Re-Imagining Appraisal in Changing Contexts: Considerations and Case Studies on Deaccessioning

Appraisal is one of the most proactive, necessary, and challenging aspects of archival work. Appraisal decisions take place within the contexts of professional standards and ethics; archives’ missions and policies; applicable records schedules and regulations; and individual archivist knowledge and experience. However, as these contexts change, so may appraisal decisions, which sometimes results in deaccessioning. In this session, a panel of four academic archivists and one government archivist will present deaccessioning frameworks and specific experiences. Presentations will address decision-making guidelines for reappraisal and disposition; legal and governmental considerations; working with limited information and resources; considerations when offered a deaccessioned collection from another repository; and situations related to returning collections to donors. Collectively, the panel will offer examples of archivists re-thinking past selection decisions and encourage audience members to re-imagine appraisal and deaccessioning in their own repositories.

Preserving America’s Languages: Practical Advice for Managing Audiovisual Grant Projects

Moving image and sound collections offer a unique set of challenges for archives, ranging from material preservation issues to expensive reformatting concerns. The collections themselves, however, often contain rare content of national and international importance that will be forever lost if institutions do not actively work to overcome these challenges.

This panel will introduce the audience to two successful A/V projects at two institutions: the first, providing access to one of the nation’s only public television series broadcast entirely in French and serving a local French-speaking audience; the second, field recordings of the first African-American linguist, whose research connecting the languages of the Americas and West Africa launched a whole new field of study. The project managers will present the challenges of working with unique indigenous and foreign language collections and give practical tips for audiovisual project planning and management, from seeking funding to making recordings available online.

Maintaining Vision in the Midst of Disaster: Coming Together to Save a Family’s Legacy

Abstract: For many of us, a house fire numbers among our worst nightmares. Losing precious memories is horrifying for anyone, but when the affected household is potentially losing the last remaining links they have to their family who survived or perished in the Holocaust, the stakes are even higher. This panel presentation will explore how a team came together to rescue a collection of precious memories after a catastrophic fire and will explore how relationship and vision helped form an ideal partnership between collecting archivist, processing archivist, donor, and conservator. Join Felicia Williamson, Director of Library & Archives at the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, Robynn Amaba, Archives Assistant at the DHHRM and the processor of this collection, Tish Brewer, the professional conservator responsible for conserving damaged photos and documents, and the donor, a second generation survivor who followed her gut and took the best approach to saving her family’s legacy following a four alarm fire at her home.

Evolving Practices for Open Access

This session will provide a broad look at some of the ways Open Access is impacting higher education in the areas of scholarship, publishing, teaching, and library & information services. John Sherer will discuss the Sustainable History Monograph pilot project from the UNC Press, which offers a new funding model and workflows for university press monographs. Katherine D. Harris will discuss the risks and rewards of OA publishing for professional advancement in literature and the digital humanities.  And Micah Vandegrift will share his recent work on documenting public humanities in and with libraries.