Schedule of Sessions

Friday, May 27

8:00-5:00

• Vendor Exhibitions

8:30 am

• Welcome

 8:45

• Opening Plenary Session

“A Bridge to the Future: Committing Intentional Acts of Memory”

Richard Pearce-Moses, Director of Digital Government Information, Archive and Public Records, Arizona State Library

Popular culture views archivists as the keepers of old things. Archivists have a cultural mandate to preserve the historical record, but how we fulfill that mandate must change.  Given the ephemeral nature of electronic records, we must shift our focus from records of the past.  What of the present needs to be remembered for future users?  Archivists must preserve those materials that will be a bridge from the future to the past.

9:30 

Break

Concurrent Sessions

10:00am to 11:30 

1. Building Bridges from Bytes: Collections Access through Digitization

Kathlene Ferris, University of New Mexico
Pat Vince, LOUISiana Digital Library
Howard Margot, New Orleans Notarial Archives Research Center

This session explores digitization efforts from our region and features panelists discussing multi-state, state, and local projects and related topics, including working in a collaborative environment, metadata standards, the production of digital images, target audiences, and cost/benefit analysis of digitization.

2. WPA 70th Anniversary: A New Deal for Preservation and Access

Gerald F. Patout, Jr., The Historic New Orleans Collection
Florence M. Jumonville, University of New Orleans
Alan Harris Stein, New Orleans Public Library and National New Deal Preservation Association Advisory Board

While the WPA is known for its many fine roads and bridges, there were many word-workers too. This panel will discuss the archival legacy of WPA projects in Louisiana and current efforts of and among repositories to preserve, promote, and improve access to these records, which include the New Orleans obituary file, the papers of Marcus Bruce Christian (head of the African-American Writers’ Program in Louisiana) and the records of the Federal Writers’ Project held in various state depositories.

3. Political Papers: Processing and Outreach for Political Papers

Bernard Forrester, Texas Southern University
Erin Lawrimore, University of Tennessee
Bobby Holt, University of Tennessee
Carol Martin, Harry S. Truman Library
Danelle Moon, San Jose State University

This session will examine the unique challenges associated with processing political collections, from mayor’s records to presidential papers, and conducting outreach for these collections. Among the topics to be covered are meeting the demands of processing and servicing high profile political collections, the volume of modern political collections and the new appraisal strategies they require, and a model for partnerships between libraries and policy and research centers to conduct outreach for political collections.

Lunch on your own

1:30 pm -3:00 pm

4. Federal Funding Opportunities for Archivists and Archives

Kathleen M. Williams, National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC)
Joseph B. Herring, National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Michael Kelly, Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico
Elizabeth H. Dow, PhD, School of Library and Information Services, Louisiana State University

Representatives from NHPRC and NEH and an NEH grant reviewer will offer insights into the federal grant review process, suggest ways to approach that process successfully, discuss current agency emphases and future potential grant opportunities for organizations and individuals, and report on Grants.gov, a federally-coordinated initiative which allows applicants to find and apply for grants online across multiple granting agencies.  A participant in the NEH-funded Rocky Mountain Online Archive will share his perspectives on planning and implementing a multi-state EAD collaborative project with grant funds.

5. Collecting the Papers of Early Texas Artists:  Cooperative Efforts and Specific Cases

Claudia Rivers, University of Texas at El Paso
William Cheek, Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art 
Laura Hollingshead, Special Collections, University of Texas at El Paso
Sue Soy, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library

Session participants discuss the Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art’s collaborative effort to collect the papers of early Texas artists, challenges specific to acquiring and processing artists’ papers, and the outreach opportunities they provided the Austin History Center through their acquisitions initiative, "Artists Among Us."  

6. The Functional Approach to Retention Scheduling: Bridging the Gaps Between Information Professionals

Wendy McLain, CRM, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality
Jennifer Greer, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality  

This panel discussion will explore the benefits of utilizing a functional approach to retention scheduling at a major state agency.  The purpose of this session is to bring to light the benefits of incorporating archival acquisition practices with a functional approach to records management. Areas to be covered include a comparison of traditional and functional approaches to retention scheduling, the converging roles of Information Management (IM) professionals (including records managers, archivists, and librarians), utilizing standards and best practices, and team building and collaboration.

Break

3:00 (Sponsored by the Louisiana State University Libraries)

3:30 pm -5:00 pm

7. Political Papers:  Acquisitions and Donor Relations

Brady M. Banta, Ph.D., CA, Arkansas State University
Ramona Hutchinson, Lamar University
Pati Threatt, McNeese State University
Chuck Wilson, University of California Los Angeles

This session will examine collaborative efforts in California (the California Political papers Consortium) among repositories to acquire and develop cooperative standards for the collection of political papers within the state and between a repository and volunteers to document Southwest Louisiana’s legislative delegation.   Additionally, two case studies of political collections focus on ownership issues and processing

8. New Tricks from an Old Dog: Local Government Archives in Texas

John H. Slate, CA, Dallas Municipal Archives
Sarah Canby Jackson, CA, Harris County Archives
John R. Wheat, Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin

Local government archives are an underutilized resource. Their usefulness in social history, political history, and the history of disappeared communities is frequently overlooked.  The papers explore the use of local government archives from three perspectives: municipal, county, and colonial local governments.

9. Bridges of Memory: New Directions in Oral History

Jennifer Abraham, T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, LSU
Laura Thomson, Amistad Research Center
Bruce Rayburn, Hogan Jazz Archives, Tulane University

Members of the New Orleans Oral History Roundtable will discuss key issues surrounding the collection, preservation, and provision of access to oral history collections, including copyright, digitization, needs assessment, preservation and migration of various av formats, standardization of finding aids and metadata, and interview techniques and protocols for forms, releases, etc. to be used by archivists who have oral history collections and/or are conducting surveys and field work. Using oral history for public outreach and interdisciplinary collaborations will also be discussed.  An oral history workshop will be conducted as part of this presentation

Saturday, May 28, 2005

Annual Business Meeting

7:30 am  Breakfast buffet opens

8:00 am

Speaker

"Gumbo Republic: Louisiana's Extraordinary Politics"

Dr. Wayne Parent, Associate Professor and Chair, Dept. of Political Science, LSU

In the popular American imagination, Louisiana may come closer than any other state to offering the experience of a foreign culture—a Spanish-moss-draped netherland filled with friendly but somewhat mysterious Cajuns, seething creature-infested swamps, the whirling masked chaos of Mardi Gras, seductive N’awlins cadences, and most vividly, the train wreck of Louisiana politics: cash-under-the-table shenanigans, fat-and-sassy environmental polluters, devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea electoral choices like the 1991 gubernatorial runoff between the Klan-tainted David Duke and the criminally indicted Edwin Edwards. Wayne Parent sees all of this clearly with both an entertainer’s eye and a social scientist’s rigor.  A native of Baton Rouge, Parent is a frequent commentator on national and Louisiana politics for the local, state, and national media and specializes in electoral coalitions, black politics and Southern politics. (excerpted from LSU Press catalog for his new book, Inside the Carnival: Unmasking Louisiana Politics.)

8:30 am -10:15 am

Business Meeting

SLOTTO!

Concurrent Sessions

10:30 am –12:00 pm

10. Preserving Histories: The Work of State Historical Records Advisory Boards

Daphne Arnaiz-DeLeon, New Mexico State Records Center and Archives
Randy Forrester, New Mexico Historical Records Advisory Board
Gerrianne Schaad, University of Texas-San Antonio
Florent Hardy, Louisiana State Archives
Kathleen M. Williams, National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC)

State Historical Records Advisory Boards support the preservation of historical records, an action that allows the people of each state to ensure that their stories will be preserved for future generations. This session will present and discuss the evolution of SHRABs and Board activities within New Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana. Kathleen Williams from NHPRC will discuss how the Commission works through the SHRABs. 

11. Records of Reconstruction: Records of Challenge from the Old to the New South

Mary Linn Wernet, CA, Cammie G. Henry Research Center, Northwestern State University
Brenda Square, CA, MLIS, Amistad Research Center
Marie Windell, CA, University of New Orleans

During the fourteen years of Reconstruction in Louisiana, 1863-1877, the state’s old order based on slavery, restrictive education, and elite plantation society was turned upside down. The American Missionary Association (AMA), the Louisiana Supreme Court, and the Freedmen’s Bureau were instrumental in meeting these new challenges and building the bridges to a new South.  This session highlights the rich sources for studying America’s first civil rights movement found in the records of the AMA, the Freedmen’s Bureau in Louisiana, and the Appeals to the Louisiana Supreme Court.

  12.  Student Sessions