Archives Month Advocacy and Outreach

[Margaret Kidd]

Hello all,

I am on the Virginia Archives Month committee and we are currently working to come up with new ideas on how to get more out of Archives Month. By the time the Boston meeting rolls around I think that we could share our successes (and failures) and have a discussion about outreach and advocacy. I have never tried to come up with a session proposal before, but if anyone out there is interested in a session on this topic I would love to work with them. 

[rgrover...@gmail.com]

For the first time, I've committed to promoting Archives Month at my small college library. I could offer an on the ground case study, if you would be willing to talk about more big picture planning and mobilization. I'm sure there are other pieces we could fill in here.

It might also be helpful to conduct more of an open forum on outreach activities. I'm planning to attend the advocacy workshop at SAA DC in August and hopefully develop some ideas there.

[jejoh...@vcu.edu]

If we're moving away from specifically Archives Month outreach to general outreach, I'd be willing to talk about my experience doing outreach at my previous job at an HBCU in a very small department. Maybe along the lines of "no funding, few people, little support- what we made work". While our outreach included Archives Month activities as much as possible, much of the work was done outside of that arena. I hope this fits in with where you're hoping to take the session, or can be tweaked to make it work, and hopefully our experiences with outreach are unique enough to not simply reiterate well-trod ground.

[harris...@gmail.com]

Hi Margaret, as a fellow committee member, I'd be happy to help in any way that I can. Just seeing this now, but if you still want to put something together, let's talk about it.

[Margaret Kidd]

Thanks Jessica. Yes it can most certainly be something that moves beyond Archives Month. Also it always good to hear about experiences had by archivist at small and/or underfunded institutions. We all have to do so much with so little!