Spec kit 347 Webinar Presentation
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This document summarizes a webcast discussing community-based collections. It introduces the presenters and defines community-based collections as relevant because museums and libraries are important community institutions. It discusses how partnerships between libraries, archives, and museums have become more common due to budget challenges. The document then provides an example of the Panama Canal Museum collection being integrated into the University of Florida libraries and outlines topics to be covered in the webcast, including acquisition methods, technologies for access, stewardship, outreach, and assessments of community-based collection partnerships.
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Spec kit 347 Webinar Presentation
- 1. SPEC Survey Webcast Series Community-Based Collections August 12, 2015
- 2. Introductions #ARLSPECKit347 Rebecca Fitzsimmons Lourdes Santamaría-Wheeler Jessica Belcoure Marcetti Sophia Krzys Acord
- 3. Community-Based Collections: Why are they relevant? Sophia Krzys Acord #ARLSPECKit347
- 4. Why community-based collections? “…museums and libraries [are] strong community anchors that enhance civic engagement, cultural opportunities, and economic vitality”. Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) (2012-2016 Strategic Plan - Goal 2). “The community itself — whether in the academic or public realm — not only plays a vital role in the production and dissemination of knowledge but also comes away with a better understanding of the role of the library…” (195) J. Dilevko & L. Gottlieb, (2003) “Resurrecting a Neglected Idea: The Reintroduction Of Library-Museum Hybrids”, Library Quarterly 73(2): 160–198. Cabinet of Curiosities, 1690s, by Domenico Remps
- 5. The Larger Context: Library-Archive-Museum Partnerships American Alliance of Museums U.S. Museums Continue to Serve Despite Stress. (AAM 2011) Survey findings: > 70% of museums report moderate (39%), severe (14%), or very severe (18%) economic challenges. In 2010, government support decreased in 52% of museums, and investment income decreased in 37% of museums. Considerations for AAM Accredited Museums Facing Retrenchment or Downsizing. (AAM 2008) Partner or close? How can a merger be a productive step, versus a “last resort”? #ARLSPECKit347
- 6. Our Backyard: The Panama Canal Museum Collection at UF The Panama Canal Museum in Seminole, FL, closed in 2012 and became the Panama Canal Museum Collection at the University of Florida. UF Smathers Libraries received an IMLS Leadership Grant to document the process of integrating the 2 institutions. How does our case relate to others? #ARLSPECKit347
- 7. This SPEC Survey: Who? What? When? Where? Why? And HOW? Acquisition and background of the collection, materials included (objects vs. manuscripts) Logistics and technologies for discovery Stewardship for the collection and for the community (donor relations, engagement) Volunteering and processing: multiple communities, job descriptions Outreach, promotion, and exhibit making Assessment techniques General satisfaction of different parties And general pros/cons: what would you tell a colleague about this experience? #ARLSPECKit347
- 8. Snapshot of Responding Institutions Rebecca Fitzsimmons #ARLSPECKit347
- 9. Survey Responses 48 of 125 ARL member libraries responded 19 respondents reported having zero community-based collections 36 respondents* reported having 1 or more community-based collection *Several libraries answered the survey more than once, using different collections within their holdings #ARLSPECKit347
- 12. Collection Acquisition 29 responses Decade Responses 1950s 1 1970s 3 1980s 3 1990s 11 2000s 11 2010s 7 } Community-based collection acquisition is a fairly recent activity for most respondents. #ARLSPECKit347
- 13. 19 24 16 11 13 12 10 6 10 4 2 1 4 3 3 4 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Processing Reference Interpretation Other activity Team of library professionals Dedicated curator/archivist Graduate assistant Community volunteers Collection Support #ARLSPECKit347
- 14. Community Stewardship Practices Lourdes Santamaría-Wheeler #ARLSPECKit347
- 15. Volunteers 78% do not have volunteers from the affiliated community 36% have non-community volunteers, often students Volunteer activities for non-community usually include processing Volunteer activities for community usually include metadata creation/enhancement and crowdsourcing #ARLSPECKit347
- 16. Donor Relations Majority of respondents (89%) do not have annual memberships for collection Recognition of monetary donation Yes 46% No 54% #ARLSPECKit347
- 17. Engagement Exhibits, special events, and Collection digitization as milestones Increased usage of Collection near anniversaries Increased online usage for 52% of respondents #ARLSPECKit347
- 18. Rewards and Challenges Jessica Belcoure Marcetti #ARLSPECKit347
- 19. Professional passion: “Why I got in to this work” Somewhat universal The community is a reward Reward Themes #ARLSPECKit347
- 20. #ARLSPECKit347 Rewards Preservation Community Relationship Fundraising Goals Collections Development Representing / Sharing the Topic Access Serving Students Serving Researchers Meeting the Library's Mission Professional Collaboration
- 21. Logistical Much more diverse responses The community is a challenge Challenge Themes #ARLSPECKit347
- 22. #ARLSPECKit347 Challenges Preservation Community Relationship Funding / Budget Collection Development Space Staff Time New Formats / Software Training Digital Priorities Conflicting Perspectives Curating Promotions Donor Relations Processing Language Copyright / Personal Data Project Management
- 23. IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE HARD. IF IT WASN’T HARD, EVERYONE WOULD DO IT. THE HARD IS WHAT MAKES IT GREAT. Conclusions
- 24. Questions & Discussion Join the conversation by typing questions in the chat box in the lower left corner of your screen
- 25. Thank you!
Editor's Notes
- Hello, I am Lee Anne George, coordinator of the SPEC Survey Program at the Association of Research Libraries, and I would like to thank you for joining us for the second in a series of SPEC Survey Webcasts. Today we will hear from the authors of the survey on Community-based Collections. The results of this survey have been published in SPEC Kit 347. Before we begin there are a few announcements: Everyone but the presenters has been muted to cut down on background noise. So, if you are part a group today, feel free to speak among yourselves. We do want you to join the conversation by typing questions in the chat box in the lower left corner of your screen. The presenters will read the questions aloud before answering them. This webcast is being recorded and we will send registrants the slides and a link to the recording in the next week.
- Now let me introduce the survey authors from the University of Florida: Lourdes Santamaría-Wheeler is the Exhibits Coordinator at the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. Jessica Belcoure Marcetti is the Volunteer Coordinator and Rebecca Fitzsimmons is the Intake Coordinator for the Panama Canal Museum Collection. Sophia Krzys Acord is Associate Director of the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere. Margarita Vargas-Betancourt, Caribbean Basin Librarian, is unable to join us today. Use the hashtag ARLSPECKit347 to continue the conversation with them on Twitter.
- Sophia will begin with a discussion of what community-based collections are and why they are relevant. Sophia, over to you.
- Thank you, Lee Anne. I’m sure that all of our listeners will agree that there is a wide variety of heritage collecting practices in the world. We developed this SPEC Kit to look in depth at what we are terming community-based collections, or collections through which affinity communities actively preserve their history. These broad archives are often extremely personal to those who collected and, sometime created, the materials. And so, when a library works with a community-based collection, it inherits not only a physical collection to care for, but also a community to steward. When we think about broad collecting, we often think about this Renaissance idea of Kunstkammer or “Cabinets of Curiosities” – the assortment of items that communities collect and document for their daily lives. A community’s history is preserved through material objects, but also traditions and stories. These are rich items (some at home in libraries and others in museums) that may challenge some normal library and archival conventions. We became interested in the topic of community-based collections because it is an exciting new territory for libraries working to be, as the IMLS phrases it in their current Strategic Goal #2, “strong community anchors that enhance civic engagement, cultural opportunities, and economic vitality”. This kind of work also stretches our normal notions of expertise about a collection, extending it to a community. But, we have many more questions than answers. How can libraries develop new processes to support this important cultural heritage work? And how can a community stay active in curating its work in partnership with a library? As you can see from browsing our SPEC Kit bibliography, there is little research on community-based collections as a specific entity; we had to draw liberally and widely on many literatures to get insights. The Dilevko and Gottlieb reading is one that particularly inspired us. It talks about the give and take of community-based collections. But, this raises a whole host of issues that aren’t well documented.
- Our research shows that the idea of a community-based collection is more than just a hobby interest of some libraries. In fact, it may be becoming a more pressing reality for many of our institutions. To this end, we situate this conversation about community-based collections in a larger conversation about “mergers” or “partnerships” between various cultural institutions. This is something that the American Association of Museums has thought about extensively. The recent (and some argue ongoing) economic recession has created significant, long-term financial pressures for the nonprofit sector overall, and museums and small cultural institutions in particular. See the AAM’s 2011 report which finds significant economic stress in this sector. The AAM has also created several “survival guide” resources for cultural institutions facing tough economic challenges. They posit forming partnerships and integrations as a positive alternative to closing one’s door. Put this way, a community-based collection is really better thought of as a partnership between expert groups—lay and professional—in the successful documentation and stewardship of a community’s history and heritage. We are left with more questions than answers: To what extent do these kinds of partnerships happen? To whom? What spectrum of activities facilitate financial stability, leveraging of organizational assets, and the furtherance of core missions?
- We also have a personal interest in this topic, because UF engaged in such a “marriage” of institutions in 2012, partnering with the Panama Canal Museum to create the Panama Canal Museum Collection. You can read more about this collection in the SPEC Kit. Briefly, this collection was and is still being created by the former residents of the Panama Canal Zone, which is no longer in existence, to document the American Era of the Panama Canal. This collection used to be part of the largely volunteer-run Panama Canal Museum, but an aging community and sustainability concerns led an external consultant to propose that the Museum integrate with another entity. The University of Florida Smathers Libraries, where my colleagues are based, was very pleased to receive an IMLS Leadership Grant to document the process of this merger between heritage museum and public academic research library, the first of its kind. And so we, again, have many questions about how what we are learning in Florida relates to the activities of other ARL institutions. How does our case study reflect broader trends, or not, as the case may be?
- We know that community-based collections, as mergers of collections as well as communities, involve a whole host of perspectives, talents, skills, and considerations. We built from our experience, and the literature we could find, to put together a survey that sought to gather these practices, resources, and strategies. We asked questions to gather the logistics of how this work gets done, such as the acquisition and processing of the collection, promotion, and assessment. But, we also asked about the “fuzzy” aspects of doing collective memory work with communities: including relationship building, maintaining engagement, and satisfaction. And we are deeply grateful to our respondents who shared so much useful and frank experience with us all. Now, Rebecca will describe the responding institutions.
- Hello, everyone. Before my co-presenters go into more detail about our survey findings regarding some of the rewards, challenges, and practices that arise when working with community-based collections, I’m going to provide a brief overview of the collections and related management practices at the responding institutions.
- We asked participants to identify one community-based collection within their holdings that fit into the definition outlined in the survey introduction and to use this collection to guide their responses. The definition we provided read: Community-based collections are those that have been amassed not by one individual but by a collective, which may take the form of a museum, ethnic or cultural organization, or other diaspora group active in the documentation of its past. Often these collections are emotional in that they speak to the community’s heritage and identity. Of the 48 institutions that answered the survey, a few chose several distinct collections to report on, generating 55 total responses. The responses were complex and rich assessments of the reasons for acquiring these collections, community stewardship or partnership, and the associated workload and management tactics. Notably, 19 respondents indicated that their library has no community-based collections, and of the remaining 36 responses, the majority of the libraries indicated that they have only one or two of these types of collections.
- So, what kinds of communities are being represented in these holdings? We asked respondents to select all of the major characteristics that unite the community that their collection represents. A shared interest or affinity group was selected most often, and can be seen in examples such as the Cornell Hip Hop Collection or the Canadian Women’s Movement Collection at the University of Ottawa. Social groups were the second most common selection, followed by ethnic groups and geographic locations; professional organizations; political organizations; and religious organizations. Respondents also wrote in other defining characteristics, with examples including gender, sexuality, and disaster-based archives.
- When asked to indicate all of the forces that drove the decision to acquire the community-based collection, not surprisingly the most common response was existing expertise or holdings within the library. The second most common answer was aging of the community, with a number of respondents specifically adding to the comments section that there was an imminent danger of history, artifacts, and personal or community memory being lost; this urgency of documentation was also echoed in a different sense by one respondent, who wrote [quote] “We needed to collect history as it was happening on our doorstep as memorials, community meetings, protests, and rallies were taking place. There was not a system in place to capture this history as it was happening ….” [unquote] Both of these comments about the immediacy of collecting indicate a heightened sensitivity to viewing history as something living, unfolding, and in need of both preservation and interaction. Additional driving factors include conflicts or threats to the physical materials, conflicts or threats to community stability, and economic difficulties. Among other forces that were cited in the comments, it’s also worth noting that several collections were either driven by a university administrator’s mandate or by a timely strategic partnership, and that a few were driven by the approach of the major anniversaries of specific events of importance within the community.
- Looking at the information provided about when libraries acquired or started to build their collections, we see that the vast majority of those reported were added within the last 25 years. Further, when asked, “Do you anticipate acquiring more community-based collections in the future,” 54 percent of respondents replied, “Yes, there is an increasing need for libraries to do so,” with another 23 percent indicating that active discussions or negotiations are already in progress. Considering that most respondents indicated currently having between zero and 2 community-based collections, there seems to be a trend toward incorporating these types of holdings into the library and a relatively widespread enthusiasm for doing so.
- Many of the reported collections require working closely with communities or specific community members, but it also is clear from the data that the responding libraries still assume the bulk of responsibilities for daily operations, events, and interpretation. This graph shows that across the board, most respondents are using a team of internal library professionals to handle processing, reference, interpretation, and other activities such as outreach. A few responses indicate that community volunteers are working in such roles, but not in high numbers. It is also worth noting here that libraries reported having the bulk of financial responsibility for the community-based collection, with 78 percent of libraries solely responsible, and another 17 percent sharing this responsibility with the community organization. So, that was a quick overview of our survey respondents’ community-based collections, but I encourage you to check out the SPEC Kit to read a lot more very detailed information about the composition, processing, communication, and internal workings related to these collections. Next, Lourdes will describe community stewardship practices.
- Thank you Rebecca. Stewardship of the affiliated community is an integral part of managing community-based collections. The survey responses indicate that libraries may be veering away from formal, regularly scheduled, stewardship structures like advisory councils. Instead, many report more casual methods, such as informal meetings or ongoing personal relationships. Email and in-person, ad-hoc one-on-one meetings are the most commonly reported methods of communicating with community members.
- Despite expressing a desire to do so, most of the responding libraries (28 or 78%) are not retaining any members of the affiliated community as volunteers with the collection. 17 respondents or 46% indicate they are using non-community volunteers. In their comments respondents noted that the non-community volunteers tend to be students or interns, which are readily available on academic campuses. They are most commonly involved in collections processing and care activities while community volunteers, when utilized, are more often involved in metadata creation or enhancement. Thus tapping the subject expertise of the community.
- Much like historical societies, some community–based collection may opt to create a collection specific membership that maintains the close ties of the community to the materials, although the majority do not. 32 or 89% of the respondents have no annual membership or friends affiliation associated with the community-based collection, but they do encourage private donations. Of those private donations, only about half of the respondents publicly recognize monetary donations, typically by way of a published list of donors’ names.
- Milestones of community engagement vary widely among responding institutions, but the most common landmark events include exhibits, special events or lectures, the initial acquisition of the collection, and digitization of all or part of the collection materials. Most of the institutions report stable or increased in-person use of the collection following its acquisition and several respondents specified that visitation fluctuates near anniversaries or significant dates within the collection and/or community. In-person use by the affiliated community may see a decrease due to members’ age or other factors affecting the size or strength of that community. Limited or non-existent physical space has helped increase online collection usage for about half of the collections (52%) since their acquisition. Next, Jessica will discuss the rewards and challenges of supporting these collections and the associated endeavors.
- Thank you, Lourdes. We noticed that the rewards of working on a community-based collection were similar to the rewards one might expect to experience with any collection.
- For the most part, they were very tied to professional satisfaction. Of course, we find satisfaction in preserving materials—that’s a major driving force of our profession! So those numbers make a lot of sense. We also find it rewarding to increase access to a collection, to work with students, and to shine a light of representation on a perhaps otherwise ignored or underrepresented part of our human experience. The most commonly reported rewards were those relating to any part of the relationships with the community. Those included all of the new, existing, expanded, and improved relationships with the community represented in the collection.
- We noticed two big things in the data about our challenges. The first is that there was a much more diverse response here. Many different types of challenges were reported. And of those, most were logistical in nature. Whereas the rewards are sort of “big-picture” rewards like serving students and increasing access, the reported challenges tended to be smaller, more specific things.
- Those challenges are what you might expect. They are the types of challenges we face with many of our collections. Really—who doesn’t need more funding?? Whereas the rewards tended to be very “big picture” things, you can see this list becomes more “nitty gritty” with things like copyright issues and software problems. This SPEC Kit could serve as a great tool for those considering taking on a community-based collection because the message here is clear: you’re going to need more dedicated staff time and more space. Space is an issue for a lot of special collections, and that issue may or may not be tied specifically to community-based collections. However, staff time was the 2rd most commonly reported challenge. And combined with the challenges of donor relations, conflicting perspectives (often between the community and the library), and many of the comments we received, it may be reasonable to say that much of that staff time is needed to interact with the community.
- Working with a community is both rewarding and challenging. But of course, you already knew that. There are rewards and challenges to any project. The interesting part is that community relationships were reported as both the MOST rewarding and MOST challenging element in managing a community-based collection. Still, it was reported more frequently as a reward than a challenge. So if your institution is weighing the pros and cons of partnering with a community, you may want to consider the words of the great Jimmy Dugan. Because, in this case, the data supports that it IS, in fact, the hard that makes it great.
- We welcome your questions. Please join the conversation by typing questions in the chat box in the lower left corner of your screen. The presenters will read the questions aloud before answering them.
- Thank you all for joining us today to discuss the results of the community-based collections SPEC survey. You will receive the slides and a link to the recording in the next week.