ARCHIVES IN CRISIS


Learn from speakers from The National Archives and Records Administration, The National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, and more on how to respond to archives and museums facing environmental crises such as hurricanes, floods, and lack of storage. This eight week series was funded by a grant from by the Louisiana Board of Regents and the Guilbeau Charitable Trust.

Our Spring 2019 speaker series, “Archives in Crisis,” aimed to provide an in-depth course on how to respond to archives in crisis in two ways: (1) emergency planning in the event of immediate environmental disaster (such as a hurricane, flood, or earthquake), and (2) slow-occurring environmental crises such as land loss, storage issues, humidity. Students, professors, historians, archivists, librarians, members of various academic organizations, environmental scientists, Native American tribal councils, and other interested members of the public were in attendance.

Speaker series funded by the Louisiana Board of Regents and The Guilbeau Center for Public History at UL Lafayette Spring 2019.



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Friday, March 1:

Natalie Elder,

Johns Hopkins Chesney Medical Archives

Lecture, 1:00-3:00 pm

Natalie Elder is curator at the Chesney Medical Archives of Johns Hopkins Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health, where she stewards a collection of fine art, medical instruments, and artifacts relating to the history of medicine. Previously, she has been the collections manager at the Colorado Historical Society and Collections manager and curator at the National Museum of American History’s Division of Armed Forces History and Numismatics. She has over a decade of experience with collections ranging from railway cars to flapper dresses to General Custer’s laundry hamper.

For more resources on collection check out Natalie Elder’s helpful list: https://www.guilbeaucenter.com/resources-from-archives-in-crisis

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Friday, March 8:

Nakai Northup,

Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center

Lecture, 1:00-3:00 pm

Indigenous Environmental Activism and Preservation of Native History

Nakai Clearwater Northup is a Member of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe and works at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in the Education Department. In addition to his work at the museum, Northup is Vice Chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe’s Natural Resource Protection Committee. His disciplinary specialties include historic preservation, environmental Indigenous activism, food sovereignty, and teaching traditional Eastern woodland histories/lifeways.

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Friday, March 22:

Karen Pavelka,

University of Texas at Austin

Lecture, 1:00-2:30 pm

Hands-on workshop, recovery of paper materials 3:00-4:00 pm

Karen L. Pavelka is a senior lecturer for preventive conservation in the school of information at the University of Texas at Austin. Before coming to the iSchool, she was head of the paper conservation laboratory at the Harry Ransom Center. She served as Director for Education and Professional Development for the AIC from 2005 - 2011. She is a founding member of the AIC collection care network and served as program chair. She has taught and consulted at Narodni Knihova, Prague, Slovenska Narodna Kniznica, Slovakia, the Universidad de Buenos Aires, the Castillo de Vilassar de Dalt, Barcelona, and Sun Yat-Sen university, Guangzhou, P. R. China. As a member of National Heritage Responders, she has been deployed to several venues in Texas, to Haiti and Puerto Rico.

For more resources on disaster recovery check out Karen Pavekla’s helpful list: https://www.guilbeaucenter.com/resources-from-archives-in-crisis


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Friday, April 5: 

Jason Church,

National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NPS)

Lecture, 1:00-2:30 pm

Jason Church is a materials conservator in the materials conservation program at the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (National Park Service). Jason divides his time between conducting in-house research, organizing various training events, and teaching hands-on conservation workshops. Since 2005, he has conducted more than 100 lectures and hands-on training for cemetery conservation. He earned his M.F.A. in historic preservation from Savannah College of Art and Design.

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Friday, April 12:

Melissa Eastin,  

East Baton Rouge Public Library

Lecture, 1:00-3:00 pm

Archives and Community Engagement

Melissa Eastin graduated from LSU in 2008 with an MLIS focusing on archival science. She was hired the same year as the first archivist for the East Baton Rouge Parish Library System. She is currently head of special collections overseeing the archives and genealogy collections for the organization.

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Friday, April 26:

Preston Huff,

National Archives and Records Administration

Lecture, 1-4 PM

Federal Support for Disaster Relief

Preston has been in the Archives and Records Management field for over 40 years. He has been with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for nearly 17 years and with the Federal government for 20 years. He is currently in the Office of the Chief Records Officer. Previous to his current role, Preston was NARA’s Regional Administrator for the Southwest Region (headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas) which included the four-state area of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Preston oversaw the three main areas of a region including the Regional Archives, Records Management, and the Federal Records Center.

Two of his ongoing areas of responsibility include:

· Disaster response, recovery and reconstitution for Federal records and information. He was the NARA POC for Hurricane Katrina response in 2005 and recently led a NARA working group in overhauling the Federal government’s Essential Records Guide – which is now at the NARA website.

· He has also been very involved with non-Federal government response – involving cultural and historical organizations such as state archives, museums, historical societies, libraries (special collections), colleges and universities. In addition to his work in the Katrina response, he has also been deployed by FEMA and the Department of Interior to assist cultural and historical organizations in the U.S. Virgin Islands (March 2018) and Puerto Rico (November 2018 and March 2019).

Preston has a BA in U.S. History from Indiana University and an MLS from the University of Denver – with a concentration in Archival Studies. He is a Certified Records Manager and a Certified Archivist. He is the past President (acting) of the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators (NAGARA).

Friday, May 3:

Aaron Cowan,

Slippery Rock University

Lecture 1:00-3:00 pm

Grant writing 

Aaron Cowan is an Associate Professor of History at Slippery Rock University and Director of the university's Stone House Center for Public Humanities, which works to build community partnerships that expand public engagement with the humanities. 

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Friday,May 10:

Stephen Sloan,

Baylor University

1:00-3:00 pm

Oral History

Stephen M. Sloan is the director of the Institute for Oral History and an associate professor of history at Baylor University. Dr. Sloan organizes research projects, leads community oral history initiatives, directs grants and contracts, and conducts field interviews.  One of his recent projects, based on oral histories with survivors of genocide that now live in the state of Texas, won a 2018 Elizabeth B. Mason Award from the Oral History Association. Dr. Sloan’s publications include the co-edited Listening on the Edge: Oral History in the Aftermath of Crisis (winner of the Oral History Association’s 2015 Book Award) and Tattooed on My Soul: Texans Remember World War II. He has published several pieces in the Oral History Review, including “Oral History and Hurricane Katrina: Reflections on Shouts and Silences.” He is active in the national and international oral history community, a past president of the Oral History Association and a presenter of his work abroad at academic conferences in Liverpool, Prague, Guadalajara, Naples, Istanbul, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Jyväskylä, Finland



Listen to an interview with Ian Beamish, Liz Skilton, and Summer Abukhomra form the Guilbeau Center for Public History discussing their Archives in Crisis Series at KRVS. 

https://www.krvs.org/post/apres-midi-afternoon-classics-february-26-2019

 ARCHIVES IN CRISIS RESOURCES  

Natalie Elder’s recommended resources for collections:

Recommended Resources for Collections Management:

Conserve O Grams

The National Park Service publishes and regularly updates briefs on specific issues. They provide excellent information and references.

https://www.nps.gov/museum/publications/conserveogram/cons_toc.html

 

National Park Service Museum Collections Storage

This is a very detailed chapter on collections storage that is available for free online.

https://www.nps.gov/museum/publications/mhi/chap7.pdf

 

Connecting to Collections

This is an initiative of the IMLS that supports small and midsized collecting institutions. There are many resources on this site, and they host online courses.

https://www.connectingtocollections.org/ 

 

Smithsonian Institution Archives Collections Care Guidelines and Resources

This is a forum where Smithsonian experts answer questions about common problems associated with archival documents. Questions include issues such as: How do I preserve my newspaper? What do I do about bugs on books and paper? Photograph stuck to glass?

https://siarchives.si.edu/what-we-do/forums/collections-care-guidelines-resources

 

Institute of Museum and Library Services Bookshelf

This is a user guide to a group of books that the IMLS provided to small and medium sized museums and archives. While the program is over, this guide has an annotated bibliography of all of the reference books they provided.

http://download.aaslh.org/AASLH-Website-Resources/Bookshelf+User+Guide+2009.pdf

 

American Association for State and Local History

The AASLH has several good resources, such as technical leaflets and online courses. Some are offered free, others are available to members or for a reasonable price.

https://learn.aaslh.org/

Karen Pavelka’s recommended disaster planning resources:

Templates for disaster plans

California Preservation Program Emergency Preparedness and Response - http://calpreservation.org/information_resources/emergency-prep-and-response/

CalPres has an excellent simple template for a disaster plan, plus links to other resources.

 

CoStep MA

http://mblc.state.ma.us/costepma/resources/links.html

Excellent overall view of all aspects of disaster planning and preparation

 

Council of State Archivists Pocket Response Plan https://www.statearchivists.org/files/1714/4985/8581/Creating_Pocket_Response_Plans_for_State_ARMs_-_PReP.pdf

This template can be folded to credit card size so that you can carry the important parts of your disaster plan in your wallet.

 

Getty guide

https://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/pdf/emergency_plan.pdf

Solid information.  Written in 1999 but still relevant.

 

Harvard Libraries

http://library.harvard.edu/preservation/emergency-preparedness

 

NEDCC Planning guide (dPlan)

http://www.dplan.org/default.asp

Guides you through step by step plan for your institution.  Lets you tailor the information to specific needs.

 

Organizations

National Heritage Responders

http://www.conservation-us.org/publications-resources/disaster-response-recovery/national-heritage-responders

The NHR is a team of conservation professionals who can provide free advice and assistance during a disaster.  While we probably cannot offer much assistance, the group might form a model for what can be done in China.

 

Guidelines for drying books and objects

AIC’s Health and Safety in Emergency Response wiki

http://www.conservationwiki.com/wiki/Health_%26_Safety:_Health_and_Safety_in_Emergency_Response

Guidelines for keeping the responders safe and healthy.

 

National Park Service Conserve-o-Grams

https://www.nps.gov/museum/publications/conserveogram/cons_toc.html

Section 21 has guidelines for salvage procedures.  The rest of the site has excellent information about all aspects of preservation.

 

University of Michigan

http://www.lib.umich.edu/files/files/wetbooks-1.pdf

Step by step instructions for books.

 

WAAC Salvage at a Glance Chart

http://cool.conservation-us.org/waac/wn/wn19/wn19-2/wn19-207.html

COVID 19 Resources for Museums, Libraries and Archives

 In keeping with our commitment to aiding archives in crisis, we are providing resources and programming in this current moment of crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic. We are also collecting community responses to COVID 19 in southwestern Louisiana. If you are interested in donating digital material related to your COVID 19 experience, please contact guilbeaucenter@louisiana.edu

COVID-19 has changed the world as we know it, both on a large scale and locally, temporarily closing special collections and antiquarian bookshops where many of us work. While the long-term effects of the coronavirus pandemic are uncertain, antiquarian booksellers and curators are continuing to feature collections—virtually, if not physically—even while institutions make difficult decisions about current and future funding streams for maintaining and building their physical collections.

Cultural heritage institutions are coping with many challenges as the world deals with the COVID-19 pandemic. While collections are not directly at risk, the the pandemic complicates their care. In this webinar organized by the Ontario Museum Association, Irene Karsten shares information and recommendations compiled by the Canadian Conservation Institute to help those responsible for heritage collections. Questions about collections contamination, disinfection of museum spaces, and risks to collections during long-term shut down are addressed, based on the evolving collective knowledge of the public health and infectious disease research communities merged with what we know about keeping collections safe.

Dr. David Berendes and Dr. Catherine Rasberry from the Centers for Disease Control presented an overview of the CDC's guidance for community settings and environmental disinfection, and a discussion of how libraries, archives, and museums can help mitigate COVID-19 when working with paper-based, circulating, and other types of collections.

OECD webinar on "Coronavirus (COVID-19) and museums: impact, innovations and planning for post-crisis" held on April 10, 2020, in collaboration with ICOM. This webinar gathered representatives of the museum community, local and national governments to review: - The short and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on museums - The innovative solutions put in place by museums across countries - The policy supports put in place by national and local governments to alleviate the short and long-term effects of the COVID-19 crisis on museums and their broader ecosystems.