Rebecca @ SNCA/SCAA

I attended the SNCA conference last week for a quick, enjoyable, and interesting experience. The first session I attended was “To Be an Archivist in the Carolinas in These Times: An Informal, Moderated, Discussion” moderated by Randi Beem, Adreonna Bennett, and Dawn Schmitz (all from UNC-Charlotte). I enjoyed the honest reflections that colleagues and myself engaged in, but also the hopeful and industrious spirit with which archivists across North and South Carolina are approaching their work in these unprecedented and changing times.

Another session I attended was “Outreach from Various Angles” with a variety of archivists engaging in outreach. The presenter I was most interested in was Jonathan Lawler, Southeast Baptist Theological Seminary, Archivist and Digital Collections Manager and his presentation “To Engage, Encourage, and Edify: Community Outreach to Preserve Local Baptist Church History.” Jonathan’s work is the SEBTS counterpart to the NC Baptist Historical Collection work we do here at ZSR, so I was interested to hear about his work collecting local NC Baptist church records and histories. He presented his collecting strategies and outreach efforts and the results he has made for the collection at SEBTS. I am excited to follow up with him to learn more about his project and how we can collaborate going forward to serve NC Baptist history researchers.

I do want to mention the many ZSR connections I had during the SNCA conference. Sam’s Lightning talk “Many Minds Make Light Work: Agile Processing in Archives” was well-received. We have already had a successful session on agile processing in SCA, and I’m excited for Sam to implement this new way of working. I also had the opportunity to see former ZSR faculty member Dr. Heather Barnes and her panel talk “Leveling Up: Archives Education, Technology, and Employer Expectations.” This was a great representation of her and her graduate assistant presenting their research to understand the MLIS landscape and apply that to her work at NC Central University. And finally, I had a social catch up with former colleague Stephanie Bennett, Director of Center for Southeast North Carolina Archives & History/ Associate Director of Library Specialized Collections. What a great representation of ZSR colleagues across the varied landscape of archives and librarianship in North Carolina!

I am happy to discuss my experiences at SNCA further and thank the Dean’s office for the opportunity to attend the conference.

Sam @ SNCA/SCAA

As a newcomer to North Carolina, this was my first SNCA (and SCAA) conference, but one that I’ve been looking forward to ever since it was announced. I attended the second day only and attended and spoke during the “Application of Technology and Technology Concepts” lightning round and then joined the “Oral Histories: From Start to Finish” workshop presented by Jennifer Daugherty (Head of the North Carolina Collection, East Carolina University).

The lightning round panel members included some digital oriented archives folks and spoke on a variety of issues ranging from the successful utilization of Wikipedia to direct users to finding aids and collections resources (John Dunning, Digital Archivist, East Carolina University) to the evolving landscape of analytics in the age of bots (Laura Lethers, Digital Project Librarian, North Carolina State University). Dr. Heather Barnes of North Carolina Central University and graduate assistant A. Plotnick presented a fascinating project relating archives education, technology, and employer expectations, doing a deep dive into job descriptions in our widely varying and evolving field, then Christa Kavanagh (Mukurtu Training and Support Specialist) presented on the content management system Mukurtu 4, showing its features as it relates to community archiving and reparative description. I then did a presentation on agile project management in archives, a shortened version of the one I did at the Best Practices Exchange earlier in May. I will soon write a whole blog post about that, so stay tuned for more information on what that is all about.

The oral history workshop was also excellent, where Jennifer Daughtery had a whole two hours to talk about her vast experience preparing for, conducting, and preserving oral histories, providing a lot of great resources along the way. Not only did she comment on the more cut-and-dry logistical aspects of approaching an oral history project, but spent a lot of time discussing the level of care you as the interviewer need to bring to the table, understanding that it is essential to think about it as an opportunity for the interviewee and their community to benefit from the project, how to prepare yourself and the interviewee for what could be a difficult but empowering conversation, in addition to a lot of really helpful practical advice about how sound recording works and the tools that can help you to publish an interview that everyone is proud of.

All in all, it was a short, but great experience starting to get to know our colleagues across the Carolinas, and especially learning more about how to conduct oral histories from someone who has a lot of experience, as it is something that we engage with here in SCA. I look forward to attending the next meeting and to become more and more involved with our wonderful regional and state organizations more generally. I always find that, in many respects, the more local, the better!