Minutes, November 17, 2006

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MarylandHistory and Culture Collaborative
Second Meeting
Enoch Pratt Free Library
Friday, November 17, 2006

Attendees: Nadia Nasr, Jennie Levine, Andy Harrison, Mary Mannix, Robert Schindle, Jill Craig, Megan McShea, Vin Novara, Rob Schoeberlein, Ann Hanlon, Beth Alvarez, Anne Turkos, Ann Hudak, Doug McElrath, Malissa Ruffner, Rob Rogers, Jeannine Disviscour, Libby White, Barbara O'Brien, Bill Cady, Gavin Brown, Andrzej Durlik, Kathy Cowan
Notetaker: Ann Hanlon

I.Welcome:

Nadia Nasr welcomed everyone to the meeting at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Jennie Levine added that this was the second meeting of the Collaborative, though this was the first meeting for many in attendance.

II.Introductions:

Everyone in attendance introduced themselves and mentioned any relevant projects or news. Significant projects and news items included:

Mary Mannix (Frederick County Public Library) announced that groundbreaking for the Thurmont Regional Library, including the ThurmontCenter for Regional and Agricultural History, would take place on November 18th.

Rob Schoeberlein (MarylandStateArchives) announced that a selection of photographs from the collections would be publicly available online beginning next year.

Ann Hanlon (University of Maryland, College Park) mentioned that she is working on an NEH-funded project to preserve the agricultural literature of Maryland, 1820-1945. She may be approaching various Maryland institutions to ask to borrow titles not held at UMCP for the microfilming portion of this project.

Beth Alvarez (University of Maryland, College Park) announced the acquisition of the collections of three Maryland literary figures - Myra Sklarue, Jesse Glass, and Roy Hoopes - as well as an exhibit on the Maryland Poet Laureates to take place in Hornbake Library, February 1 - August 1, 2007.

Doug McElrath (University of Maryland, College Park) reminded everyone that the Rare Book and Manuscript Section (RBMS) of ALA will be meeting in Baltimore this June. The topic of the meeting is printed ephemera. He also asked for volunteers for sessions at the Fall 2007 MARAC meeting in Williamsburg,VA, on the topics of archival repositories in historic house museums, and printed ephemera.

Malissa Ruffner (Freelance) announced that she is beginning work on a comprehensive finding aid, spanning several collections, for the Ridgley Family. She is working under contract with the Hampton Historic Site.

Nadia Nasr (Enoch Pratt Free Library), who is the digitization supervisor at Enoch Pratt, also heads up the Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage (MDCH) project. So far, that project has been focused on public libraries, but they would like to branch out to other kinds of institutions.

Jeannine Disviscour (MarylandHistorical Society) said that following the restructuring at MHS, all collections now fall under her purview. This includes the collections of both the museum and the library. Several collections have been processed and descriptions are online, including the World War II collection and the Eubie Blake Collection. Additionally, 85 new entries have been added to the Maryland Online Encyclopedia. A new exhibit highlighting the Baltimore Basilica and the John Carroll/Benjamin Latrobe Letters is opening.

Libby White (BaltimoreHebrew University) is the Director of the Joseph Meyerhoff Library at BaltimoreHebrewUniversity. Their collections include oral histories of Holocaust survivors who settled in Baltimore. They do not, however, have an archive. Looking to enrich their collections.

Barbara O'Brien (Archivist, McDanielCollege) is looking for help with a digitization project involving the diaries of former president of the college. There are at least 39 diaries at McDanielCollege, and 62 more at the Library of Congress.

Gavin Brown (Enoch Pratt Free Library) invited everyone to take advantage of "digitization tour" at Enoch Pratt, in order to see what their digitization set-up is like. He also expressed interest in more collaboration and information sharing regarding online projects.

Kathy Cowan (MarylandInstituteCollegeof Art) was attending her first meeting of the Collaborative. She is the Senior Reference Librarian and MICA, and the only one working with their Archives. She gave some background on MICA, and announced that Douglas Frost, from MICA's Office of Advancement, is working on an institutional history. They are currently digitizing the Board Minutes from 1850s - 1880s in pdf. She also reported that MICA provides an online inventory of M.F.A. projects from the 1950s to the present. Kathy also mentioned a proposed BAROC (Baltimore Art Research & Outreach Consortium) project that is a guide to primary resources for Art research in the Baltimore area - updating Tom Hollowak's 1990s guide but focusing on art history], and expressed regret that BAROC's MarylandArtSource website <http://www.marylandartsource.org/about/partners.html>, which was a gateway for Art Libraries in the region and also presented digitized collections (notably the Maryland Historical Society's painting collection and some photographic collections held by UMBC), is not being developed

Jennie Levine (University of Maryland, College Park) reminded everyone that UM launched ArchivesUM in April 2004. This is the online, EAD portal to UM finding aids. Approximately 250 complete finding aids are now available. She offered the assistance of the UMD Archivists to anyone with questions about EAD.

III.Update on the Maryland Historical Society:

Rob Rogers, Chief Operating Officer and Interim Director

Rogers gave some background on the current situation at MHS. He began by explaining that the "Proudly We Hail" campaign conducted under the previous director had enabled MHS to triple the size of its property holdings. They have recently sold the building across the street from the main headquarters to the WaltersArt Museum.

Dr. Emerson, the most recent director, was at MHS for 90 days. (A new search will be initiated after the first of the year.) Upon his arrival, Emerson made a presentation to the Board regarding how he thought the organization should move forward, and a decision was made by the Board to support the new Director. Particular challenges had to do with financial issues related to the recent expansion. The MHS went from four divisions to two divisions. The divisions are Collections and Educational Outreach.

The MHS is trying to provide the same level of service they had provided in the past, though staffing and financial levels are less than ideal. They would like to strengthen some staffing areas. In the Collections division, a part-time grant funded position will transition to a full-time position. Also, a receptionist has been hired after that position was initially cut in the reorganization.

Questions:

Doug McElrath expressed concern with the library side of the reorganization. He suggested that the abolishment of the Library Committee by former Director --- was a bad thing because the committee had benefited the MHS with advice from senior people at state institutions.

Rogers stated that they may re-institute the Library Committee, as well as the Museum Committee and Collections Committee. The mentality at MHS is very much that it is Maryland's resource.

Anne Turkos expressed concern over the dissolution of the Press.

Rogers stated that there will be book publishing, though the latest issue of the Maryland Historical Magazine did include what amounted to an obituary for the Press. The MHS is committed to publishing two books this year. A third and possibly 4th book are also possible. Book publishing will be limited to availability of funding.

Andy asked if the MHS had considered partnering with another Press, such as the Johns Hopkins Press.

Rogers answered that they have thought of it and are working through those ideas. He is meeting soon with Bob Brugger regarding the Press.

Bill Cady suggested another idea for the Press was to investigate collaborative presses (to aid in the acquisition of materials for publishing, such as paper, etc).

Andy broached the subject of slow or absent reference responses from the MHS. He asked if there was a way to foster a better relationship in order to facilitate better responses for patrons and ourselves.

Disviscour explained that the recent reorganization had also affected their information technology resources, resulting in a web outage. Additionally, they were struggling to keep the doors open in the face of the staff shortage. Those problems have been resolved.

Rogers added that they have hired 6 people in the last 3-4 weeks to replace individuals who left (but whose positions had not been cut) during the restructuring.

Mary Mannix asked what the present actual contingent of library staff.

Disviscour answered that they had 2 FTE and 2 part time, though one of those part time positions was about to transition to full time. She added that they make use of a number of volunteers, including volunteers from the Maryland Genealogical Society.  She also added that they area still offering email and letter reference services, via experienced volunteers. Pull times have increased to 3-4 times a day, but they are now closed for the lunch hour.

*BREAK*

IV.Digital Projects:

After the break the group began a discussion regarding collaboration on digital collections and a central location to provide information about our collections and repositories.

"Gateway" Discussion

Bill Cady suggested that the Pratt add everyone's information and links to their digital exhibits/collections on the Pratt ContentDM site.

Nadia suggested this could be a gateway to either digital items or descriptions, or she might consider changing the layout of the current site to showcase exhibits, including those at other institutions. A later project might be to make finding aids available online, or to provide technical support or infrastructure.

Jennie commented that this last suggestion was similar to what UMD has been doing with ArchivesUM - provide a technical infrastructure for encoding and serving finding aids online.

Bill and Nadia added that a central gateway via Pratt fits their mission as a state resource center, and would not require anyone to write new proposals.

Jennie added that we need a resource for librarians, so they know about all of our non-web-accessible databases and inventories, too. Possibly add such a resource to the gateway.

Mary Mannix also suggested a "pathfinder" type of resource that could help direct other librarians and users to repositories with particular resources, such as Sanborn maps. It would also be helpful to instruct people regarding each repository's rules, hours, etc. She suggested that Tom Hollowak's resource directory could be a starting point. Shared Resources Discussion

Jennie mentioned the resource guide that Megan McShea circulated via email prior to the meeting. Megan explained that at our last meeting we discussed how we could come up with some kind of collective online presence. Several tools were unveiled around that time that enable people working remotely from one another to pool resources.

The ICA-AtoMis an open source tool that allows people to create global subject guides <http://ica-atom.org>. Not ready to download yet. It will enable groups to designate a moderator, who can then invite people to join and give them privileges.

The Archivists Tool Kit has been developed with a Mellon grant. There was a question about whether this tool would support multiple institutional users. < http://archiviststoolkit.org/>

Archon, developed at the UniversityofIllinois, is similar <http://www.archon.org/index.php>.

Jennie said that the ArchivesUM program is similar to Archon. She also promised to send along information about an Archon test case.

Blog Discussion
Discussion of whether Enoch Pratt or UMD should host a blog for the group.

Nadia Nasr asked what the advantage of a blog was over email.

Megan answered that it creates a searchable web page that is much easier to use and track.

Jennie added that UMD has been using blogs recently for a number of functions. In addition to being searchable, it is possible to "tag" content. Also, our group's email listserv has no archival function at all.

Megan added that the email listserv is great for coordinating meetings, but a blog might be a better place to list what's going on in the state.

Doug wondered if the blog might be a tool to begin our guide to collections?

Jennie answered it might be one way, but another option for that might be a wiki. Easy to use, good for outreach.

Megan asked who would ideally host a wiki or a blog?

Jennie said it would be better to have it hosted by an institution and that it would be easy for UMD to set one up. They can also impose controls on who enters content, etc.

Mary Mannix wanted the group to keep the H-Maryland list in mind, and to make sure we weren't making redundant resources. Suggested H-Maryland would be a good place to announce the blog or wiki.

Beth asked for clarification on the gateway/blog/wiki discussion. What was going to be used for what?

Jennie clarified:

1. Blog: Collect news from this Collaborative and other institutions

2. Gateway: Provide stable links to website, collections, etc.

Jennie added that the gateway and wiki ideas overlap, so we don't need both.

ACTION ITEM: Nadia will investigate a Gateway and set up "accounts." Jennie will create blog site at UM

History Day Discussion
Doug and Jennie brought up the idea of a collaborative effort to provide more online resources for History Day.

Jeannine offered that MHS has primary resource tool kits available for teachers. They also run a program called SEARCH that students are able to take advantage of.

Mary Mannix suggested that each year we could post collections that adhere to that year's History Day theme. Give them good, local sources.

Next Meeting Mary Mannix offered to host the next meeting at the Frederick County Public Library. Date is to be announced, but likely in March.