Papers Panel: Collections and Culture – Case Studies on Archives and Place

Thursday, June 21
1:45 pm - 3:15 pm
Astor Ballroom III

Papers Panel: Collections and Culture – Case Studies on Archives and Place

Sponsored by Northeast Document Conservation Center

Paper 1: Engaging the Offbeat: A Case Study in Creating a Local Music Archive as a Cultural Space
Christie Lutz – New Jersey Regional Studies Librarian and Head of Public Services, Rutgers University

Special collections have been developing non-traditional collections rooted in current and recent popular culture. While we continue to build on popular collections of the past, this newer collecting area converges around creative output as reflected in, for example, the work of zinesters and punk and hip-hop artists. In building such collections, curators and librarians develop collections that document the “now” and meet the interests of scholars, students, and the non-traditional audiences who are the creators and consumers of this material. This paper focuses on the last group, the donors and users who might not normally enter the library or see it as a space that can be a location of meaning, memory and community for them, through the lens of the New Brunswick Music Scene Archive founded at Special Collections and University Archives at Rutgers University Libraries in 2015.

Paper 2: Trans-Atlantic Exchange: The Ecole Nationale De Chartes and The Historic New Orleans Collection
Alfred E. Lemmon, Ph.D., Director, Williams Research Center of The Historic New Orleans Collection

The cooperative internship program of The Historic New Orleans Collection and the Ecole nationale des chartes was established in 2008. Every year since 2008, The Historic New Orleans Collection has hosted 2 three-month interns from the Ecole nationale. One intern is a traditional archival student, while the other is enrolled in a program specializing in emerging archival technology.

Since the establishment of the program, students have cataloged the extensive archive of the 19th century New Orleans German benevolent societies and a wide variety of other manuscript collections. Students specializing in emerging technologies have worked on a variety of projects designed for website dissemination. One such is example is A Guide to French Louisiana Manuscripts: An expanded and revised edition of the 1926 Surrey Calendar with Appendices (https://www.hnoc.org/surrey/).

The paper will focus on the value of such a program to both the host institution and the student with particular emphasis on the requirements necessary for its success.