2022 Annual Meeting Presentations

Monday, May 9, 2022 (Pre-conference)

9:00 AM - 4:00 PM: Workshop: POWRR Institute at Rollins College in Winter Park, FL 

4:30 PM - 5:30 PM: Tour: Winter Park Public Library and Event Center 

 

Tuesday, May 10, 2022 (Pre-conference)

9:00 AM - 4:00 PM: Workshop: POWRR Institute at Rollins College in Winter Park, FL 

9:00 AM - 12:00 PM: CCAHA Workshop: Risk Assessment and Emergency Planning for Collecting Institutions at University of Central Florida Library 

1:30 PM - 4:30 PM: CCAHA Workshop: Mold Prevention, Detection, and Recovery at University of Central Florida Library 

4:30 PM - 5:30 PM: Tour: Rollins College Archives and the Winter Park History Museum 

 

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

8:30 - 11:00 AM: Registration and Morning Refreshments

9:30 - 9:50 AM: Welcome from SFA President David Benjamin

9:50 - 10:00 AM: Remarks from Annual Meeting Committee Chair Sarah Coates

10:00 - 10:30 AM: “Pause-itive Outcomes: Creating the Service, Practice, and Communication that we Always Wanted” by Hannah Davis and Rachel Duke, Florida State University (Presentation PDF)

In this presentation, we reflect on Florida State University Special Collections & Archives’ (SCA) immediate response to the first stay-at-home order, the implemented plans and workarounds that we developed throughout the disruption, and our thoughtful approach to the gradual return to in-person services. We hope to speak to (and commiserate with) other archives professionals anywhere along the spectrum of this singular, and seemingly never-ending, experience. Our approaches to public services, instruction, digitization, training, and collections management have been forever altered by the sudden shift in priorities prompted by a global pandemic.

We can’t discuss the positive outcomes of this season of duress without acknowledging the hardships we’ve all faced. Despite the ambiguity of rapidly changing guidelines and policies, and the impacts of resignations, retirements, and inconsistent staffing, SCA has persisted and emerged as a stronger division. Through increased communication and clarity of communication pathways, better documentation and streamlining of workflows, and improvements in accessibility for our own staff and for our researchers, SCA is now a more nimble, flexible division, prepared to respond to our colleagues’ and researchers’ needs.

10:30 - 10:45 AM: Sponsor Introductions

10:45 - 11:00AM: Break

11:00AM - 12:00 PM: Keynote, "Recovering the Past, Discovering the Future: Archive, Community, and Public Scholarship" by Dr. Scot French, University of Central Florida (Presentation PDF)

12:00 - 1:30 PM: Lunch On Your Own

1:30 - 3:00 PM: “The Archival Record and the Early Development of Higher Education in Florida” by Wenxian Zhang, Rollins College, Gerrianne Schaad, Florida Southern College (Presentation PDF), Carl Van Ness, University of Florida (No Presentation PDF available), Sandra Varry, Florida State University (Presentation PDF), and Kelly Larson, Stetson University (Presentation PDF)

In the mid-nineteenth century, just after Florida became the 27th US state, institutions of higher learning began to develop, and the relationship between these colleges and universities are intertwined, as are the archives that tell their stories. With a focus on materials related to individual institutional development and those that speak to our connections, this session will start with brief presentations from the University of Florida, Florida State University, Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University, Florida Southern College, Rollins College, and Stetson University. Following will be Q&A and discussion. We hope to explore our earliest records as well as illustrate the connectedness of our histories across the state.

3:00 - 3:15 PM: Break

3:15 - 3:45 PM: “Changing Platforms: Google to Microsoft” by Michael Zaidman, JM Family Enterprises (No Presentation PDF available)

JM Family went from Google to the Microsoft platform of services in 2021 and the change has been challenging but remarkable. The switch from one platform to another is always interesting, but the real concern was the new security and retention policy going forward that was the biggest obstacle. New procedures had to be updated and processing items quickly changed to meet the needs of the archives.

This session will explore the change of accessioning and processing collections, learning a new system, working with departments to meet needs and all this while moving physical locations.

3:45 - 4:00 PM: Judith Beale Scholarship Information

4:00 - 4:15 PM: Announcements/Information Regarding Evening Tour and Reception

4:15 - 5:00 PM: Speed Networking

5:30 - 6:00 PM: Tour: UCF Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives (Abbreviated) 

6:00 - 8:00 PM: Reception, UCF Libraries 

 

Thursday, May 12, 2022

8:30 - 11:00 AM: Registration and Morning Refreshments

8:30 - 9:15 AM: Board of Directors Meeting

9:30 - 9:45 AM: Sponsor Introductions

9:45 - 10:15 AM: “Shovel to Shelf” and the Role of Experiential Learning in a Federal Curation Center by Cara DeSimone, National Parks Service (Presentation PDF)

This talk will illustrate how exploring the source of records creation can be helpful in contextualizing archival materials and/or collections – particularly for archivists from background fields differing from those they currently support, or those who work in multidisciplinary settings.

In this traditional show-and-tell presentation, Cara DeSimone, a contract Archives Technician, will (re-)inspire archival workers of all types by sharing her field experience. With fieldwork of all types hard to come by due to pandemic travel restrictions, DeSimone sought a way to make sense of the milieu of photographic materials under her care at SEAC - and managed to expand a unique opportunity to volunteer with the National Parks Service and American Veterans Archeological Recovery (AVAR) into an effort to explore the intersection of archives and archeology. To personally explore the impact of experiential learning, DeSimone spent three weeks on a Phase II archeological dig to discover the foundations of archeological recordkeeping, a few musket-balls, and lots (and lots) of nails… and you thought paperclips were bad!

10:15 - 10:30 AM: Break

10:30 - 11:00 AM: Poster Session

●       “Personal Experiences with Digital Projects Related to African American History at UNF” by Amelia Dixon, University of North Florida

●       “The Resilience Project: Centering St. Augustine’s Black History Online” by Laura Marion, University of Florida (Poster PDF)

●       “From Boxes to Show Time - Founding the Ringling College Archives” by Alexandra Vargas-Minor, Ringling College of Art & Design (Poster PDF)

●       Doing Less with Less: Setting Priorities and Managing Expectations after a Reduction in Force” Anna Kephart, Florida Institute of Technology

11:00 - 12:00 PM: SFA Business Meeting

12:00 AM - 1:30 PM: Lunch: Boxed Lunches Will Be Provided

1:30 - 2:00 PM: “Sparking Joy in the UNF Rare Books Collection” by Susan Swiatosz, University of North Florida (Presentation PDF)

Rare book or non-circulating research collections are often overlooked when it comes to collection reappraisal or deaccessioning, that is until space considerations bring the issue to the forefront. After all, no librarian likes discarding books, particularly old ones. This case study shows how the Special Collections and University Archives at the University of North Florida (UNF) reappraised their rare book collection and created collecting criteria to aid them in the disposition of rare and non-circulating books. Although the lack of space was clearly a priority, the rare and non-circulating book collection at UNF had lacked collection development guidance for many years and become bloated and unwieldy. The new Head of Special Collections and University Archives worked with library administration and created an ad hoc committee in the library to assist with reappraising the collection. The collecting criteria and flow chart that the committee helped develop led to clearer collecting guidelines for library staff and donors and to a focused collection of books that support research on regional and local topics.

2:00 - 2:15 PM: Break

2:15 - 3:15 PM: “Forward Marsh - Growing USF’s Ecological Collections” by Andy Huse, University of South Florida; Amanda Boczar, University of South Florida, Sydney Jordan; University of South Florida; John Clarke, University of South Florida (Presentation PDF)

Join Huse and several of his colleagues for an update on USF Libraries’ Florida Environment and Natural History (FLENH) initiative in Special Collections.  Inspired by recent collecting activities, the USF Libraries Dean made FLENH the biggest collection initiative in the libraries, with most of the burden of collecting and curating going to a single faculty, a director, and two staff who work in Special Collections. Learn how they quietly adapted their collection strategy to avoid internal and external obstacles.  With the help of grant money, they created a new oral history project with Audubon personnel that would enhance the collections while building new relationships with donors.  Community outreach and instruction for FLENH collections has been provided around contemporary local issues, such as the fate of the USF Forest Preserve and an ongoing ecological disaster at Piney Point. 

In the digital world, new exhibits and improvements to the digital FLENH portal and metadata have been ongoing. In the physical world, onboarding a FLENH intern has allowed the team to maintain a steady pace on a variety of processing and outreach goals.  Chronically understaffed, personnel have utilized talented interns to help push the initiative forward. To increase user access, they’ve worked with the donors of FLENH materials to process and input important metadata for digital collections.  In 2022, the USF Libraries is poised to support the FLENH initiative in more meaningful ways, including an infusion of additional personnel and expertise. Join this panel to hear about our expanding collections, exciting exhibits, and evolving archival approaches to curating Florida’s environmental history.

3:15 - 3:45 PM: “Franco American Digital Archives: A Case Study in Post-Custodial Stewardship of Overlooked Materials Across North American Institutions” by Jacob Albert, University of Maine (Presentation PDF)

Franco American Digital Archives/Portail franco-américain is a subject-based online portal to archival materials from the French-Canadian and Acadian diaspora in the US Northeast. This project was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and University of Maine, and was developed by a five-university collaborative called the Franco American Collections Consortium. The portal project began in 2018; the portal itself launched in October 2021 (https://francoportal.org). This paper will describe the processes of this collaborative project and lessons learned in its effort to conceptualize a multi-institutional portal, identify and aggregate overlooked collections from over 75 North American institutions, build contributing partnerships, transform and translate metadata with culturally specific markers, fundraise, and build a sustainable, post-custodial, bilingual digital system–all within the context of COVID-19 shutdowns and distancing. This paper will also describe how the portal and consortium are aiming to grow and evolve after the pandemic to raise awareness of this historically underserved cultural and language community, with collaborating institutions and team members spread throughout the United States and Canada both in-office and remotely.

3:45 - 4:00 PM: Information about Afternoon Tours and Evening Reception

4:00 - 4:45 pm: Interactive DIY Branding Workshop with Canva by Carady DeSimone (Presentation PDF)

Participants are encouraged to bring their laptops and to sign up for Canva beforehand.

This workshop will assist participants in developing visual design skills that can be used to enhance presentations, posters, and outreach communications. Explore fonts, palettes, and themes to apply a consistent design to your messages. There will be a demonstration/walk-through of Canva and then time for participants to begin and play with designs.

4:45 - 5:15 PM: Tour: Middle District of Florida’s George C. Young Federal Annex Courthouse (Cancelled)

5:30 - 6:00 PM: Tour: Orange County Regional History Center

6:00 - 8:00 PM: Reception, Orange County Regional History Center 

 

Friday, May 13, 2022

8:30 - 11:00 AM: Registration and Morning Refreshments

9:30 - 9:35 AM: Announcements/Updates

9:35 - 10:35 AM: “The Challenges of Storing Archival Collections in an Automated Storage and Retrieval Facility” by Chris Saclolo, Mary Rubin, and David Benjamin, University of Central Florida (Presentation PDF)

In 2020 the UCF Libraries began using an automated storage and retrieval system to store the Libraries’ collection. Nicknamed the ARC, this system is Florida’s first automated library storage facility. The ARC will eventually house 90% of the Libraries’ permanent collection, including a significant portion of Special Collections & University Archives’ archival and manuscript holdings.

High-volume storage of library materials is not a new concept. Many libraries and archives utilize commercial warehouses or off-site storage. And, while the ARC ultimately provides SCUA with space to grow collections and allows for new processing and work areas, the introduction of automation into our storage system creates new concerns, including:

• Sharing storage space with non-archival materials and collections
• Issues with environmental conditions in multi-collection, multi-level spaces
• Limited size of bins available to house materials
• Reliance on technology to access to stored materials
• Software migration and management outside archivists’ control
• New workflows

In this presentation, UCF Libraries Special Collections & University Archives’ staff will discuss the preservation, conservation, and long-term storage issues encountered housing materials in an automated system and solutions created to address some of these issues. Additionally, they will share new workflows created for ingesting and retrieving materials. The goal is to provide insight to attendees on the impact of using non-traditional storage systems in an archival setting.

10:35 - 11:05 AM: “Privacy Matters: Reviewing University Records for Restricted Materials” by Sarah Coates, University of Florida (No Presentation PDF available)

Privacy and confidentiality are a major concern for University Archives. In the past, minimal processing might have prevented archivists from seeing personally identifiable information (PII) or other sensitive information protected by FERPA and HIPAA in archival collections or records series. This presentation will discuss privacy concerns in university records, and use work being done at the University of Florida to identify and redact PII and other sensitive information in University Archives collections and records series. The presentation will provide examples of collections that had privacy concerns and how workflows were developed to provide patrons with access to the material while protecting individual privacy.

11:05 - 11:15 AM: Closing Remarks from SFA President Sarah Coates

11:15 - 1:30 PM: Lunch On Your Own

1:30 PM - 2:30 PM: Tour: UCF Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives (Full Tour)