Minutes, September 27, 2007

Maryland History and Culture Collaborative [MHCC]
Fall 2007 meeting, September 27 at Frostburg State University

Attendees:
Ann Hanlon (AHA) University of Maryland, College Park
Anne Hudak(AHU) University of Maryland, College Park
Anne Turkos (AT) University of Maryland, College Park
Beth Alvarez (BA) University of Maryland, College Park
Bill Cady (BC) Enoch Pratt Free Library - State Library Resource Center
Doug McElrath (DM) University of Maryland, College Park
Jill Craig (JC) Western Maryland Public Libraries
Jennie Levine (chair) (JLE) University of Maryland, College Park
Julia Lehnert (JLN) National Park Service - Hampton Natl. Historic Site
Nancy Derevjanik (ND) guest
Nadia Nasr (NN) Enoch Pratt Free Library - State Library Resource Center
Mary Jo Price (MJP) Frostburg State University
Malissa Ruffner (MR) Contract Archivist - Hampton Natl. Historic Site
Rob Jenson (RJ) Montgomery County Historical Society
Rob Schoeberlein (RSC) Special Collections, Maryland State Archives
Rob Shindle (RSH) University of Baltimore

Introductions and Welcome

After everyone briefly introduced themselves, Dr. David Gillespie, Library Director, welcomed everyone to the Lewis J. Ort Library [www.frostburg.edu/dept/library/aboutlib.htm] at Frostburg State University (FSU). He briefly described the Special Collections at Frostburg , in particular, their holdings about the Communist Party of the United States, the George Myers Library, and labor relations materials. 
MJP then led a tour of the FSU Archives and Special Collections, after which lunch was delivered to the meeting room.
Digital Project Collaboration

JLE led an around-the-table discussion about digital project collaboration. At the previous MHCC meeting people discussed what is being digitized and made available online at each institution participating. The University of Maryland's digital collections site launched last month [www.lib.umd.edu/digital]. How can we collaborate on projects and share our knowledge? What other issues about digitization are on people's minds?

Digital Cultural Heritage Program:

NN described several ways that the Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage Program (MDCH)
[www.mdch.org]could partner with institutions and repositories in Maryland. They have developed a technical infrastructure and have the expertise in-house to help get materials digitized and hosted online using their servers. Alternatively, for institutions that are digitizing and hosting materials on their own web sites, MDCH can harvest metadata from those sites and incorporate those data into their ContentDM interface and provide an integrated portal / search site for researchers. Their services are free, although they are limited to partnering with institutions and collections that have some connection to Maryland history or culture. They can do the scanning, including handling of oversized materials, digitization, preparation of metadata, and online hosting. Two examples of collaborative projects that reflect the range of projects they have done include the digitized transcripts of oral histories done for the American Century Project, created by students from St. Andrews Episcopal School in Potomac and WHILBR, the Western Maryland Historical Library [www.whilbr.org/].

WHILBR, a project of Western Maryland Public Libraries, is on a completely independent ContentDM site, but the metadata is harvested by MDCH and is searchable along with all the hosted collections.

Digital Infrastructure:

RSH mentioned that Goucher College and Johns Hopkins University are using PastPerfect
RJ stated that the Montgomery County Historical Society, like many historical societies/museums, uses PastPerfect which was commissioned by the AASLH. PastPerfect is supposed to support MARC format metadata but he questioned whether their records could easily be converted to ContentDM.
Discussion then turned to the infrastructure being developed at different sites, and how collections can be made visible in the MDCH. ContentDM supports importing metadata from other ContentDM databases, or from spreadsheet or tab-delimited flat files. University of Maryland is using OAI and Fedora.

Internet Copyright Issues:

MJP asked about whether there are copyright issues to be aware of with putting images on the Web.? The general group response was "it's an issue to be considered before putting any images online."
NN stated that most materials that go up on MDCH are in the public domain. With personal papers and orphaned works they try to track down the copyright owner or analyze the relative risk if they can't find them. She mentioned that someone received an IMLS grant to resolve copyright issues.
Other interesting issues and questions with putting materials up on the Internet followed.
BA mentioned that one of her collections included a family history and she was contacted with a request to correct some of the data that was incorrect.
MJP has a collection of 1969 photographs. Are they still subject to copyright, or can I put them up on the web?
RJ mentioned that in addition to researching the photographs for copyright ownership, publicity rights (if in a state where it matters) and privacy rights are a consideration.
JLE has a collection of Homecoming Queen pictures. They have been debating whether or not to identify the individuals in the pictures.
BC we have three volumes of photographs that were lent to us to digitize. The photos were taken by the Commission on Sewage in the mid-1950's. We don't have a deed of gift, but wanted to do the right thing. We contacted Public Works, and got a call back from their lawyer.
JLE: We have the Baltimore News American collection at UMCP. Researchers want to use the photographs for republication, but have to refer them to the Hearst Corporation, which owns the intellectual property for staff photos. In one case though, I found the exact same photo in the Agnew collection, labeled as a "White House Photo."
BC: For Baltimore Sun photos, they wanted $50 per image for a non-profit to publish on the web.

On-Line Exhibits:

BA expressed an interest in seeing more collaboration projects among institutions with similar materials.
DM asked whether ContentDM can be used to arrange exhibits at different institutions along the lines of a specific research topic.
AHA mentioned that social tagging might be a good way to get collaboration between institutions putting digital materials up and researchers identifying the research topics.
DM mentioned that photographs lend themselves well for social tagging.
RJ wonders if there have been any work done in developing authority control language for social tagging.
AHA and JLE suggested a look at STEVE (http://www.steve.museum).
JLE: Doug mentioned the "Streets of Baltimore" exhibit idea with multiple repositories participating. I was thinking of other topics that would make good collaborative exhibits. I thought of the 1968 riots, and the Civil War in Maryland.
BA: Civil War is the kind of topic that wins big grants, especially with multiple repositories involved.
NN: Knowing what different institutions have in their collections would help us figure out what kind of topics would be well covered.
JC noted that WHILBR has a website on the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Antietam (www.whilbr.org/AntietamAnniversary/index.aspx ) and that the 150th anniversary will take place in fives years, 2012.
There was favorable reaction to the idea of mounting a collaborative Civil War exhibit or exhibits that could conceivably involve most Maryland repositories.
JLE: Let's continue this discussion on the mailing list.

On-Line References / Repository Registry

JLE: Next topic: has anyone else entered their repository into the MDCH Repository Registry? It is a directory of repositories with collections about Maryland.
The question was raised by several members about keeping the records for their repository accessible only within our group until they received authorization to publicize their repository in that fashion.
NN stated that it may be possible to suppress entries until permission is given.
JLE: Let's see if we can get it to 10 entries by our next meeting.

The question was raised about the status of the Maryland Online Encyclopedia, which had been hosted by the Maryland Historical Society (MHS). Funding ran out and MHS seems to have pulled back from the project. The question was raised about what could be done to save the work that was put into it, and keep it moving forward. Does it make sense to transfer it to Wikipedia, or some other wiki-based project?
JLE: We should look at Maryland Online Encyclopedia <www.mdoe.org/> and compare what is there to the Wikipedia entries for the same subjects.
Discussion ensued about the relative benefits or pitfalls of a popularly maintained encyclopedia like Wikipedia, as compared to a professionally-reviewed commercial encylopedia like Brittanica, also about whether we should be changing and/or helping to maintain the Wikipedia article for our places.
JLE mentioned that she added links to the UMCP collections in the appropriate Wikipedia entries, and she was trolled by Wikipedians for violating the rules against SSP [shameless self-promotion]. She still believes it makes sense to link appropriate topics to our collections and recommended that between now and our next meeting, each one of us edit a Wikipedia entry for a topic of interest in Maryland and see how that works out for us.
A brief discussion of "Poetry that requires an acquired taste for appreciation" followed
RSC: felt that a useful project might be to create a database from the Maryland Historical Magazine [MHM] index"
AT noted that UMCP has permission to put a copy of the .DOC files of the MHM index into its digital repository [DRUM] and that she also has .DOC files of the bibliographies published in MHM (she is co-editor of the bibliographies).
JLE: Regarding the MHM index and bibliographies and, another topic -- the Maryland History and Culture Bibliography maintained by the Maryland Humanities Council (MHC)-- should they go into DRUM or MDCH?
NN felt that if the index and bibliographies were tab-delimited or converted to tables, they could be easily entered in MDCH with ContentDM.
JLE thought that this (delimit the .DOC files and placing the text in appropriate fields) might be a project that a UMCP student might be willing to tackle.
DM: So does this bring us into copyright issues? What about the introductory blurbs?  Contributors had to sign over copyright to Maryland Humanities Council (MHC)
JLE: Can we as a group write a letter to MHC and ask them about the database?
[Recap of how MHCC evolved from the goals of the UMd's Maryland Cultural Team].
Around the Table - Exhibits and Other Events

UMCP Hornbake Library

Hornbake is exhibiting "Mysterious Maryland"  -- ghost stories and
creepy tales from campus and neighboring area. [www.lib.umd.edu/mdrm/gallery.html]
JLE: We were asking for guns earlier because the Bladensburg Dueling Grounds are near the College Park campus. We wanted something appropriate to the period and theme.

Liz McAllister looked around she found the Naval Academy Museum had period guns. We highlighted Steven Decatur vs. James Barron. The curator at the Naval Academy Museum believes that they had the guns carried by James Barron's seconds, which we borrowed. They also have the bullet that killed Decatur, but we didn't borrow that. The exhibit is accessible Monday through Friday from 10-5, Wednesday nights until 8 PM, and Saturdays 8-5. Parking on campus is free after 4 PM and on Saturdays.
DM: We just acquired the archives of Preservation Maryland, part of our National Trust for Historical Preservation Library [www.lib.umd.edu/NTL/]. Also, Vince Novara, working at the Performing Arts Library, is trying to find information about an architectural firm, Taylor and Fisher.

Next spring we'll be mounting an exhibit on 19th century publisher bindings.  I might be asking everyone to scan your bookshelves for Baltimore bindings, as a collaborative effort.
MJP: What Sanborn Maps do you have UMCP, and what format (microfilm, digital, or paper)? We have some at Frostburg.
AT: Oct. 19 is the anniversary of the Queen's Game. Queen Elizabeth II came to UMCP to watch a football game. The University Archives [www.lib.umd.edu/univarchives/] has an exhibit on the 50th Anniversary of her visit. There will be a documentary film that premieres next Thursday. We do have 15-20 members of the football team coming back for the game. The Queen is not going to be able to make it but we have about 270 RSVPs for the event.

One of the player's daughters wrote to the Queen inviting her to come, or send her memories of the event. For the 40th Anniversary I wrote to the Queen for reminiscences of the event. Her secretary told me then "The Queen does not send out personal reminiscences" ...  We were expecting a response that "The Queen still does not send out personal reminisces" but she got a nice letter. At the game, the Queen was concerned that Gov. McKeldin was going to bruise her in his zeal for the Terps.

Maryland State Archives

RSC: We have a new acquisition - in the midsummer we acquired the photography of a Kennsington-based photographer: Malcolm Walter.  The photos are mostly of Montgomery County with some Prince George's County. The collection includes many glass plates. There is a nice series of photos of Camp Freedom (a Klan camp on Rockville Pike). A UMCP student will catalog to the item level the 1200-1400 images. One day we hope to put them all on our web site [www.mdhistpics.net/].
JC: Who is the photographer of/from Allegany County?
RSC: Herbie Miller. He has done some new stuff.
BA: Brie Windmore's memoirs are going to be published.
BC: Rob (Schoeberlein): Do you know anything about the Papenfuse Bill [about collecting documents from State Agencies]?
RSC: There was a movement that all state agencies would send us all their photographs so that we could digitize them, but that fell apart.

State document / record retention

DM: There was going to be a report about state documents that was to go to the State Librarian, Irene Padilla.
AT: We talked at the last meeting about the Code of Maryland Regulations [COMAR] update which pertains to state university and local government records retention. It is moving very slowly.
RSC had no information on these subjects as he hadn't been briefed by Dr. Papenfuse.
AT: At UMCP, we started an electronic records working group early this year, they looked at some proposed regulations and provided commentary. That happened at a month ago. I haven't heard anything from the state. If I hear anything I'll let this group know what is happening.

University of Baltimore

RSH: We're renovating the library at University of Baltimore , which may or may not be done by the next meeting. Our space, and our collections are expanding.

The '68 Riots and Rebirth Conference [http://archives.ubalt.edu/bsr/intro.htm] will take place at UB in April - I believe Megan McShea is putting together an archivist's roundtable for the Conference.

Hampton Natl. Historic Site

JLN: Hampton will be reopening on November 30 [www.nps.gov/hamp].  After that date, the mansion will be open and decorated for yuletide. There is a new Arcadia book on Hampton.
MR: I hope next time my finding aid will be up on the web. When is our next meeting?
JLE: I think that the next meeting will be in January at Goucher College.
MR: Gail McCormick has left Goucher.

MJP: Thank you all for coming to Frostburg - don't mind the 3-car traffic jam.

Enoch Pratt / Western Maryland Public Libraries

[These were mostly covered in the Digital Cultural Heritage Program above.]
NN: Question, do any of you know what you are using to get web statistics?
JLE: Google Analytics.
NN: it is always interesting how people find us.
JC: Probably 10% of our hits are coming from Wikipedia.
JLE: Maybe we can come up with some information for people next time [Using Google Analytics, or about how people are finding their site??] can set up goals or questions about how people are using your site. 
The meeting adjourned.

Minutes submitted by:
Rob Jensen
Rob Shindle