Tracing a birth mother

I spent an hour or so helping a patron trace their birth mother. The mother was a grad, but the patron was unclear about the year of graduation, the alum directory was incorrect, but we found her in the 1966 yearbook. (The birth mother is deceased.) I also found some images of the mother in clubs she was in etc. Scanned the various pages and have emailed them to the patron.

Interns

Have been getting a second intern started this week. She is working on the history of the History Department. Gave her a general orientation to the archives, then to those materials more closely related to her work, e.g. faculty directories, catalogs, yearbooks, the department's files... The goal is for her to produce a digital exhibit on the department's history that likely will be housed in the Digital Commons.

Talon TV (Brockport TV)

I was interviewed today by a student from Talon TV (the current name for Brockport TV.) The interview focused on the International Special Olympics held here in 1979.

Processing

In between other things I have spent time processing some of the back log of materials from various offices in Allen that came to me during the times their offices were being rehabbed. While it takes time to go through, 2/3 probably is recycled, but the remaining 1/3 often fills gaps, supplies information not held before etc.

Digital Commons

Kim emailed from retirement to say she had noticed were several theses awaiting posting. This is something I and Pam and Mary Jo will need to talk about. Kim had various procedures in place, and periodically spent a fair bit of time working through them to ensure each thesis had the advisors approval and so on. Each department has different policy, and it is all listed in her blog.

https://brockportdc.blogspot.com/

There is a lot to it, and it will be challenge to carry these policies out. We'll have to discuss and see how we can best do this until such a time as we are able to get her position replaced.

New history professor

Met the new history professor today who is a specialist in digital humanities, very active seeming person who will be great to work with I am sure.

Residential Life presentation

Met with 20+ residential life staff yesterday and gave them a simple overview of how students lived here over the years, from the academy days to Normal and beyond to Stage XVI. They seemed interested and it went well.

Political Science APT bylaws c1980

The dept contacted me, they want to gather all the various iterations of their APT documents from over the years, and did not have the older ones. There happens to be several thick folders of minutes etc for the department from the '70s and '80s, and in them I found a document with a 1980 memo on the cover from Harold Rakov. The file gave what I assume were the then APT bylaws etc. as written at varying dates. Scanned, merged and sent to the PoliSci folks.

Upcoming presentations, meetings

Emeriti reception tomorrow, Residential Life staff the 17th, slideshow for Friends First Friday 10/4...

Don Murray portrait

Had to dig for a portrait shot, or shot of Don Murray by himself. Took some digging, he is in lots of photos but with wrestlers, other staff etc. I did find a nice portrait shot from about 1990 and sent to Athletics. As an aside the new Sports Information person is looking into the question of whether Murray might currently be the longest serving coach of any sport in any of the collegiate divisions! He has 50 years this fall which is quite a record.

Washington Semester

The question of how long the Washington Semester arose at a recent meeting of The Port board, of which I am a member. I checked once back in the archives, and like I thought, it is 50 years old, it launched in the spring of 1969. I shared that and some related information with a staffer in the Int'l Ed office which administers this.

History department archives

Met with the student this am. The department itself does not actually have an archives, they are looking to what we have here. The idea is for the student intern to work up a sort of digital archives of the history department. So we talked about how that could work, a quick overview of sources in archives, suggestion that Digital Commons would be the place to house it, or at least the place I can provide.


The student is going to see the prof who is initiating this and get back to me. Should be an interesting project.

Digital Commons

Lots going on here. Still working on the Public Management community, need to work up something for a History department oral history community, see about a newsletter community for Modern Languages. Also uploading synthesis projects for KSSPE...

Interns

Have one 3 credit intern currently, he'll be working on the lantern slides initially. Another student is coming by tomorrow, to see about doing some work on materials the history department has, their departmental "archives."

Photo scanning

Needed to scan some photos for Advancement staff for use in scholarship profiles.