Blog and Newsletter

Special Collections librarians and archivists who are involved in data collection for their units are invited to participate in a research study about the use of standardized statistical measures.  

The study is being conducted by Melanie Griffin, Assistant Head of Special Collections at the University of Arkansas Libraries, and Amanda Hawk, Head of Public and Research Services for Special Collections at Louisiana State University Libraries. 

To participate, you must be 18 years or older and a current employee at a special collections library or archive. Only one response per institution is recommended.  

The survey will take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete.  Participation is completely voluntary, and you may quit the survey at any time.  

The results will be reported for the group of respondents as a whole. No identifying institutional information will be disclosed. 

The deadline to complete the survey is March 19, 2021. 

Access the survey: http://lsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_d0ejbucEhhWn8nX

Society of American Archivists

Philip M. Hamer and Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Award

Please excuse cross-postings. 

The Philip M. Hamer and Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Award Subcommittee of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) seeks nominations for the 2021 award.

This Philip M. Hamer and Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Award recognizes an archivist, editor, group of individuals, or institution that has increased public awareness of a specific body of documents (which can be a specific archival collection or thematic aggregation) through compilation, transcription, exhibition, or public presentation of archives or manuscript materials for educational, instructional, or other public purpose. Work that has had an impact on a local, regional, national, and/or international level is welcomed.

Recent winners include:

• 2020: Laura Wagner, Rubenstein Library, Duke University (Radio Haiti)

• 2019:  Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections for Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center

• 2018: Find & Connect, eScholarship Research Centre

• 2017: Center for Home Movies

• 2016: South Asian American Digital Archive

Eligibility:

Individual archivists and editors, groups of individuals, organizations. This award is open to nominees within and outside of the United States, and is not limited to SAA members.

Prize:

A certificate and a cash prize of $500.

Application Deadline:

All nominations shall be submitted to SAA by February 28 of each year. 

For more information on this award, including the nomination form, please go to http://www2.archivists.org/governance/handbook/section12-hamer

For more information on SAA awards and the nominations process, please go to https://www2.archivists.org/aboutsaa/awardsandscholarships. 

It is that time of year again! I am reaching out as your state "captain" for the American Association for State and Local History Leadership in History Awards program.  

For over seventy years, AASLH has given Leadership in History Awards to establish and encourage standards of excellence in the collection, preservation, and interpretation of state and local history in order to make the past more meaningful to all people.

By publicly recognizing superior and innovative achievements, the Leadership in History Award winners serve as models and inspirations for others in the field. We offer awards for many different types of projects, including publications, exhibits, public programming, and more. Award winners come from all over the country, from organizations of all kinds, sizes, and budgets.

This awards program, with the exception of the Publications category, is non-competitive, meaning your nomination is not in competition with others for a finite amount of awards. Your nomination is evaluated alone on its own merits. We encourage nominations from small and all-volunteer organizations.

Nominations are due March 1, and more details can be found here:

https://aaslh.org/programs/leadership-in-history-awards/

Details about the nomination process:

https://cdn.aaslh.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/02132132/AASLH-Leadership-in-History-Awards-Manual-2021.pdf

Please reach out to me, Julia Gray, at riversidemuseumsolutions@gmail.com if you are thinking about submitting a nomination!

The Maine Arts Commission has announced its new grant lineup. The agency staff have been busy updating all of the information online and getting the Grants Management System ready for applications. Any artist or organization interested in applying should read the updated guidelines, and if you need help, be sure to go to the Grants Help page with its improved help documents.

Some of the highlights for this cycle include: Two NEW COVID relief grants; one for artists and one for organizations. These will have a February 18 deadline. Relief for Organizations ($4k) and the Resilience Artist Grant ($1k). The deadline for both grants is February 18.  The Organization Partnership application has a new February 18 deadline. This is a month earlier than the previous year, so Partnership applicants have less time to apply. Also, Partnership Grant requirements have changed, making it easier for small and mid-sized organizations to apply.  NEW Springboard Artist Grant (1.5k) for artists who have not been previously awarded by the Maine Arts Commission. We hope this makes funding more accessible to emerging artists or people new to the grant writing process.  The CCED2 implementation grant will not be offered, but the CCED 1 will still be offered. This grant is now called the Cultural Planning Grant.  We have removed the cash/in-kind match requirement for Organization Grants. As part of making things easier for applicants during the COVID-19 public health emergency. Agency staff is always available to discuss your application ideas and answer any questions about requirements or the process. Please don’t wait for the day before the deadline to start your application. We are looking forward working with you and hearing about your project proposals.

The National Park Service’s Underrepresented Community Grant Program (URC) works towards diversifying the nominations submitted to the National Register of Historic Places. URC grants are funded by the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF), and are administered by the NPS. Projects include surveys and inventories of historic properties associated with communities underrepresented in the National Register, as well as the development of nominations to the National Register for specific sites.

Congress has appropriated $750,000 in URC funding for FY2020.

Applications are due March 31, 2021

Learn more about URC

Apply to URC via Grants.gov

Please help us to recognize the best among archivists!

Have you read a great new book about archives? Encountered a new documentary publication that is head and shoulders above the rest? Has a new web publication really stood out to you? 

If you have, please consider nominating it for the Society of American Archivists Waldo Gifford Leland Award. Nomination forms, a list of previous winners, and more information are at http://www2.archivists.org/governance/handbook/section12-leland. The due date for nominations is February 28, 2021.

The annual Leland Award – a cash prize and certificate – recognizes “writing of superior excellence and usefulness in the field of archival history, theory, and practice.”  (Please note that periodicals are not eligible.) 

Established in 1959, this award honors American archival pioneer Waldo Gifford Leland (1879-1966), president of the Society of American Archivists in the 1940s and one of the driving forces behind the founding of the National Archives.

SAA’s subcommittees for Awards for Excellence: Contributions to the Archives Profession invite nominations for their 2021 awards. Brief descriptions are provided below. Click on the links for additional information about the criteria and process for each award.

Distinguished Service Award: Recognizes an archival institution, education program, nonprofit organization, or government organization that has provided outstanding service to its public and has made an exemplary contribution to the archives profession.
Eligibility: Any archival institution, archival organization, records center, or manuscript repository, archival education program, or nonprofit or government organization providing service or support to the archives community in North America.
nomination form

Sister M. Claude Lane, O.P., Memorial Award: Recognizes an individual who has made a significant contribution to the field of religious archives.
Eligibility: individual archivists only.
nomination form

Spotlight Award: Recognizes the contributions of individuals who work for the good of the archives profession and of archival collections, and whose work would not typically receive public recognition.
Eligibility: An individual archivist or a group of up to five archivists who have collaborated on a project. Preference is given to archivists working in smaller repositories, especially those without institutional support for professional activities.
nomination form

Diversity Award: Recognizes an individual, group, or institution for outstanding contributions in advancing diversity within the archives profession, SAA, or the archival record. Nominees will have demonstrated significant achievement in the form of activism, education, outreach, publication, service, or other initiatives in the archives field. The award is given based on the long-term impact on improving and promoting diversity as defined in the SAA Statement on Diversity and Inclusion.
Eligibility: An individual, group, or organization.
nomination form

Archival Innovator Award: Recognizes an archivist, a group of archivists, a repository, or an organization that demonstrates the greatest overall current impact on the profession or their communities.
Eligibility: The work should be undertaken within the past three years—it need not be completed, but it must be sufficiently advanced to demonstrate results.
nomination form

Mark A. Greene Emerging Leader Award: Celebrates and encourages early-career archivists who have completed archival work of broad merit, demonstrated significant promise of leadership, and/or performed commendable service to the archives profession. The award is given based on the total experience of the awardee, including knowledge, leadership, participation, and/or achievements in the profession.
Eligibility: Nominees must be SAA members with more than two years and less than ten years of professional archives experience.
nomination form

Deadline: February 28, 2021

The Dead River Area Historical Society’s pictorial 2021 calendars are now available. The cover features “The children of Edward and Alice Scribner: “1956, Judy holding Melissa, then Kathy and Randy holding Brenda.” January – The Village of Stratton Circa March 1924, February – Gas Lombard run by the Eustis Lumber Company, 1918, March – Eleven sleds of white birch belonging to Stratton Mfg Company 1919, April – North Branch Bridge, April 1927 Flood, Stratton, May –William (Bill) Arnold, Eustis Village, circa 1920, June –Dead River Fish and Game Association Map 1940, July – Middle Tow at Booming-out-place, Flagstaff Lake near Stratton, August – Stratton Brook Bridge, Coplin, September-Robert Tague and Mother Nellie (Nettie) Tague, 1945, October – Long Falls Dam Construction, Postcard Photo late 1940’s, November – Dwight Lander and Ray Willard, 1952 at King and Barlett Camps, December – George W. and Florida Bachelder Family photo 1919. The back page of this calendar features a paragraph about each photograph which greatly adds to the value of the calendars.

You can find them for sale at Pine’s Market, Fotter’s Market, and T & L Enterprises, while you are there browse around if they don’t have it you don’t need it.

You can also purchase them through the mail for $8.00 plus $2.00 for postage for each calendar. Send to: Dead River Area Historical Society, PO Box 15, Stratton, Maine 04982. There are many pictorial calendars left from previous years for sale at $2.50 each. You can also order a cook book ($6.00 each or two for $10.00) from the same address as the calendars.

For more information call Mary Henderson at: 246-2271.

MAC is soliciting applications for the 2021 Archie Motley Memorial Scholarship for Students of Color 

(​http://www.midwestarchives.org/motley​). The scholarship is designed to provide financial assistance to students of color pursuing graduate education in archival administration and to encourage ethnic diversification of the MAC membership and of the archival profession as a whole. Two $750 scholarships, accompanied by one-year memberships to MAC, will be awarded.

In order to be eligible for a scholarship, the applicant must be of African, American Indian, Asian or Pacific Islander, or Latinx decent; must be a student currently enrolled in or accepted in a graduate, multicourse program in archival administration; and must have a grade point average of at least 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale) in their academic program. If the program is not listed in the SAA Directory of Archival Education, ​http://www2.archivists.org/dae​, the applicant must provide proof of the multicourse standard by submitting copies of course descriptions from the institution’s current departmental catalog. The applicant must also be either a resident of the MAC region or registered in a qualified program, onsite or online, that is based in the MAC region.

Applications are due ​March 1, 2021​ and must include the following documents:

• ●  Completed Application Form, available at ​http://www.midwestarchives.org/motley

• ●  Transcript from the applicant's most recent academic program (unofficial transcript is acceptable)

• ●  Essay of not more than 500 words outlining the applicant's interests and future goals in archival administration

• ●  Two letters of recommendation.

Completed applications should be sent to:

Rebekah McFarland 

Certified Archivist

Sisters of the Living Word 
rmcfarland@slw.org

Applications must be emailed by March 1, 2021. 
Awards will be announced no later than June 1, 2021.

STQRY (formerly oncell) is offering to MAM members a 20% discount on their standard app plan and a reduced set up fee of $495 (set up is regularly $1,995!).

This offer extends through the end of 2020.

Check out the flyer for some more details and how to receive the discount.

Check out the discounts regularly available to MAM members through partner businesses.