These minutes appeared in the Volume 2, Issue 1 Spring/Summer 2020 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue.
Appalachian Studies Association
Special Collections Committee meeting minutes
April 17, 2020
In attendance: Stewart Plein, Gene Hyde, Jeff Dey, Jeremy Smith, Scott Skies, Cassie Patterson, Marc Brodsky, Liz Harper, Jinny Turman. Meeting held via Zoom.
Update on Appalachian Curator Newsletter. The official publication of the Special Collections Committee – Gene Hyde, editor
- Three issues published to date: Vol 1, Issues 1, 2, 3. Vol. 2 Issue 1 is currently in process, though delayed due to the pandemic.
- Call for COVID-19 stories and new collections issued
- Statistics: trending very high with 3100 visits, 8700 pages viewed. When each issue is posted, stats spike upward.
- Liz reported date: 99 visitors, 299 visits for 1st issue, 161 visitors, 349 visits for 2nd issue, 510 visitors, 1500 visits for 3rd Largest number of referrals coming from Google and FB.
Faculty issues during the pandemic:
- Jinny Turman brought forward a discussion concerning how the COVID-19 virus has affected faculty and scholarship in Appalachia. Promotion and tenure has been delayed and faculty and scholars are wondering how to approach their work now that archives and collections are closed. How does the inability to access archives affecting them? Jinny will reach out to people on this topic.
Topic for discussion: Institutional electronic reference work
- All members report that their institutions are supporting electronic reference queries, but instances are down from normal rates.
- Gene reports that UNC-A is down about 15-20 %
- Jeremy reports that ETSU is down about 10%
- Scott reports that reference queries are high at Emory & Henry with assistance provided to instructors as they transition to online teaching and students
- The West Virginia and Regional History Center, special collections for WVU, has also reported lower reference requests.
- Liz poses a question regarding researchers: how are people are coping with the difference of working with digital vs physical collections?
Web presence:
- Updating VA. Tech blog regarding the announcement of the new special collections committee. Marc has volunteered to take care of that.
- Establishing a web presence on the ASA site: Is this possible? I will reach out to Mary Thomas and Ann Bryant about this.
Reference query from Steering Committee member: Would the committee serve as a reference portal to direct researchers and students to Appalachian collection
- All committee members agreed that this was an appropriate task for the committee. This discussion led to the suggestion that we could offer something similar to the Ask a Librarian format, calling it Ask an Appalachian Archivist.
- As with the standard Ask a Librarian format we would rotate coverage between committee members
- Set up an email account, possibly a Gmail account, with multiple accounts so that everyone receives email.
- Sent announcement and link to AppalNet
- Set up a form in the Appalachian Curator for queries
- Liz offered to look into this.
- Final thoughts: offering a robust reference service would be a good way to promote committee and its activities
Planning:
6 months agenda:
- Set up Ask an Appalachian Archivist
- Establish web presence
- Article in Appalachian Curator
- Update Va. Tech blog
- AppalNet announcement
12 months agenda:
- Plan and submit proposal for meeting at the upcoming ASA conference
- Sponsor a roundtable discussion at the upcoming conference
Final discussions:
- Appalachian Consortium 1985 Institution Survey update:
- Gene reports that Derek Whisnant has been working to update the 1985 Appalachian institutions survey sponsored by the Appalachian Consortium. Derek is approaching this on a state by state basis beginning with Georgia. Jeff suggested crowdsourcing as an option to completing the survey. Gene agreed with this and noted that results could be published online and crowdsourcing page established.
- COVID 19 related collecting:
- Jinny asks how many institutions are collecting COVID 19 materials. ETSU, WVU’s West Virginia and Regional History Center, Marshall, UT, UNC Chapel Hill, Mountain Historical Center, Western Carolina, UNC Asheville, and Southeast Ohio Historical Center are among the institutions collection pandemic related materials and stories. Va. Tech is not collection at this time due to a pending retirement.
Future meetings will be held on a quarterly basis. I will schedule the next meeting.
