Women's Collections Roundtable

Mary Lily Research Grants at the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture

2011-10-31T12:52:00.000-07:00

The Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, part of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, announces the availability of Mary Lily Research Grants for research travel to our collections.

The Sallie Bingham Center documents the public and private lives of women through a wide variety of published and unpublished sources. Collections of personal papers, family papers, and organizational records complement print sources such as books and periodicals. Particular strengths of the Sallie Bingham Center are feminism in the U.S., women's prescriptive literature from the 19th & 20th centuries, girls' literature, zines, artist's books by women, gender & sexuality, and the history and culture of women in the South. An overview of our collecting areas can be found here: http://bit.ly/BinghamOverview.

Mary Lily Research grants are available to any faculty member, graduate or undergraduate student, or independent scholar with a research project requiring the use of materials held by the Sallie Bingham Center. Grant money may be used for travel, photocopying, and living expenses while pursuing research at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Applicants must live outside of a 100-mile radius from Durham, NC. The maximum award per applicant is $1,000.

The deadline for application is January 31, 2012 by 5:00 PM EST. Recipients will be announced in March 2012. Grants must be used between April 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013.

For more information and to download a copy of the application form, please visit: http://bit.ly/ResearchGrants.

Applicants are encouraged to contact Kelly Wooten, the Bingham Center’s research services librarian, before submitting their application. In our experience, those who spoke with a staff member about their projects produced stronger applications. Contact information is listed below:

Kelly Wooten

Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture

David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Box 90185

Duke University

Durham, NC 27708-0185

Phone: 919-660-5967

E-mail: kelly.wooten@duke.edu

Website: http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/bingham

Women & the Civil War: Exhibit, Symposium, and CFP

2011-10-31T09:58:00.000-07:00

Paper proposals are invited for a half-day symposium entitled “Women and the Civil War,” to be held April 27, 2012, at the University of Maryland, College Park. The symposium in being organized in connection with an exhibit at the university’s Hornbake Library, Women on the Border: Maryland Perspectives of the Civil War, which draws on materials in the University Libraries’ Special Collections. The exhibition focuses on the lives and experiences of ordinary women living in Maryland during the Civil War, using letters, diaries, photographs, sheet music, rare books, and other special collections materials as sources. A digital version of the physical gallery exhibition is being planned and will launch within the next few months. To learn more about the exhibit please visit: http://www.lib.umd.edu/mdrm/gallery/index.html

The symposium will provide a forum for discussing the multitude of roles women played in the war and the many ways in which the war affected them. The keynote speaker will be Thavolia Glymph, Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Duke University. The symposium committee is especially interested in scholarship relating to Maryland women and the Civil War or to women’s experiences in the border states. Proposals relating to these topics will be given preference, but proposals relating to other aspects of the topic of women and the Civil War will also be considered. The committee welcomes proposals from graduate students as well as more experienced scholars. Papers should be no longer than twenty minutes when delivered. Paper proposals (500 words or less) and brief presenter bios should be e-mailed to Elizabeth Novara at enovara@umd.edu.

Submissions deadline is November 15, 2011, and the program committee expects to notify successful applicants by December 15, 2011.

WCRT Minutes from SAA Annual Meeting 2011

2011-09-28T07:38:00.000-07:00

Women’s Collections Round Table

Annual Meeting 2011

Chicago, IL

August 24, 2011

Co-Chairs for 2011-2012 were installed:
1. Virginia Corvid, University of Wisconsin-Madison
2. Kathy Hertel-Baker, Sisters of Charity of Nazareth
Co-Vice Chairs for 2011-2012 were elected:
1. Alex Krensky, Duke University
2. Elizabeth Novara, University of Maryland
Report from 2012 Program Committee
1. Theme is ‘Beyond Borders’, focusing on collaboration
2. Session proposals are due October 3^rd
3. WCRT can endorse two proposals
Discussion of WCRT Blog and website
1. Will look into having e-mail sent to members when the blog is updated
2. List of potential session topics
3. “State of Women’s Collections” – discuss on the blog, at the meeting, session proposal?
4. How do we get repositories to submit news for the website?
5. Do we need a newsletter or just the blog?
6. Agreement that e-mail notifications are needed for blog/website updates and as reminders to submit stories
7. Question was asked about members posting directly to blog – Leadership will discuss.
Discussion of 2012 meeting and potential Session topics
1. Audio/visual equipment requests for the WCRT meeting need to be submitted by April 1, 2012
2. Possible session topics:
  1. Institutional Cooperation
    1. between Educational institutions and the orders that founded them – what happens when the records of Women Religious end up in institutions outside the Order?
  2. How Women’s collections are displayed online 9and in other media)
    1. Can we use traditional tools or do we have to be innovative?
    2. Is there a clearing house for information on Women’s Collections?
  3. Gender and Race
    1. Focus not just on white women
    2. Pull women’s stories/collections out of ethnographic collections and take an ethnographic look at Women’s Collections
  4. WCRT should work together with other Round Tables and Sections that deal with under-represented communities and look at the pros and cons of ‘identity specific archives’.
New Business
1. Discussion of SAA trading cards and observation that there are ‘a lot of dead white guys’ represented, and very few women are represented in the collection

Chicago 2011: Working Women's History Project book lists

2011-08-21T19:19:00.000-07:00

The Working Women's History Project preserves and promotes the stories of historical and living Chicago women who have made significant contributions toward achieving justice and equality in the areas of labor, women’s, human and civil rights.

Check out their webpage for all their activities such as collecting oral histories.

They've also got a great book list and children's book list.

I highly recommend the second book on the list: Exploring the Dangerous Trades: The Autobiography of Alice Hamilton, MD. One of my (Cassie's) favorite historical figures!

Chicago 2011: Women's History Tour

2011-08-21T19:12:00.000-07:00

If you want to explore while in Chicago, check out the Women's History Bus Tour, information provided by the Jane Addams Hull House Museum.

Can't make it to Chicago this year? Check out the Women's History Virtual Tour to see and learn from where ever you are.

Chicago 2011: Women and Progressive Area Collections at UIC

2011-08-21T18:17:00.000-07:00

Check out some of the great collections relating to Chicago women at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Collections highlight women's activism during the progressive era.

Chicago 2011: 75 Years of International Women's Collecting: Legacies, Successes, Obstacles, and New Directions

2011-08-21T18:13:00.000-07:00

Don't forget to check out the WCRT sponsored session!

75 Years of International Women's Collecting: Legacies, Successes, Obstacles, and New Directions
Saturday, August 27, 2011, 8:00am-9:00am
Room: Columbus C/D

A retrospective analysis of three international women's collecting projects across 75 years illuminates the projects' successes and obstacles, which speak to the historical, national, professional, and interpersonal contexts of their founding. Panelists also chart out the projects' legacies and their transmutations into the digital realm. Under examination are the World Center for Women's Archives in New York, Aletta Institute for Women's History in Amsterdam, and International Museum of Women in San Francisco.

Danelle Moon (Chair)
Director, Special Collections & Archives
San Jose State University
From Paper to Bytes: Creation of the International Museum of Women (IMOW)

Anke Voss, MSLS , MA
Director
The Urbana Free Library
Salvaging Their History: Initiatives and Challenges in the Early Development of Women's Archives and Documentation

Rachel Miller, MLIS
Processing Archivist
Center for Jewish History
Kick Her in the Shin for Me: The International Women's Archives Projects of Two Warring Suffragists in the 1930s and Their Digital Footprints in the 2010s

Big thanks to Rachel for organizing and proposing this panel!

Chicago 2011: Leather Archives and Museum

2011-08-21T18:08:00.000-07:00

The Leather Archives & Museum is a library, museum and archives pertaining to Leather, fetishism, sadomasochism, and alternative sexual practices. The geographic collection scope is worldwide and includes all sexual orientations and genders. The library collection contains published books, magazines, scholarly publications, films and electronic resources related to the subject matter. The museum collection contains original erotic art and artifacts from alternative sex organizations and individuals. The archival collection contains unpublished papers and records from notable activists, artists, businesses and organizations related to the subject matter.

SAA has a scheduled tour on Wednesday, August 24. See more information here (including directions!)

Chicago 2011: Jane Addams Hull House Museum

2011-08-21T17:58:00.000-07:00

Headed to Chicago and have some spare time on your hands? Consider a trip to the Jane Addams Hull House Museum. From the Museum's website:

"Hull-House, Chicago's first social settlement was not only the private home of Jane Addams and other Hull-House residents, but also a place where immigrants of diverse communities gathered to learn, to eat, to debate, and to acquire the tools necessary to put down roots in their new country. The Museum is comprised of two of the settlement complex's original thirteen buildings, the Hull-Home and the Residents' Dining Hall. These spaces were used variously over the years, including as a nursery school, a library, and a salon for social and political dialogue.

When Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr first opened Hull-House in 1889, they had very modest goals. They imagined a place to offer art and literary education to their less fortunate neighbors. The role of Hull-House, however, quickly grew beyond what either Gates or Addams could have imagined and continuously evolved to meet the needs of their neighbors. The residents of Hull-House, at the request of the surrounding community, began to offer practical classes that might help the new immigrants become more integrated into American society, such as English language, cooking, sewing and technical skills, and American government. The residents were the women and men who chose to live at Hull-House; they paid rent and contributed to the activities and services that the Settlement was committed to providing to their neighbors. These services included, but were not limited to, a nursery and a kindergarten, a public kitchen, and access to public baths and a playground. Hull-House became not only a cultural center with music, art, and theater offerings, but also a safe haven and a place where the immigrants living on Chicago's Near West Side could find companionship and support and the assistance they needed for coping with the modern city."

To get there, jump on the Blue Line west (toward Forest Park) to the UIC/Halsted stop. Walk two blocks south to 800 S Halsted street.

Museum is open Tuesday - Friday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday noon to 4 p.m.
Closed Mondays and Saturdays

Tutorial for Archival Research on Women's Human Rights

2011-05-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

New from the University of Texas at Austin's Center for Women's and Gender Studies, an introductory tutorial on researching women's human rights in archives. Created by Amelia Koford as a project for a dual master's degree in Information Studies and Women's and Gender Studies, the tutorial serves as a resource for the School of Undergraduate Studies Signature Courses on women, gender, and human rights supported by the Embrey Women’s Human Rights Initiative. While the guide focuses on UT resources it also contains some general tips and strategies. Check it out here:

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/cwgs/womens-rights/Archival-Research-Tutorial/Archival-Research-Tutorial.php

New Guide to Women's History Research in Archives

2011-04-12T16:24:00.000-07:00

An online guide to women's history research is now available through the University of Wisconsin's library research guides. Link to it directly here

http://researchguides.library.wisc.edu/womenshistoryinarchives

Or find it under History-General and Gender/Sexuality/Women's Studies in the library research guides.

The guide is designed for new and intermediate archival researchers and includes lists of women's archives, tips for finding women's history materials in archives or online and an introduction to archival research. I created the guide as part of a practicum at the University of Wisconsin's Women's Studies Librarians' Office. My hope is that the guide will help ease the steep learning curve that accompanies the switch from libraries to archives, will promote women's archives and will help researchers find hidden women's history collections.

Please comment if you know of a women's archive I missed and feel free to link to the guide.

Member Spotlight: Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History

2011-04-01T05:14:00.000-07:00

In 2008, the Council on Library and Information Resources awarded a grant to the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History (AARL) and Emory University to process "hidden" civil rights collections. At AARL, the collections are the Andrew J. Young Papers and the NAACP-Atlanta Branch Records. While processing the Andrew J. Young Papers, it revealed a "hidden" collection within this "hidden" collection: the papers of his wife of forty years, Jean Childs Young. Due to the content and amount of material, it became a collection separate from her husband's and is now available for research.

As the wife of a well-known minister, civil rights activist, politician, ambassador, and business leader, Jean Childs Young supported and participated in her husband's activities, but also created her own identity and career through working as an educator and activist. A few highlights of her contributions:

She was as an elementary school teacher, coordinator of curriculum for Atlanta Public Schools, helped establish Atlanta Junior College (now Atlanta Metropolitan College), and founded the Mayor’s Task Force on Education. In the late 1960s, she worked to incorporate black studies into elementary school curriculum, twenty years before mandated by the Atlanta Public School system.
President Jimmy Carter appointed her as Chair of the 1979 International Year of the Child, where more than 100 countries participated to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child and to raise awareness about children's rights. Her involvement with children's advocacy extended to UNICEF, the Children's Defense Fund, and she co-founded the Atlanta-Fulton Commission on Children and Youth.
In 1970, she founded the group "Women for Andrew Young," the first local campaign geared towards women, which reconvened for her husband's four Congressional campaigns, two Atlanta mayoral campaigns, and Georgia gubernatorial campaign. She also participated in the early 1980s ERA movement, Mondale/Ferraro campaign, and the League of Women Voters.

Jean Childs Young's papers reflect her work in education, politics, children's advocacy, church, and her personal life and family. The finding aid is now online. For additional information about AARL, please visit the website.

Contributed by Cheryl Oesteicher, Project Archivist
Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History
cheryl.oestreicher@fultoncountyga.gov

**If you are interested in spotlighting a collection, project, or event related to women's collections, please email a blurb to the WCRT Steering Committee: wcrt-cmte@forums.archivists.org**

Member Spotlight: Chicago History Museum

2011-01-28T10:08:00.000-08:00

We'd like to introduce a new feature on the WCRT blog! We will be spotlighting various members' projects related to women's collections. If you have a project -- processing, exhibits, events, anything! -- that you would like to brag about, we'd love to have you submit it to share on the blog. Email WCRT co-chairs Meghan Lyon (meghan.lyon@duke.edu) or Cassie Schmitt (schmitt@uoregon.edu).

Today's inaugural spotlight comes from the Chicago History Museum:

In 2009, the Chicago History Museum (CHM) was awarded a National Historic Publications and Records Commission Basic Processing grant to reveal hidden manuscript collections. Archivists began by conducting a cataloging and assessment survey of CHM manuscript collections of 0.5 linear feet and larger. Over 1000 collections totaling nearly 20,000 linear feet were surveyed. Survey objectives included determining collections’ ideal minimal processing level; flagging found-in-collection materials lacking adequate accession information; updating MARC records; and assessing collections’ physical and intellectual access, potential research value, and conservation concerns. Survey data was then used to establish a prioritized list of collections to be processed to the series level. Among the factors considered when assessing potential research value was the relevance of a collection to gender and women's studies. Because of this effort, a number of women-related collections were processed as part of the NHPRC project. The project team is pleased to present a selection of these collections with the Women’s Collections Roundtable and larger scholarly community.

1. Alpha Gamma Pi records, 1963-1979. 1.5 linear feet.

Correspondence, meeting minutes, membership material, newspaper clippings, financial records, photographs, and other records of Alpha Gamma Pi, an African American sorority organized to recognize progressive women, serve as role models, and provide scholarships. Women were awarded for their academic and social achievements, especially those from low-income backgrounds.

Catalog record

2. Black Women in the Middle West project records, 1980-1985. 4.5 linear feet.

Questionnaires, lists, agendas, announcements, and other records of a grant project supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities to collection documentation on the lives of African American women in the Middle West. Completed questionnaires contain biographical information provided by Black women in Illinois and Indiana.

Catalog record

3. Chicago Home Economists in Business records, 1966-1983. 2.5 linear feet.

Financial records, membership information, board meeting minutes, correspondence, newsletters, press releases, and other records of the Chicago Home Economists in Business (CHEIB), an organization that focused on the relationship between home economists, business, and consumers.

Catalog record

4. Chicago Woman's Musical Club records, 1895-1979 (bulk 1914-1979). 6 linear feet.

Newspaper clippings, programs, newsletters, sheet music, music periodicals, correspondence, administrative files, annual directories, scrapbooks, and other records of the Chicago Woman's Musical Club, which sponsored performances of classical music, fostered music appreciation, and awarded scholarships to young musicians and prizes.

Catalog record

Finding aid

5. The Fashion Group of Chicago records, 1950-1987. 4.75 linear feet.

Administrative records, correspondence, financial records, reports, newspaper and magazine articles, photographs, and other records of The Fashion Group of Chicago, a local chapter of the international non-profit organization, The Fashion Group. Most materials relate to fashion shows, seminars, and other events hosted by the organization, which sought to promote high-end fashion and provide educational opportunities and resources for individuals interested in the fashion industry.

Catalog record

Finding aid

6. Ann Landers papers, 1947-2002. 106 linear feet.

Scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, correspondence, photographs, and other papers of Ann Landers, primarily regarding her career as an advice columnist for the Chicago Sun Times and later for the Chicago Tribune, and in syndication to newspapers throughout the United States. Scrapbooks contain her newspaper column, "Ask Ann Landers", and other newspaper clippings, articles, photos, etc. about Landers' journalism career, social service activities, and personal matters.

Catalog record

Finding aid

7. National Council of Jewish Women, Chicago Section records, 1899-1973 (bulk 1920-1970). 8.75 linear feet.

Meeting minutes, annual reports, financial records, correspondence, periodicals, newsletters, press releases, brochures, pamphlets, directories, manuals, scripts, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, and other records of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), Chicago Section, a community service organization. Materials relate to services offered by the NCJW, both locally and nationally, such as job placement for immigrants and youth, scholarships and courses; care packages for servicemen and Jewish orphans during World War Two; and the Council Camp, a Jewish family camp in Wauconda (Ill.). Present are biographical materials pertaining to Hannah Greenebaum Solomon, founder and first president of the NCJW, and president of the Chicago Section for 12 years.

Catalog record

8. Lois Rosen papers, 1963-1996. 14 linear feet.

Correspondence, meeting minutes, conference notes, press releases, publications, periodicals, committee reports, legal and financial documents, newspaper clippings, flyers, and other papers of Lois Rosen, a Chicago social and civic activist from the 1960s-1990s. Most of the collection relates to Rosen's work within the Chicago Commission on Women, the Southwest Community Congress and Rosen's personal subject files. Also present are materials on the Chicago Newspaper Guild and the Chicago Tourism Council.

Catalog record

Finding aid

9. Charlotte E. Senechalle papers, 1950-200 (bulk 1950-1990). 3.75 linear feet.

Correspondence, meeting minutes, newspaper clippings, reports, and other papers of Charlotte E. Senechalle, primarily relating to her work with school improvement and the conditions of the Cook County Department of Corrections. Included are materials pertaining to Senechalle's work with the League of Women Voters (1960s), Church Women United (1990s), and the Citizens Schools Committee. Observer reports on the Chicago Board of Education (1971-1976) regarding school integration and desegregation and research files on criminal justice, penal systems, and prison conditions in Chicago, Cook County, and Illinois are also present.

Catalog record

Finding aid

10. Sister Miriam Wilson's collection on the Pontiac Brothers prison reform movement, 1978-1982. 1 linear foot.

Newspaper clippings, pamphlets, flyers, booklets, handouts, correspondence, and other documents of the Pontiac Brothers prison reform collection compiled by Sister Miriam Wilson. Materials document the response to the conviction of 31 prisoners in the 1978 Pontiac prison rebellion in Pontiac, Illinois, one of the largest prison riots in the United States. The Pontiac Prison was known for its crowded quarters and mistreatment of prisoners. 17 of the convicted prisoners were sentenced to death, which gained the attention of several local religious organizations and individuals such as Sister Miriam Wilson of St. Scholastic Priory in Chicago.

Catalog record

The project team consisted of archivists Peter Alter, Sarah Dorpinghaus, Jennifer Fowle, and Rachel Juris; collection and registration technician Christine McNulty; and project manager M. Alison Eisendrath. For more information about collections at the Chicago History Museum, please visit the CHM Research Center website.

CPF: Women in the Archives: Organizing Knowledge

2010-11-22T15:23:00.000-08:00

Women in the Archives: Organizing Knowledge

April 15-16, 2011
Brown University

Papers are now being invited for Women in the Archives, a two-day conference co-sponsored by the Women Writers Project and the Sarah Doyle Women's Center at Brown University.

Women in the Archives explores the use of archival materials in the study of women's writing, and the construction of disciplinary practices in archival research and pedagogy. This year our theme is "Organizing Knowledge", focusing on systems of knowledge representation in relation to different kinds of archival practice. Papers might address themes such as the following:

* how do knowledge representation/management systems operate in the archive, and how do they instantiate or intervene in the legibility of archival materials?
* how can we read the gender politics of knowledge organization systems in the archive?
* how do pedagogical practices shape our interaction with such systems?
* what would it mean to read against the grain of archival systems of organization?
* how does discipline shape our understanding and use of the archive?

The larger concerns of the Women in the Archives series as a whole include:
* pedagogy and interdisciplinary pedagogies
* issues of gender in the construction of archival spaces
* material modes of textuality across disciplines
* technologies of research and teaching, and the impact of digital media on the archive
* new directions in archival research
* editing archival materials

This year, in addition to regular paper sessions, we are experimenting with
two new kinds of presentations:

1. A pecha-kucha-style session of short, fast-paced presentations that will
let participants present work in progress in a vivid and memorable form. The
session promises to be both entertaining and provocative.

2. Poster presentations, which will be mounted in the conference space for
attention during breaks

For more information about these formats please see
http://www.wwp.brown.edu/about/activities/wia/formats.html.

To submit a pecha-kucha proposal, please send a one-page statement which
includes:
--one question your research is trying to answer
--two people whose work stimulated your current project
--three people whose work you hope your project will influence
--four questions you think your project raises that you'd like to pose to the audience
--the five most interesting sources you're consulting (archival or critical) with a brief quote from each
--a brief paragraph in which you supply any other detail you think will be helpful to us

To submit a paper or poster proposal, please send an abstract of not more
than 300 words.

Please send all proposals to WWP@brown.edu by January 15, 2011.

Student proposals for MAC Spring Meeting

2010-11-16T09:58:00.000-08:00

Call for Student Paper and Poster Presentations

The 2011 Student Program Subcommittee is accepting proposals for two special sessions dedicated to student scholarship during the Midwest Archives Conference's (MAC) Annual Meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota from April 28 – 30, 2011. Work from both master's and doctoral students will be considered. Students must be currently enrolled or have graduated no earlier than December 2010. Proposals must be received no later than February 11, 2011.

Graduate Student Paper Session

The work of three archives students will be selected for presentation during a traditional session format. Each speaker will be allotted 15 minutes to present a paper. Thirty minutes will be reserved for audience questions and discussion. Proposals may relate to the student's research interests as well as research pertinent to the profession. Participant selection will be based on the quality of proposals submitted.

Graduate Student Poster Session

The Graduate Student Poster Session will showcase the work of both individual students and student chapters.

Individual posters may describe applied or theoretical research that is completed or underway; discuss interesting collections with which students have worked; or report on archives and records projects in which students have participated (e.g., development of finding aids, public outreach, database construction, etc.). Submissions should focus on research or activities conducted recently.

Student Chapter posters may describe chapter activities, events, and/or other involvement with the archives and records professions. One person should coordinate the submission of each student chapter proposal.

Submission Form and Deadlines

Submit a proposal

Proposals must be received no later than February 11, 2011. The form will ask for the following information:

Name
School/Degree Program (MA, MILS, PhD, etc.)
E-mail
Address
Phone Number
Type of proposal (Paper/Individual Poster/Chapter Poster)
Poster or Paper Abstract (200 words or less)
Affirmation of Attendance (a sentence indicating your commitment to attend MAC 2011 and present your paper/poster in person if selected)\

See: http://www.midwestarchives.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=117&Itemid=152

Northwest Archivists Call for Presentations

2010-11-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

Call for Presentations!

Tradition and Innovation: New Ideas for Old Stuff
Northwest Archivists Conference
Helena, Montana
April 20-23, 2011

The Northwest Archivists are pleased to announce their 2011 Conference in Helena, Montana.

This year’s theme highlights our professional paradox of caring for archival collections representing our collective memory and actions, while navigating and interacting with contemporary audiences, expectations and technology. In order to fulfill our mission, we cannot embrace one without the other. So how do we walk the line between tradition and innovation? How do we interact with an ever changing present when we are representing the past? Not only does this dichotomy effect our interactions with researchers, it also directs our dealings with the media, policy makers, donors and the general population.

In keeping with this year’s theme, the conference will consist of two tracks: a traditional panel session track and a track devoted to non-traditional sessions. We’re all familiar with the usual chaired sessions with two or more presenters, but what makes a non-traditional session? The Program Committee is open to any session format idea that you may come up with, and here are some examples to spark your imagination:

• Open themed sessions: these are sessions focused on a theme but the audience drives the discussion. Facilitators will guide and encourage the audience, but this is an opportunity for us to talk to each other about specific topics.
• “Lightning Talks” or Pecha Kucha: Last year’s Pecha Kucha session was well-attended and involved a selection of diverse topics presented in short time frames.
• Other formats that encourage participation or look at innovative ways to convey information and engage the membership.

If you’ve ever sat in a session and thought that you’d like to share information in another way, this is your chance!

The Program Committee for the 2011 meeting in Helena, Montana, invites you to submit proposals for sessions and individual presentations that explore our grounding in the traditions of our profession and collections and the necessity of bridging the gap to a contemporary world. If you have a great idea for a topic but can’t find co-presenters, please submit a proposal anyway; there may be opportunities to match presenters or to work topics together in some of the non-traditional sessions. Sessions that engage the membership in non-traditional ways are particularly encouraged.

Submission Guidelines: Submissions can involve an entire session or an individual presentation. All proposals must include: title, description (no more than 250 words), A/V requirements (laptop, projector, screen, etc), presenter name, professional affiliation, address, email, phone number and a brief resume.

Session proposals must include all of the above for each presenter, plus: session title, session description (250 words maximum), contact information for the panel organizer, including email address and phone number. Submissions should also include a description of the type of session proposed (panel discussion, paper, non-traditional). We assume that everyone listed in a session proposal has agreed to participate. Electronic submissions only, please. Attach proposals as a Word or PDF file.

All submissions must be received no later than December 31, 2010.

Click Here for the submission form

Submit proposals to:
Diana Banning, Program Committee Chair, 2011 NWA Conference
City of Portland Archives and Records Center
Diana.Banning@portlandoregon.gov
503-865-4110

Women and Social Movements at the AHA & online

2010-11-15T09:54:00.000-08:00

The new digital archive, “Women and Social Movements International-- 1840 to Present,” will be available for library subscription from Alexander Street Press in December or January. The first 25,000 pages of the archive will appear at that time and the entire archive of 150,000 pages will be online in late 2011. Kathryn Kish Sklar and Thomas Dublin are co-editing the resource with support from an international editorial advisory board.

At the AHA (American Historical Association) the archive will be considered as a research tool in a session, “New Research in the History of Women’s Transnational and International Social Movements.” That session will take place on Friday, Jan. 7, 9:30-11:30 in the Arlington Room of the Boston Marriot Copley Place and will have screen shots of the Beta version of the archive. Participants will include Francisca de Haan of Central European University, Tiffany Ruby Patterson of Vanderbilt University, Megan Threlkeld of Denison University, Barbara Reeves Ellington of Siena College and Kitty Sklar.

There will also be a luncheon on Friday, Jan. 7 at 12:15 in the Vineyard Room of the Boston Marriot Copley Place to unveil WASM International. There we will describe the archive in a slide presentation. Please contact tdublin[at]binghamton[dot]edu to reserve a place. The luncheon is free, but seats are limited.

We hope to see you at the AHA.
Kitty Sklar & Tom Dublin

Thomas Dublin
Distinguished Professor of History
State University of New York at Binghamton
Binghamton, NY 13902-6000
607-777-2854
FAX: 717-214-4415

WCRT Endorsements for SAA 2011

2010-10-22T08:12:00.000-07:00

The deadline for submitting proposals to the SAA Program Committee for next year's conference was Oct. 1. Now that we have had time to review the submissions, we are pleased to announce the WCRT endorsements! We are backing 2 proposals this year:

1. Activists, Nuns, and Heiresses: Breaking Stereotypes of Women's Historical Collections, chaired by Beth Myers of the Women and Leadership Archives, Loyola University.

2. 75 Years of International Women's Collecting: Legacies, Successes, Obstacles, and New Directions, chaired by Danelle Moon of the Special Collections and Archives, San Jose State University.

We will update the membership on the status of these proposals as soon as we hear ourselves. Thank you to everyone for organizing such strong entries for SAA 2011.

ALMS Call for Papers

2010-10-20T08:08:00.000-07:00

Hello all --

Consider submitting to this call for papers for the next ALMS (Archives, Libraries, Museums, Special Collections) Conference in 2011.

Please also pass along this email to anyone you know who may be interested.

Thank you!

Heidi Marshall & Franklin Robinson

LAGAR co-chairs

________________________________

I am the Associate University Librarian for Collection Management and Scholarly Communication at the UCLA Library and I wanted to share with you the Call for Proposals and Announcement for the 2011 ALMS Conference which will be hosted by the June L Mazer Lesbian Archive in Los Angeles. The UCLA Library, Center for the Study of Women and are co-hosting. The conference will be held on May 13-15, 2011 in Los Angeles. The afternoon of May 13 will be held at UCLA.

We would appreciate any help you can provide to forward the Call for Papers and announcement of the conference to your members and anyone else you think might be interested. You may have heard that UCLA as a relationship with the Mazer Archive and we are thrilled to support this conference and collecting initiative. For information on the Mazer collections at UCLA see http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/mazer/ and http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/mazer-partnership-112038.aspx.

Thanks in advance for your help getting the word out. Any questions please let me know.

Best regards,

Sharon Farb

Duke Travel Grants Available

2010-10-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

The new cycle of Mary Lily Travel Grants for women's history research at the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture has now been posted. The Sallie Bingham Center provides travel grants of up to $1000 for researchers whose work would benefit from access to the women's history collections held at Duke's Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. Any faculty member, graduate or undergraduate student, or independent scholar with a research project requiring the use of materials held by the Sallie Bingham Center is eligible to apply. All applicants must reside outside of a 100-mile radius of Durham, NC.

http://library.duke.edu/specialcollections/bingham/grants/index.html

Dorothy Allison Papers Arrive at Duke

2010-09-20T12:28:00.000-07:00

After a nearly twenty year period of considering this momentous decision, Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina and renowned activist in the LGBTQ community, has selected the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture, part of the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University, to be the repository for her papers. Bingham Center and literary curatorial staff collaborated on the initial acquisition of nearly 60 boxes of Allison's papers, including drafts of her writings, extensive correspondence and research files, personal journals documenting her life and creative process, and more. Read the whole story on the Special Collections blog: http://dukelibrariesrbmscl.blogspot.com/2010/09/dorothy-allison-papers-arrive-at-duke.html

Another blog post about Allison: http://dukelibrariesrbmscl.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-rbmscl-reading-dorothy-allison.html

Finding aid: http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/rbmscl/allisondorothy/inv/

Minutes from SAA 2010

2010-09-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

Below are the minutes from our Roundtable Meeting at SAA in Washington, DC.

Women’s Collections Roundtable Annual Meeting

August 11, 2010, Washington, DC

Meeting Minutes

Co-chairs: Danelle Moon and Kelly Wooten

Wonderful presentations by:

Allida Black, Research Professor of History and International Affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs, will speak about her work as the project director of The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers
Stephen Rhind-Tutt, president, Alexander Street Press, will highlight the press's women's history databases

WCRT website/Blog:

Our updated website is moving over to the drupal format

Discussion of blog found at:

http://wcrt-saa.blogspot.com/

We encourage anyone with updates, announcements, new digital collections, anything related to women's collections to send us their information to share on the blog.

WCRT Membership:

Discussion of increased participation was on the agenda. Due to the number of members (377) and high participation at this mtg it was decided we didn't need to discuss this at this time.

Reminder that members need to opt in to the roundtable listserve

News from the Archives for Women and Social Movements database/journal

Please send any updates/announcements to Tanya Belcher-Zanish at tzanish [at] iastate [dot] edu

Women’s archives reader

draft articles coming in now, moving forward

Panels/speaker ideas for Chicago 2011 mtg:

MPLP primarily with regard to women’s collections

· Membership lists in women’s organizations

Outreach using social media to nontraditional women’s groups/activists as researchers

· Actively communicating with other groups

Uncovering hidden collection

Combining outreach with budget constraints

Continuing to serve women’s collections and user populations

Blasting stereotypes of women through women’s collections

· how you go about doing this and promoting the materials

· Promoting women’s influence on pop culture

· Girls band from 80s

· Zines as archival collections

Catholic women, nuns, getting materials out to the public

Designing programming.

Designed for younger groups

Jane Addams, Chicago Hull House as potential ideas for Roundtable program

Outreach, organization for children
Social services, health issues
Pursue this for either a topic or our roundtable mtg
Or arts/crafts period from mid-western schools

Elections:

Next year we will move to online elections as other sections/roundtables did this year.

Meghan Lyon and Cassie Schmitt, co-vice chairs are the next years co-chairs.

Elections for vice chair, nominations from the floor, voting, both approved

Welcome Kathy Hertel-Baker and Virginia Corvid as the new co-vice chairs!

Program Committee report:

Everything fits the theme!

See announcement: here

Council Report:

Donna McCrea reports on council's mtg included proposed dues increase and financial status of SAA.

Diversity Committee:

Kelly Wooten is the representative for "women" including the memberships of both the Women's Collections Roundtable and the Women's Archivists Roundtable. Kelly reports as posted on blog: SAA's Diversity Committee Report

Attendance

Jonathan Ponder, JSTOR	Alison Gaim, NARA
Erin Townsend, NARA	Virginia Corvid, WHS/UW-Madison
Susan Woodland, Hadassah Archives	Lora Davis, University of Delaware
Rebecca Johsnon Melvin, University of Delaware	Taronda Spencer, Spelman College
Andrea Sheehan, QVC, Inc.	Tanya Zanish-Belcher, Iowa State University
Kathy Hertel-Baker, Sisters of Charity of Nazareth	Colleen Mahoney, Simmons
Lori Satter, Simmons	Janice E. Ruth, Library of Congress Manuscript Division
Lisa Mangiatico, Soroptimist International of the Americas	Brenda Correia,
Lucinda Manminz	Mary Samouelian, Duke University
Kim Sims, Duke University	Sherrie Bowser, Virginia Tech
Jessica Sedgwick, Harvard Medical School	Cat Holbrook, Schlesinger Library
Johanna Carll, Schlesinger Library	Elizabeth Norarra, University of Maryland
Doris Malkmus, Penn State	Fernanda Peucne, Rutgers
Meghan Lyon, Duke University	Cassie Schmitt, University of Oregon
Kelly Wooten, Duke University

Reminder: SAA proposals due Oct 1

2010-09-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

Happy Day After Labor Day All!

This is a reminder that proposals for SAA are due October 1. A few great ideas have already been thrown out. See the blog post:

Session Ideas for Archives 360: Chicago 2011

We would love to help you get your proposals together and submitted. If you are working on a proposal and need another panelist, a moderator, or have general questions, please let us know and we will do our best to find other members to fill in your panel.

You can view the call for proposals here. The program committee reminds all that every idea should fit the theme, so don't be shy!

Also, the SAA Program Committee allows 2 panel endorsements for each roundtable, which are taken into account when deciding which panels get selected for the conference. Therefore, if you would like to submit your proposal to WCRT Leadership for an endorsement, please do so by Oct. 1 so that we can forward our endorsements to the Program Committee.

SAA's Diversity Committee

2010-08-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

At the Women's Collections Roundtable meeting, I reported that I am now the Diversity Committee representative from WCRT as well as the Women Archivists Roundtable. My role is to report out from the Diversity Committee to the women's roundtables and facilitate communication between the groups.

At the Diversity Committee meeting, we discussed many issues, but these are the highlights most relevant to this audience:

SAA is planning to implement demographic tracking in their membership database to assess the makeup of SAA for diversity factors, including gender, race/ethnicity, and age. This will help to evaluate the diversity of membership, leadership, participation in committees and other groups, as well as of speakers at annual meetings.
Debra Kimok reported on the background of the AMRT/RMRT Joint Working on Diversity. The group conducted a survey and developed a best practices document, “Best Practices for Working with Researchers/Archives Employees with Disabilities,” which were just endorsed by the Council at its meeting on Aug 9, 2010.
The Diversity Committee may develop a survey jointly with the Membership Committee to assess what SAA members believe to be the most important issues that the Diversity Committee should address.
Participation in SAA for members who can't attend annual meetings: The DC would like to address ways to enable people to contribute to discussions without being physically present at meetings via technology such as live streaming of sessions or setting up phone conferences for committee meetings.
SAA Council charged the DC to develop a proposal for Council on what the Mosaic Scholarship could be, and develop a plan for implementing the proposal for recruitment and retention of minority students.

Do you have ideas about diversity issues you'd like to see addressed, particularly concerning gender? No need to wait for a survey or for next year's meeting! Email kelly.wooten at duke.edu with your thoughts and ideas.

Session Ideas for Archives 360: Chicago 2011

2010-08-16T11:13:00.000-07:00

Here are 3 session ideas that have been floated on the listserv. If you have a paper you could present that fits into these topics, a speaker to suggest, or another idea entirely, please let us know in the comments or by email. Call for Program Proposals and submission forms are posted on the SAA website.

Breaking Stereotypes
At the Women’s Collections Roundtable meeting in Washington, DC, Professor Allida Black spoke to us about the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, dedicated to bringing Eleanor Roosevelt's writings (and radio and television appearances) on democracy and human rights before an audience as diverse as the ones she addressed. Despite her great influence on American politics, the United Nations, and the struggle for human rights, many people don’t know much about Eleanor’s life and work beyond her role as First Lady. Archives have the power to let people tell their own stories through the historical record of their own writings and documentation without any filter, and reveal the depth and nuances of their characters beyond the surface. Famous women, ordinary housewives, and even nuns have this in common: the historical record reveals a much richer portrait than the history books can tell. Have you worked with a women’s history collection that unveiled a hidden story that breaks stereotypes? Contact Kathy Hertel-Baker (khertelbaker at scnky.org).

History of Archives and/or International Archives
Rachel Miller at the Center for Jewish History is interested in presenting a comparative analysis of the World Center for Women's Archives project and the International Archives of the Women's Movement in 1935 and 1936. This topic relates to both the historical context of the “SAA at 75” theme and to the international theme they are looking for in this coming year's proposals. Do you have a topic that might relate? Contact Rachel Miller (rcmiller at cjh.org).

MPLP and Privacy Concerns for Women’s History Collections
Danelle Moon just finished a two-year project implementing MPLP across collections, and would glad to work on a proposal. The proposal could be a combo presentation on challenges implementing MPLP, degree of less process on women's collections, and privacy issues. There has been considerable work to uncover women's history, what impact does MPLP have on making women's collection accessible, are they more hidden, or more accessible as result of having basic records. The other aspect on privacy or confidential information, is problematic using the MPLP approach. Contact Danelle Moon (Danelle.Moon at sjsu.edu).

DC, Here we come!

2010-06-29T06:55:00.000-07:00

We haven't quite packed our bags yet, but we are already getting ready for the 2010 SAA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. We're excited about our program for the Women's Collections Roundtable, as well as the panel we are sponsoring: Beyond the Ivory Tower: Archival Collaboration, Community Partnerships, and Access Issues in Building Women's Collections. We hope you will attend our roundtable meeting and bring your ideas about programming related to women's collections for the 2011 conference and energy to get involved with WCRT through our leadership or by contributing to our blog.

*Please note updated order of events- presentations from speakers will be first, followed by the business meeting.

Women's Collections Roundtable Meeting Agenda
3:15-5:15pm, August 11, 2010
Washington, DC
Meeting Room: Virginia AB

3:15: Welcome and introductions
Co-Chairs: Danelle Moon and Kelly Wooten; Vice-Chairs: Cassie Schmitt and Meghan Lyon

3:30: Presentations

Allida Black, Research Professor of History and International Affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs, will speak about her work as the project director of The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers
Stephen Rhind-Tutt, president, Alexander Street Press, will highlight the press's women's history databases

4:30: Business Meeting

Report on WCRT Blog- call for submissions
Discuss building WCRT membership- recruitment strategies
Chicago 2011- Ideas for panels for WCRT endorsement or speakers for our meeting (Proposals due October 1!)- Hidden women’s collections (Newberry Library)?
Election of new leadership and discussion of online elections for 2011 (Want to nominate someone, including yourself? Email wcrt.saa at gmail dot com!)
Report from SAA 2011 Program Committee Representative
Report from SAA Council Liaison

Light refreshments will be served, generously sponsored by Alexander Street Press.

Grant Update from San Jose State University

2010-06-24T12:20:00.000-07:00

San Jose State University has completed a two-year grant project, funded by the NHPRC, to catalog and process our backlog of university records and manuscript collections. We have posted 73 new collection inventories on the Online Archives of California. Many of the collections document the diverse history of women in the region, including the women who attended the early Normal School from 1862 to early 20th century. Other collections that tie to women's experience include the Glenna Matthews Oral History Collection and the South Bay Second Wave Feminist Oral History Collection.

SJSU also received a detailed processing grant from the NHPRC, which will result in detailed collection inventories for the John C. Gordon Photographic Collection and the Ted Sahl Photographic Collection. Both document local history from the early 20th century to the present. The Sahl collection includes rich photographic essays of the Farm Workers Strikes in California, Anti-Nuclear Protest at Livermore Lab, and the LGBTQ community in San Jose.

Call for Contributors: "Women's History Sources" blog

2010-06-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

Hello All,

Women's History Sources is a collaborative blog that serves as a current awareness tool for anyone who is interested in primary sources at archives, historic sites and museums, and libraries.

The blog will be international in scope. See the "About this Blog" link for more information.

The group of contributors will include a good mix of archivists, historians (faculty and graduate students), curators and librarians.

If you are interested in being a contributor, Contact Ken Middleton, Middle Tennessee State University.

Call for Contributors: Encyclopedia of American Women's History

2010-06-07T10:54:00.000-07:00

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORS:

Hasia Diner, the Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History at New York University, is in the process of editing a multi-volume encyclopedia in American women’s history. Going well beyond Notable American Women, this reference work, which will be published by Facts on File, will include not just biographical entries, but will cover organizations, concepts, and ideas central to understanding the history of women in America.

Several hundred entries remain unassigned and we are currently looking for writers for these articles. Unfortunately only a modest honorarium is available. Unassigned entries can be viewed here:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AvSpEjsjS6hZdG9xT1FtcS1jeko5UFZROWxRYzQ3aEE&hl=en#gid=0

The deadline for this work will be August 10, 2010. If you're
interested in responding, please reply to:
Editors

WSAM-International Call for Primary Sources

2010-06-04T12:34:00.001-07:00

Thomas Doblin and Kathryn Sklar are looking for resources that they can add to their new Women and Social Movements-International Database. Please contact Tom or Kitty, if you have any sources you can contribute:

For a large digital archive project, “Women and Social Movements, International, 1840-2010,” we seek copies of the following proceedings of meetings of international women’s organizations. The archive will be co-published by the Center for the Historical Study of Women and Gender and Alexander Street Press beginning in fall 2010.

The database will eventually include 150,000 pages of primary material related to women and social movements internationally. About 50-60,000 of these pages will consist of lengthy runs of proceedings published by various women’s organizations. We have identified about 600
proceedings of women’s international organizations. Of these we have found copies of about 400 for scanning and inclusion in the database.

These remaining 95 continue to elude us. Can you help us find these rare items in your library or repository? We would be very grateful for any leads you can offer. Thank you in advance.

Tom Dublin & Kitty Sklar, Co-Editors
Women and Social Movements, International, 1840-2010
State Univ. of New York at Binghamton

Please email your response to: tdublin@binghamton.edu

CSU Dominquez Hills--New Tradeswomen's Collection

2010-05-13T11:17:00.000-07:00

Partnership Between Labor Studies, University Library, and National Experts Creates Archive of Women in the Building Trades

Last fall, Vivian Price, assistant professor and coordinator of labor studies, and Greg Williams, director of University Archives and Special Collections, received a $25,000 digital start-up grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for their project, "New Approaches: Tradeswomen Archive Project" (TAP). Their vision is to create a virtual museum administered through California State University, Dominguez Hills of photographs, documents, and other historical artifacts from women in the building trades.

Last month, a group of national archivists, scholars, and historians met in a symposium at CSU Dominguez Hills to discuss a second level proposal for another NEH grant to expand TAP, which is currently comprised of a Website, a Facebook presence, and a physical collection that is housed in the university archives. The collection of photographs, video, oral histories, original documents, and various three dimensional materials such as union pins and patches has been growing through online contacts and contributions gathered through TAP’s Facebook page.
Price says that the tradeswomen who made their groundbreaking entrance into blue-collar professions in the mid-1970s are now of retirement age and are ready to donate their memorabilia to an institution for posterity – and to overcome their isolation as pioneers in male-dominated fields.

“Women are also concerned that the next generation of women and men working in the trades will not know how institutions have changed, and how the culture of the male-dominated workplace has shifted because of women organizing,” she says. “[Also], women are concerned about the continued resistance to women working in skilled blue-collar jobs, and want to share their experiences and knowledge.”
Price has donated her personal collection of artifacts that span her professional life from the 1970s to the present as a former union electrician, political scientist, documentarian, and advocator. Of local historical interest are materials related to the Southern California Tradeswomen Network and women who constructed the Century Freeway (the 105 Freeway) in Los Angeles.

“CSU Dominguez Hills is in the heart of Los Angeles, where cutting-edge innovation in the labor movement is taking place,” says Price. “This is the only four-year university in Southern California to offer a bachelor's degree in labor studies, so research in [this area] is natural for our University Archives to initiate.”
TAP has already begun to benefit the CSU Dominguez Hills community and beyond, according to Price, who says that “having a growing collection in our library will provide a niche area for students to research.”

Veronica Ciocia-D'Aquino, an intern in the University Archives who recently earned her degree in library science from San Jose State, did the lion’s share of categorizing and sorting the original collection and developing a searching tool.
The project also enhanced the Long Beach lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning community through a collaboration with the nonprofit Mentoring Youth Through Empowerment (MYTE). Youth in the program interviewed tradeswomen during the course of a year, created collages from quotations and photos from the interviews, and then worked with local artists to create the final posters. These final results have recently been on display at Los Angeles City Hall to celebrate April’s Labor History Month and were also shown at the CSU Dominguez Hills Labor and Social Justice Fair that took place yesterday at the university.

Price and Williams have recently submitted a proposal for a Level II NEH Digital Start Up-Grant for $50,000. Price has also applied for an NEH faculty grant to bring international organizations into TAP. She says that in the spirit of the original tradeswomen, the project so far has benefited from a collaborative effort of archivists, scholars, tradeswomen, and activists.

“Some [participants have encouraged tradeswomen] to attend the tradeswomen conferences and initiate oral history projects and diary campaigns to produce materials that tradeswomen can upload electronically to our Website, send in physically to our library, or to a local collection that could be linked to our archives,” says Price. “What was also interesting was our discussion regarding our archives as a participatory curatorial project, in which the tradeswomen are involved in shaping the campaign to document themselves rather than being the objects of scholars' directions.”

- Joanie Harmon

University South Alabama Archives

2010-03-08T15:49:00.000-08:00

The University of South Alabama Archives' collection focus is on the photographic history, and social, cultural, legal, political, and architectural heritage of Mobile, Alabama, the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay, and the University of South Alabama. With 1,000,000 negatives in its possession, it has grown to have one of the largest photographic collections in the region. It is also strong in its coverage of the civil rights', political', environmental', and women's history of the area.

Carol Ellis
Archivist
University of South Alabama Archives
USA Springhill Avenue
Room 0722
Mobile AL 36688
ph: 251-434-3800
fx: 251-434-3622
cellis@jaguar1.usouthal.edu
visit our online digital image collection at http://www.alabamamosaic.org/collections.php

Just Desserts Feminist Broadside

2010-03-08T08:00:00.000-08:00

Celebrate the 100th anniversary of Woman Suffrage in Washington State (and of course, the history of Jello salad) with this delightful and historically researched print from Anagram Press.

Theme issue on women's history digital collections (Microform & Imaging Review)

2010-03-03T10:06:00.000-08:00

The most recent issue (Fall 2009) of Microform & Imaging Review includes 8 articles and 4 reviews on the theme of "women's history digital collections."

De Gruyter's Reference Global site (http://www.reference-global.com/toc/mfir/current) offers full text access to subscribing institutions, and "abstracts" (first page) access to non-subscribers. Many libraries subscribe to the print edition, and there is always the interlibrary loan option.

The digitization projects that are showcased in this theme issue are improving access to primary sources that document women’s lives in places as diverse as Italy, Iran, and Muncie (“Middletown”), Indiana. Other collections focus on African American women at the University of Iowa, an underappreciated French American author, and the pioneering efforts of women in government and law.

Here's a list of the articles with brief annotations, along with links to the collections that are highlighted. The list also includes links to the full text of articles 2 and 7 (for this week only).

1. Women's History Collections: Digitization, Access, and the Future of Collaboration by Ken Middleton- Provides a brief introduction to the key themes of the issue.

2. The Middletown Women's History Collection. A Case Study in Building a Digital Collection of Women's History Resources by Amanda A. Hurford and Maren L. Read- An excellent case study from the perspective of an archivist and a digital projects librarian.
Link to Middletown Women's History Collection
http://libx.bsu.edu/cdm4/collection.php?CISOROOT=/MidWmnHis
Link to full text of the article:
http://www.reference-global.com/stoken/default+domain/Ptc4ADasvvEytRcD4xnb/abs/10.1515/mfir.2009.017

3. Women's Worlds in Qajar Iran. A Digital Archive and Website Project of the History Department and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University; and the Harvard College Library by Afsaneh Najmabadi- This project is bringing together widely dispersed primary sources, many of which remain in private family collections.
Link to grant announcement:
http://history.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/najmabadi-nehgrant.php

4. The Italian Digital Women's Library in the Context of Europe by Annamaria Tagliavini
The author describes how the focus on women's movements influenced the types of sources collected at the Italian Women's Library, as well as the Fragen Project, a collaborative project involving European women's libraries.
Link to the Italian Digital Women's Library and Fragen:
http://www.women.it/bibliotecadelledonne/index_eng.htm

5. Unveiling Women's History Online. Digitizing the Washington College of Law Historical Collection by Allison B. Zhang and Susan McElrath- The authors provide a wealth of information about the technical aspects of digitization: metadata; working with digitization vendors; developing a file naming convention. They also describe the custom viewer for scrapbooks.
Link to digital collection:
http://www.aladin.wrlc.org/gsdl/collect/wcl/wcl.shtml

6. Digitization of the French Language Sidonie de la Houssaye Papers by Gina Costello
Costello covers microfilming the collection for preservation, and subsequent digitization of the microfilm to improve access.
Link to digital collection:
http://louisdl.louislibraries.org/index.php?name=Sidonie%20de%20la%20Houssaye%20Collection

7. Chronicling African American Women Students at the University of Iowa by Shawn Averkamp
In addition to covering selection, digitization, and metadata issues, Averkamp outlines the timeline approach for providing a key entry point to the collection. Such an approach provides contextual information for small groups of items, rather than just for the collection as a whole.
Link to digital collection: http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/aaws/
Link to full text of the article:
http://www.reference-global.com/stoken/default+domain/H6SxHIXJbY9yqtsfHeMg/abs/10.1515/mfir.2009.022

8. A Few Good Women, 1969–1974. An Oral History Collection Experienced through an Online Curriculum for Grades 6–12 by Karla M. Schmit
Link to digital collection: http://www.afgw.libraries.psu.edu/index.html
This collection highlights the experiences of women in government positions during Richard Nixon's presidency. Schmit explores multiple options for making the collection relevant for students: WebQuests to compare "A Few Good Women" with women in government in other countries; compare interviews in the collection with their own interviews with women; and even play the roles of journalist Vera Glaser and President Nixon in Readers Theatre.

Review of Microfilm Collection
* Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance Archives, ca. 1972–1994 (reviewed by Phyllis Holman Weisbard)

Reviews of Commercial Digital Collections
* Manuscript Women’s Letters and Diaries from the American Antiquarian Society, 1750–1950 (reviewed by Jessica Moran)
* Perdita Manuscripts: Women Writers, 1500–1700 (reviewed by Robert Detmering)
* Women, War and Society, 1914–1918: From the Imperial War Museum, London (reviewed by Nina Clements)

Ken Middleton
Editor, Microform & Imaging Review
Box 013, Walker Library
Middle Tennessee State Univ.
Murfreesboro, TN 37132
(615) 904-8524
kmiddlet@mtsu.edu

Free for March: Women and Social Movements

2010-03-02T11:15:00.000-08:00

March is Women’s History month and to celebrate, we’ve made the popular online collection, Women and Social Movements in the U.S., 1600-2000, Scholar's Edition, freely accessible for the entire month.

To access Women and Social Movements, Scholar's Edition, simply visit
http://wass.alexanderstreet.com

Winner of a 2004 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award

A mainstay of women’s history scholarship and teaching in universities worldwide, this online collection is edited by Professors Kathryn Kish Sklar and Thomas Dublin of SUNY Binghamton. This extensive collection of primary historic documents, books, images, scholarly essays, teaching tools, and book and Web site reviews documents the history of women’s activism in public life, and is one of the most heavily visited resources for women’s studies and for U.S. history on the Web. Organized around document projects written by leading scholars, the collection is a powerful research and classroom tool designed to help users develop the skills needed to analyze primary documents and conduct research. Document projects are organized around interpretive questions, each with 20-50 primary documents that address the question. Some examples are:

How Did the Ladies Association of Philadelphia Shape New Forms of Women's Activism During the American Revolution, 1780-1781?
How Did White Women Aid Former Slaves During and After the Civil War, 1863-1891?
How Did Black and White Southern Women Campaign to End Lynching, 1890-1942?
How and Why Did the Guerrilla Girls Alter the Art Establishment in New York City, 1985-1995?
How Have Recent Social Movements Shaped Civil Rights Legislation for Women? The 1994 Violence Against Women Act.

The Scholar's Edition also includes more than 40,000 pages of full-text sources, including:

Proceedings of all women's rights conventions, 1848-1869
Proceedings of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 1874-1898
Selected publications of the League of Women Voters, 1920-2000

Also newly added to the Scholar's Edition are:

Notable American Women, the five-volume biographical dictionary
The Collected Publications of federal, state, and local Commissions on the Status of Women, a digital archive with 90,000 pages of publications, 1961-2005

New content is added semi-annually.

Please also be sure to check out the companion blog to Women and Social Movements, Women and Social Movements: The Online Discussion, where faculty discuss how they’ve made use of the online collection in the classroom, share syllabi, and exchange ideas.

Access Women and Social Movements now.

New Collections at SJSU

2010-02-24T09:51:00.000-08:00

San Jose State University Special Collections & Archives has been working to build collections that document women's social movements in the Bay Area and records that document women in politics. San Jose became known as the "Feminist Capital of the World" in 1974, when Janet Gray Hayes was the first woman to be elected mayor of a city with a population over 500,000. She and others created a female dominion in local politics from 1974-2000. Gray Hayes donated her political papers to University in 2003, and we continue to build on her legacy. A few examples include:

Silicon Valley YWCA Records (1903-present)
San Jose League of Women Voters (1945-2002)
National Organization of Women San Jose Chapter (1971-2005)

We recently brought in the records of the Women's History Museum Records, which document the early the formation of the International Museum of Women. To learn more about IMW, visit their website at: http://www.imow.org/home/index

These are some of the happenings in our archive, and the WCRT leadership team would love to post information on your holdings and new collections. Consider sending a brief post and we will publish it for you.

Danelle Moon
Director
SJSU Special Collections & Archives
Danelle.Moon@sjsu.edu

Ball State University Libraries Middletown Women's History Digital Collection

2010-02-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

The Middletown Women’s History Digital Collection provides online access to archival materials documenting the experiences of women in Muncie, Indiana from the 1880s through the 1930s. The collection includes diaries, minutes, and correspondence, photographs and other documents from the wealth of resources available in Ball State University Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections. The collection is organized based on the six areas used by Helen and Robert Lynd in their seminal sociological studies of Muncie, or “Middletown,” conducted in the 1920s and 1930s.

This project was supported by a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the Indiana State Library. If you have any questions about this or other collections in the Digital Media Repository, please feel free to contact:

John Straw
Assistant Dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections and Digital Media Repository Project Coordinator
Ball State University Libraries
Alexander M. Bracken Library
Muncie, IN 47306
jstraw@bsu.edu

Radical Woman in A Classic Town: Frances Willard of Evanston

2010-02-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

Social reformer Frances Willard (1839-1898) earned a world-wide reputation for her charismatic speaking and for her leadership of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the largest and most powerful woman's organization of its time. But Willard always maintained a bond with Evanston, her hometown from 1858 until her death. She also had a strong connection to Northwestern University, where she was the first Dean of Women and a Trustee. This exhibit, curated by Assistant University Archivist Janet Olson, examines the complex ties between Willard and the Classic Town that helped shape her vision of the world.

On view January 18 - March 19, 2010, at the Northwestern University Library, Evanston, IL.

More information

Girls' Studies Conference; Call for Proposals

2010-02-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

Reimagining Girlhood: Communities, Identities, Self-Portrayals
State University of New York College at Cortland
Submission Deadline 03/01/2010

CONFERENCE DATES: OCTOBER 22-24, 2010

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: DR. SHARON R. MAZZERELLA
Director School of Communication at James Madison University.
Author of Growing Up Girls, and Girl Wide Web: Girls and the Negotiation of Identity

In an attempt to interact with and to advance the continuum of girls’ culture, the Women’s Studies Program and the Center for Gender and Intercultural Studies at the State University of New York College at Cortland will host a two-day conference in Fall 2010 titled “Reimagining Girlhood: Communities, Identities, Self-Portrayals.” Regional, national, and international scholars, activists, and experts will discuss the (r)evolution of Girls’ Studies and Girls’ Culture. The conference committee invites individuals, groups, scholars, teachers, feminists, activists, and girls of all ages to submit proposals on interdisciplinary scholarly and creative work that address all aspects of girlhood.

Proposal formats include: Individual papers, Digital Media and Films, Panel Proposals, Roundtables, Poster Sessions, Performance Art, Audio Recordings, Zine Exhibitions, Photographic Submissions, Radical Crafting

For individual papers, please submit an abstract limited to 250 words. For complete panels, please submit an abstract for each presentation and include the affiliation of each panel member. For poster sessions and art, please submit an overview of 250 words. All proposals must include speakers’ name(s), affiliation(s) and contact information (address, e-mail and telephone number). Please also indicate preference for Friday afternoon, Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon. Sunday will be available to visit the Women’s Rights National Park in Seneca Falls, New York.

Send your 250 word proposals, abstracts, or poster sessions to: gender@cortland.edu; or caroline.kaltefleiter@cortland.edu by March 1, 2010.

Discarding Women's History: Seeking Stories of Rescuing Women's Archives

2010-02-16T12:53:00.000-08:00

At many libraries and archives, women's papers have been either buried in men's collections (husbands or other relatives) or even discarded, mainly because the librarians working with MSS at the time didn't think they were important enough to keep. Librarians as the Newberry Library in Chicago discovered a particularly stunning collection of a woman who was a vaudeville actress and later became a radio journalist. Her entire life & work (including recordings & photos) was documented in the materials she gave, however, the librarian in charge of MSS at the time wanted to discard them, but keep the papers of this woman's husband, who was a newspaper journalist. Fortunately no one got around to actually doing this and the materials were later rescued and processed as part of an NEH journalism grant.

The Newberry featured an exhibit on these Hidden Women collections two years ago, and also a colloquium, with both generating a lot of positive interest. A current Newberry staff member is also a radio producer, and she's pitching a story about these collections to a couple of NPR shows. If you know of similar instances of women's materials getting overlooked or even thrown out because they were women's materials and therefore deemed unimportant, please contact
Heather Radke (heather.radke at gmail.com) with your stories.

Shirley Chisholm Project Archives

2010-02-15T09:00:00.000-08:00

The Shirley Chisholm Project of Brooklyn Women’s Activism is a repository of women’s grassroots social activism in Brooklyn since 1945 and ongoing in the present. Shirley Chisholm was the first African American woman elected to Congress and the first African American and the first women to mount a serious campaign for the Democratic Party nomination for the Presidency.

In the spirit of Chisholm’s legacy as a path breaking community and political activist, this website contains digitized materials about Chisholm’s life and work, as well as materials representing the wide range of women’s activism throughout the borough of Brooklyn. The archive consists of documents and other materials, including oral histories, from people who knew or worked with Chisholm, as well as from the extraordinary diversity of women’s activism in Brooklyn since 1945.

The archival material collected by the Shirley Chisholm Project of Brooklyn Women’s Activism is available for viewing in the Brooklyn College Archives and Special Collections, which is located in the Brooklyn College Library, City University of New York.

"We Demand": History/Sex/Activism Conference

2010-02-09T08:23:00.000-08:00

"We Demand": History/Sex/Activism In Canada Vancouver, British Columbia
August 25-28, 2011

On August 28, 1971 over two hundred lesbian and gay activists gathered on Parliament Hill to demand the federal government bring an end to laws and practices that criminalized, marginalized, and stigmatized lesbians and gays. Acting in solidarity with their central Canadian allies, Vancouver activists staged the same action on the steps of their city's Court House. It was the first recorded national political action undertaken by gay liberationists and lesbian feminist activists in Canada.

"We Demand" marks the fortieth anniversary of the 1971 action. The conference seeks to showcase current work on all aspects of the history of sexuality in Canada, from pre-contact to present times.

Keynote speaker: Ann Cvetcovitch, author of An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures

Other confirmed speakers include Mary Louise Adams, Karen Dubinsky, Gary Kinsman, and Steven Maynard.

We are currently accepting proposals for panels, individual papers, roundtable discussions, poster sessions, and other means of communicating ideas and generating discussion. We welcome submissions from scholars, archivists, educators, public historians, and past and present political activists from all sexual fronts.

Panel and round table submissions should include a session title, a brief description of the panel or round table, abstracts for each paper of no more than 250 words, and a brief biography or one-page c.v./resume for each presenter and for the session chair. Individuals should submit a 250-word abstract plus a brief biography or one-page c.v./resume. Those submitting proposals for other types of presentations should contact the organizers for further instruction.

The deadline for submission is 1 June 2010.

Please send queries and submissions to: wedemand2011@gmail.com

Conference organizers:
Elise Chenier
Department of History, Simon Fraser University
echenier@gmail.com

Patrizia Gentile
Pauline Jewett Institute of Women's and Gender Studies Carleton University
patrizia_gentile@carleton.ca

Travel Grants: Cornell University

2010-02-02T08:10:00.000-08:00

Cornell University Library welcomes applications for its 2010 Phil Zwickler Memorial Research Grants. We are delighted to be able to offer select scholars financial assistance when they visit to research sexuality with sources in Cornell's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections.

Application deadline: March 31.
See details here: http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/HSC/zwickler.html

Brenda J. Marston
Curator, Human Sexuality Collection
Library Liaison to the Cornell Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program

Rare and Manuscript Collections
2B Carl A. Kroch Library
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-5302
607-255-3530
http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/HSC/
facebook.com/Cornell.HSC

Digital Women's History Resources

2010-01-29T13:43:00.000-08:00

Women's History Resources now available online through the Ball State University's Digital Media Repository!

Ball State University Libraries is pleased to announce the availability of three collections of women's history resources available online in the Digital Media Repository (http://libx.bsu.edu), the Middletown Women's History Digital Collection, The Man Haters Film Collection, and the Eleanor Roosevelt Speech Collection.

Middletown Women's History Digital Collection
The Middletown Women's History Digital Collection provides online access to archival materials documenting the experiences of women in Muncie, Indiana from the 1880s through the 1930s. It includes diaries, minutes, and correspondence, photographs and other documents from the wealth of resources available in Ball State University Libraries' Archives and Special Collections. The collection is organized based on the six areas used by Helen and Robert Lynd in their seminal sociological study of Muncie, or "Middletown," in the 1920s and 1930s. This project was supported by a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the Indiana State Library.

The Man Haters Film Collection
The Man Haters is a rare 35mm silent movie filmed in Muncie, Indiana in 1915. The film was produced by Basil McHenry, a traveling film producer from Akron, Ohio. He financed the film with sponsorship by Muncie's Majestic Theater and The Muncie Evening Press newspaper. Readers of the Press were asked to cast their votes for the leading actresses using coupons printed in the paper. Filming began in Muncie, Indiana on November 3, 1915 and the movie opened at the Majestic Theater on November 15, 1915. Basil McHenry also produced similar films in other towns in Indiana and Ohio.

This digital collection contains the ten minute original version and a longer documentary version of The Man Haters film, newspaper clippings about the contest, still photographs from the film, and a booklet about history of the film.

Eleanor Roosevelt Speech Collection
The Eleanor Roosevelt Speech Collection includes digital audio,photographs, and a transcript documenting Eleanor Roosevelt's speech to convocation in Assembly Hall at Ball State Teacher's College (now Ball State University) in Muncie, Indiana, on May 6, 1959. The title of her speech was "Is America Facing World Leadership?" and warned against complacency and stressed the urgency of understanding other peoples in the world. These collections are also available to researchers in person in Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries.

If you have any questions about these or other collections in the Digital Media Repository, please feel free to contact:

John Straw
Assistant Dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections and Digital
Media
Repository Project Coordinator
Ball State University Libraries
Alexander M. Bracken Library
Muncie, IN 47306
jstraw@bsu.edu

CFP 2011 Big Berks Conference

2010-01-29T13:34:00.000-08:00

The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians is holding its next conference at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on June 9-12, 2011.

2011 marks the 15th Berkshire Conference on the History of Women and the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, which was first celebrated in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland and is now honored by more than sixty countries around the globe. The choice of “Generations” reflects this transnational intellectual, political, and organizational heritage as well as a desire to explore related questions such as:

How have women’s generative experiences – from production and reproduction to creativity and alliance building – varied across time and space? How have these been appropriated and represented by contemporaries and scholars alike?
What are the politics of “generation”? Who is encouraged? Who is condemned or discouraged? How has this changed over time?
Is a global perspective compatible with generational (in the genealogical sense) approaches to the past that tend to reinscribe national/regional/racial boundaries?
What challenges do historians of women, gender, and sexuality face as these fields and their practitioners mature?

To engender further, open-ended engagement with these and other issues, the 2011 conference will include workshops dedicated to discussing precirculated papers on questions and problems (epistemological, methodological, substantive) provoked by the notion of "Generations."

The process for submitting and vetting papers and panels has changed substantially from previous years, so please read the instructions carefully. To encourage transnational discussions, panels will be principally organized along thematic rather than national lines and therefore proposals will be vetted by a transnational group of scholars with expertise in a particular thematic, rather than geographic, field. Preference will be given to discussions of any topic across national boundaries and to work that addresses sexuality, race, and labor in any context, with special consideration for pre-modern (ancient, medieval, early modern) periods. However, unattached papers and proposals that fall within a single nation/region or the modern period will also be given full consideration. As a forum dedicated to encouraging innovative, interdisciplinary scholarship and transnational conversation, the Berkshire conference continues to encourage submissions from graduate students, international scholars, independent scholars, filmmakers, and to welcome a variety of disciplinary perspectives.

Proposals must be submitted electronically via the Berkshire Conference website: http://www.berksconference.org. If you have questions about the most appropriate subcommittee for your proposal, please direct them to Madhavi Kale (mkale@brynmawr.edu). For problems with the electronic submission, please contact Zain Lakhani (zlakhani@sas.upenn.edu).

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: March 1, 2010.

Thematic Subcommittees & Chairs

Beauty and the Body, Stephanie Camp
Economies, Labors, and Consumption, Tracey Deutsch
Health and Medicine, Julie Livingston
Migrations: Race, Gender and Activism, Annelise Orleck
Politics and the State, Margot Canaday
Race in Global Perspective, Marilyn Lake
Religion: Belief, Practice, Communities, Marion Katz and Anthea Butler
Sexuality, Leisa Meyer and Anjali Aarondaker
War, Violence, and Terror, Anupama Rao
Youth and Aging, Margaret Jacobs

Individual Papers: Although we prefer proposals to be submitted for complete panels, roundtables or workshops, we always accept some single paper proposals. The submission file should include your name, paper title, and a 250-word abstract. Please also submit a short c.v.

Alternative Session Proposals: Proposals for presentations in formats other than that of conventional conference papers (films, performances, poster sessions, for example) are welcome (and subject to/contingent on the availability of facilities at the conference site). Such proposals should clearly indicate the specific requirements for their exhibition/performance/display (audio/visual setup or auditorium/studio space, for example).

Panels: Two or three papers of no more than 20 minutes each, chair, and a separate discussant. The submission file should include the author, title, and a 250-word abstract for each paper as well as a panel title, the organizer's name, and a 500-word summary abstract. Please submit a short c.v. for each participant.

Roundtables: Four to seven participants, brief presentations, with a focus on collegial discussion within the group and between the group and the audience. The submission file should include the roundtable's title, the organizer's name, a 500-word summary abstract, and a list of the participants with a brief description of their contribution to the roundtable. Please submit a short c.v. for each participant.

Workshops: Six to eight pre-circulated papers, with a chair and a separate discussant. Papers will be due April 30, 2011, and will be pre-circulated by posting on a website accessible to all Berkshire Conference registrants. Rather than presenting the papers themselves in the session, participants and audience members will spend the time discussing papers they have already read. Workshops are intended to provide time and space at the Berks for scholars working on similar ideas and themes to share pre-circulated papers and have a conversation. The workshops might be particularly useful for scholars who wish to share and exchange contributions that could be published as an edited collection. The submission file should include the author, title, and a 250-word abstract for each paper as well as a panel title, the organizer's name, and a 500-word summary abstract. Please submit a short c.v. for each participant.

Sallie Bingham Center Travel Grants Due January 29

2010-01-12T10:44:00.000-08:00

The Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, part of the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University, announces the availability of Mary Lily Research Grants for research travel to our collections.

The Sallie Bingham Center documents the public and private lives of women through a wide variety of published and unpublished sources. Collections of personal papers, family papers, and organizational records complement print sources such as books and periodicals. Particular strengths of the Sallie Bingham Center are feminism in the U.S., women's prescriptive literature from the 19th & 20th centuries, girls' literature, zines, artist's books by women, gender & sexuality, and the history & culture of women in the South.

Mary Lily Research grants are for undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and independent scholars conducting research using collections held by the Sallie Bingham Center. Grant money may be used for travel, photocopying, and living expenses while pursuing research at the Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library. Applicants must live outside of a 50-mile radius from Durham, NC. The maximum award per applicant is $1,000.

The deadline for application is January 29, 2010, and recipients will be announced in March 2010. For more information and the application form, please visit: http://library.duke.edu/specialcollections/bingham/grants

HerStory 360° Challenge

2010-01-08T12:18:00.000-08:00

Beginning January 1, 2010, and continuing each day for 90 days until the end of Women's History Month, the HerStory 360° Challenge, on the HerStory Scrapbook website (www.herstoryscrapbook.com), will present 90 stories of 90 women who fought for women's suffrage. The 2010 HerStory 360° Challenge commemorates the 30th anniversary of Women's History Month and the 90th Anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment, by providing internet-access to original historical sources.

During the month of February, which is Black History Month, the HerStory 360° Challenge will focus on African-American women. Because black women were often marginalized in, or left out entirely from, the history texts written by white suffragists and the mainstream media, we are fortunate that Google Books has recently digitalized The Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP, which was first published in 1910.

Please consider including the HerStory Scrapbook as a reference in your women’s history or women’s studies courses. And, let your colleagues know about the HerStory Scrapbook. The HerStory Scrapbook has been recommended by the National Women’s History Project.

via Nancy McDonald
www.herstoryscrapbook.com

WCRT-endorsed panel accepted for SAA 2010

2009-12-09T11:50:00.001-08:00

We are pleased to announce that the session "Beyond the Ivory Tower: Archival Collaboration, Community Partnerships, and Access Issues Building Women's Collections" was accepted for SAA's 2010 annual meeting in Washington, DC. The participants include T-Kay Sangwand, Rebecca Johnson Melvin, and Elizabeth Myers, with Danelle Moon serving as the panel chair.

Archivists are working in greater numbers in complex collaborations with local communities to identify, obtain, and provide access to archival records. This panel will explore three models where collection development and documentation strategies merged under the umbrella of community collaboration. The panelists will further demonstrate how successful projects identified and facilitated access to at-risk materials, especially those related to women's second wave feminism, African-American, Latina, and Lesbian women.

Annual Report, 2008-2009

2009-10-01T08:15:00.000-07:00

Greetings! Here is a copy of the WCRT Annual Report submitted to SAA following the annual meeting in August:

Co-Chairs: Danelle Moon and Kelly Wooten

Annual Meeting: 5:30-7:30, August 12, 2009, Austin, Texas

Annual Meeting Minutes:

The WCRT convened at 5:30 with 17 members and 10 additional panel attendees. WCRT and LAGAR co-sponsored a panel presentation that included Kelly Kerbow Hudson, Nikki Thomas, and English Professor Lisa Moore. The session provided collection highlights from the Benson Latin American Collection and from the UT San Antonio "Women & Gender Project," as well as a very interesting discussion on how scholars use archival resources.

The business meeting followed the panel. The Program Committee representative, Nancy Beaumont, gave a brief presentation on the 2010 conference. Following her talk, the members/attendees introduced themselves and we discussed the continuation of the currant co-chair leadership, which was approved. In addition, we passed a resolution to elect two vice-chairs, as a means to mentor new roundtable leaders for 2010-2011.

Leadership for 2009-2010:

Danelle Moon, San Jose State University: Co-Chair
Kelly Wooton, Duke University: Co-Chair
Cassandra (Cassie) Schmitt, University of Oregon: Vice Chair
Meghan Lyon, Duke University: Vice Chair

We also talked about developing a WCRT blog that we could use to publicize events, exhibits, new collections, lecture series, and so on. The Chairs/Vice Chairs will work on developing a blog platform, with basic rules that we can use to improve communication. In order to create a diverse blog, we talked about using the membership list to request individuals to write a brief summary of a specific collection, initiative, exhibit, etc. We need some feedback from the membership list to confirm interest in the blog and solicitation of contributors. In the meantime, we will begin to work on developing a blog for the roundtable, and will send out notification when it is complete (late September or early October).

2010 SAA Panels:

We discussed various panel presentation ideas for SAA 2010 (Washington, D.C.), and we heard from the program committee on the scope of the conference and deadlines. We have not received any proposals to endorse, but we are confident that we will have at least one panel if not two that we can endorse in October.

WCRT offers its sincere thanks to LAGAR for co-sponsoring the panel presentation.

Welcome to the WCRT Blog!

2009-09-28T05:15:00.001-07:00

The Women's Collections Roundtable promotes the preservation and research use of records documenting women and networks archivists with holdings concerning or created by women. We are a part of the Society of American Archivists, North America's oldest and largest national archival professional association.

We have decided to start this blog as an easy way to update members on Roundtable activities, as well as to post announcements, links, stories, and other news related to women's collections. We invite you to subscribe to the blog so that you receive notifications of new posts. For more information about WCRT, please visit our homepage.

(Photo credit: LOC)