preserves and makes accessible the literary contributions of US Hispanics from colonial times through 1960.

Both events are free and open to the public. Sponsored by the University of Houston’s Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, Center for Mexican American Studies, Department of English, Department of History, and Digital Humanities Initiative, along with the Houston Arts Alliance, MECA, and Humanities Texas.

Permalink: http://info.lib.uh.edu/p/decolonizing-archive-chicana-por-mi-raza-and-challenge-digital-humanities

 

CALL TO ACTION: House Appropriations Committee Hearing Set for State Library & Archives

The next hearing on the Texas State Library and Archive’s Commission’s budget for the 2015-2017 biennium will take place next week on Monday, February 16. This is a hearing of the House Finance Committee. I don’t have an agenda for the meeting yet, so I don’t have any clue what order the agencies will present in.

Budget hearings are an interesting process. Often, advocates find themselves listening through hours of testimony, as there is no guaranteed time for agency presentations or public testimony.  Changes in scheduling are common. That being said, it is incredibly important to have advocates who are committed. Nothing is more powerful than persuasive testimony!

If the hearing is broadcast, the link will be available on the day at http://www.house.state.tx.us/video-audio/committee-broadcasts/. Expect hours and HOURS of poor audio and video.

The current TSLAC Legislative Appropriation Request is available at https://www.tsl.texas.gov/agency/budget/fy1617/index.html. There is a synopsis available from the Texas Library Association at http://www.txla.org/sites/tla/files/Advocate/84th_Library_Budget_Issues.pdf. You should note that though many of the requests for new funding (exceptional items) are directed toward the State Archives, the Texas Library Association is focused on two that will benefit libraries statewide. That is why your support for the archival priorities is essential!

TSLAC, like all agencies, was directed to prepare an option for a 10% budget cut. Note that while the library services division would feel the greatest impact in terms of dollars, other divisions will feel the impacts in loss of staff. If a 10% across-the-board cut is made, 7.0 FTEs in archives plus 1 FTE in State and Local Records Management would be eliminated.

If your representative serves on the Appropriations Committee, I urge you to contact him or her to express your support:

Representative Trent Ashby; Trent.Ashby@house.state.tx.; 512-463-0508

Representative Cecil Bell; Cecil.Bell@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0650

Representative Greg Bonnen; Greg.Bonnen@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0729

Representative Cindy Burkett; Cindy.Burkett@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0464

Representative Giovanni Capriglione; Giovanni.Capriglione@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0690

Representative Sarah Davis; Sarah.Davis@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0389

Representative Dawnna Dukes; Dawnna.Dukes@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0506

Representative Helen Giddings; Helen.Giddings@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0953

Representative Larry Gonzales; Larry.Gonzales@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0670

Representative Donna Howard; Donna.Howard@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0631

Representative Bryan Hughes; Bryan.Hughes@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0271

Representative Linda Koop; Linda.Koop@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0454

Representative Oscar Longoria; Oscar.Longoria@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0645

Representative Marisa Marquez; Marisa.Marquez@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0638

Representative Ruth Jones McClendon; RuthJones.McClendon@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0708

Representative Borris Miles; Borris.Miles@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0518

Representative Rick Miller; Rick.Miller@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0710

Representative Sergio Munoz; Sergio.Munoz@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0704

Representative John Otto; John.Otto@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0570

Representative Dade Phelan; Dade.Phelan@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0706

Representative Four Price; Four.Price@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0470

Representative John Raney; John.Raney@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0698

Representative Justin Rodriguez; Justin.Rodriguez@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0669

Representative J.D. Sheffield; J.D.Sheffield@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0628

Representative Sylvester Turner; Sylvester.Turner@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0554

Representative Gary VanDeaver; Gary.VanDeaver@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0576

Representative Armando Walle; Armando.Walle@house.state.tx.us; 512-463-0490

 
If you don’t know who your representative is, you can go to http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/Home.aspx and enter your address to find out! Even if your representative isn’t on the Appropriations Committee, it is important to communicate with them about the importance of TSLAC, especially as the budget process moves forward.

 

The equivalent in the Senate is the Senate Finance Committee; their hearing was last week. You can still communicate with them to express your support for archives, though. Here’s the list of members:

 

District 1: Senator Kevin Eltife; 512-463-0101; Kevin.Eltife@senate.state.tx.us

District 3: Senator Robert Nichols; 512-463-0103; Robert.Nichols@senate.state.tx.us

District 5: Senator Charles Schwertner; 512-463-0105; Charles.Schwertner@senate.state.tx.us

District 7: Senator Paul Bettencourt; 512-463-0107; Paul.Bettencourt@senate.state.tx.us

District 9: Senator Kelly Hancock; 512-463-0109; Kelly.Hancock@senate.state.tx.us

District 11: Senator Larry Taylor; 512-463-0111; Larry.Taylor@senate.state.tx.us

District 12: Senator Jane Nelson; 512-463-0112; Jane.Nelson@senate.state.tx.us

District 14: Senator Kirk Watson; 512-463-0114; Kirk.Watson@senate.state.tx.us

District 15: Senator John Whitmire; 512-463-0115; John.Whitmire@senate.state.tx.us

District 17: Senator Joan Huffman; 512-463-0117; Joan.Huffman@senate.state.tx.us

District 18: Senator Lois Kolkhorst; 512-463-0118; Lois.Kolkhorst@senate.state.tx.us

District 19: Senator Carlos Uresti; 512-463-0119; Carlos.Uresti@senate.state.tx.us

District 20: Senator Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa; 512-463-0120; Juan.Hinojosa@senate.state.tx.us

District 23: Senator Royce West; 512-463-0123; Royce.West@senate.state.tx.us

District 31: Senator Kel Seliger ; 512-463-0131; Kel.Seliger@senate.state.tx.us);
Some tips for contacting your senator or representative:

 

If you are calling the office, ask to speak to the staff person working on Appropriations or Finance. When you get that person, introduce yourself, tell them you are a constituent, and tell them you are calling to ask for the Representative or Senator’s support of funding for the state archives. Mention that the TSLAC Appropriations Committee hearing is set for Monday Feb. 16, and you want to speak to them concerning the importance of funding the agency’s exceptional items requests. Be specific about which exceptional items you support and explain how they will benefit you and other constituents. Ask if s/he has any questions and thank them. It’s that easy!

 

TLA has an Advocacy Primer available at http://www.txla.org/advocacy-how-to that provides a lot of useful guidance.