Registration is now open for SCAA's 2014 Annual Conference:Archives and the Natural Environment, to be held at Newberry College in Newberry, SC, on Friday, October 10, 2014.
Click here to register!
The theme of this year's annual meeting is Archives and the Natural Environment. Informative sessions will include presentations on herbaria as archives, updating archival workflows in established institutions, examining the impact of natural disasters on repositories, and documenting architectural collections in South Carolina archives. Our plenary address will be given by Dr. Patrick McMillan, professor at Clemson University and Director of the South Carolina Botanical Garden.
Tentative Schedule
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Registration
9:00 AM Optional Newberry Archives Tour
10:15 AM - 11:00 AM Sessions IA, IB & II
11:15 AM - 12:00 PM Sessions III & IV
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Lunch
12:30 PM Business Meeting
1:00 PM Plenary Speaker
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Session V
Session IA
Archives and Natural Disasters – Preserving MUSC’s Hurricane Hugo Experiences
Brooke Fox, MUSC University Archives
The September 21, 1989 landfall of Hurricane Hugo greatly impacted the campus of the Medical University of South Carolina. This presentation will discuss the University Archives’ efforts to document the bravery of hospital, faculty and maintenance staff as they protected people and facilities before, during, and after the storm. Ms. Fox will highlight efforts in soliciting records and photographs as well as conducting oral history interviews for inclusion in the University Archives. In addition she will discuss the development of exhibits about the storm.
Session IB
Connecting the Dots: The Role of the Historic Properties Information Coordinator
Morgan Jones, South Carolina Department of Archives and History
In the past year, South Carolina’s Department of Archives and History created an entirely new position for the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO): The Historic Properties Information Coordinator. This position was created and filled in order to bridge the gap between users and historic property information. While the tasks of that position were distributed among other staff members, the division of labor only allowed the office to keep up with the existing workload. This Historic Properties Information Coordinator will be responsible for designing an online searchable database of historic property information, managing the digitization and online presentation of associated records, and enabling the electronic submission of materials from surveyors. This presentation will discuss how archival skills, strategies, and standards contribute to a project that involves so many different types of professionals including archaeologists, architectural historians, planners, preservationists, public historians and surveyors. Ms. Jones will also discuss how her experiences with these intersecting professions have informed her experience as an archivist.
Session II
The Digital Divide: Users, Archival Traditions and a Digital Future
Bobbi Bischoff, Hillary Hudson, Travis Wagner and Nicole Oderisi, USC SLIS
As archives move forward into the next century, students here at University of South Carolina have concerns about archive traditions and the future of digital archiving. Concerns include the digital impact on copyright, film preservation, and the divide between what students know and what employers want.
Session III
It’s Never Too Late to Mend: Updating Archival Workflows in Established Institutions
Joshua Minor, College of Charleston Special Collections & Aaron Spelbring, Avery Research Center
In this panel, Joshua Minor, Manager of Archival Processing at the College of Charleston and Aaron Spelbring, Manager of Archival Services at the Avery Research Center will discuss their experiences updating processing strategies in established institutions where standardized, consistent archival workflows, policies, and priorities have only been partially implemented due to limited resources and staff. Minor and Spelbring will examine the strategies used and the techniques implemented in both institutions as well as some of the challenges associated with this type of operational change.
Session IV
Documenting the “Mother Art” in South Carolina: Architectural Collections at Clemson University and the University of South Carolina.”
Beth Bilderback, University of South Carolina and Jim Cross, Clemson University
Frank Lloyd Wright once said “the mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.” The built environment is such an integral part of our lives that we do not give it a second thought. Unless, as archivists, we have architectural records in our collections. The records, however, are not the glamour collections that provide great PR or that fit neatly into fancy archival boxes to show a donor. They are difficult to preserve and take up too much precious storage space. Yet, these records are an important part of our history and are used by a variety of researchers: architects, gardeners, building managers, home owners, historians, students, etc. In this session, Jim Cross will talk about the new architectural archives at Clemson that grew out of an initiative with the SC Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, Clemson and USC. Beth Bilderback will talk about the South Caroliniana Library’s collection of landscape architect Robert Marvin among others.
Plenary Speaker
Rediscovering Catesby’s Carolina
Dr. Patrick McMillan, Clemson University
Mark Catesby, an intrepid explorer and naturalist arrived in South Carolina in 1722 and spent over two years traveling far beyond the English settlements documenting and describing the marvels of the wild interior of Carolina. His Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Island is well-known for its dazzling illustrations and tales, but this is only part of the story. The collections sent back to England that now reside at Oxford and in the Sloane Herbarium at the Natural History Museum, London complete the description of what South Carolina was like during the first decades of European settlement. Join Patrick as he takes us back in time to examine a Carolina that most of us would find quite foreign today and learn just how powerful our choices are in transforming the world around us.
Session V
Herbaria as Archives: Structure, Function, and Transformation of Botanical Research Collection
Dr. Charles Horn, Newberry College – Herrick Brown, A.C. Moore Herbarium, USC – Kate Foster Boyd, University of South Carolina
Herbarium collections throughout South Carolina capture and preserve the history and current dynamics of plant populations throughout the state. This session will highlight the composition and value of these collections. Processing, identifying and organizing botanical specimens, developing databases for storage and retrieval of information on the physical collections for researchers and staff, climate control and preservation all present unique challenges for herbarium curators.