#s3b

N. C. Christopher Couch (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Religious materials in New England created by John Eliot and his informants are believed to have played a role in extending secular literacy in indigenous languages in Massachusetts and beyond. Printed and manuscript materials are studied as preserved materials in repositories, but they circulated in various spheres in Colonial and early National New England. A sampling inventory of remaining documents combined with information on provenance and ownership could be mapped against the continued use of indigenous languages, the location of communities of “praying Indians” and early reservations to suggest the ways in which such works were used in a variety of communities using GIS or Google-map based software. Such an analysis would move us closer to an understanding of these books and broadsides as circulating, used works, and each remaining copy could contribute to our understanding of the role they played in literacy and language.  A second stage of the project might compare the circulation and use of printed and manuscript materials created by missionaries like Bernardino de Sahagun in indigenous language for conversion uses, including teaching doctrine, theatricals, and public prayer in New Spain (Mexico). questions that would not arise from examining either context alone. I would hope explore parallels between the role of indigenous literacy, fostered by missionary activity but extending far beyond “religious” contexts, in the creation of solidarity within Native communities in New Spain and New England.

N. C. Christopher Couch holds a Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University and is the author of books and articles on Latin American art and comics and graphic novels including Jerry Robinson: Ambassador of Comics, The Will Eisner Companion, and The Festival Cycle of the Aztec Codex Borbonicus. He teaches at UMass Amherst, Amherst College, Trinity College, and School of Visual Arts, New York, and held fellowships at Institute for Advanced Study, Dumbarton Oaks, and Newberry Library.

Carol Chiodo, Michael Lotstein, Monica Ong, Douglas Duhaime (Yale University)

How do you build consensus around establishing an institutional archive which seeks to record voices of discord? How might multiple stakeholders strongly disagree, and still work together to record that disagreement?  This presentation outlines the blueprint of a distributed knowledge model used to create the prototype for the Yale Community Voices Archive (YCVA). The model prioritizes creating a core team of stakeholders, identifying their concerns, and then iterating to generate consensus.

The archive, now up and running, gathers, organizes and preserves a wide array of born digital materials representing community perspectives on activism for racial justice on campus. Community sourced accessioning facilitates the collection of crucial contextual materials that will help future students and scholars interpret and understand current campus discussions of race, ethnicity, and social justice. The project responds both to the students’ use of social media for chronicling and debating these events as well as the Yale University Archives’ seeking a user-friendly means of collecting and preserving digital content.

Through this distributed knowledge model, the YCVA doesn’t simply create a space in the archive for underrepresented communities. It asks them to frame their own historical records, to tell their own stories, and to participate in the crucial processes of digital archival design and accession.

Carol Chiodo is a post-doctoral research associate in the Digital Humanities Lab at Yale University. Her research investigates how the material and structural changes in the reproduction, storage and transmission of texts impact the ways we read, write, learn, and remember.

Rob Sieczkiewicz, Ryan Ake, Rachel Baer, and Jess Deibert (Susquehanna University)

If history is written by the victors, what can students learn from hearing the stories of the other side? When an institution changes its identity to reflect contemporary values, how does a community preserve its discarded traditions?

In 2015, Susquehanna University’s Board of Trustees decided to replace the ‘Crusader’ mascot and nickname, which had been used since 1924. Explaining the rationale for the change, SU President Jay Lemons noted that a university mascot and nickname “should be beloved and unifying symbols,” which the Crusader was not. While some members of the SU community saw the changes as an opportunity to create a more inspiring and unifying iconography, others passionately disagreed with the decision.

Susquehanna students negotiated this divide between administration and alumni/ae through the Crusader History Harvest. This Harvest, modeled on the History Harvests of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, was a one-day event, held during homecoming weekend, that invited alumni/ae to bring their Crusader memorabilia back to campus. Students digitized those objects and interviewed the alums, asking about the objects’ meaning to their owners. Presenting the digitized objects and the interviews in an open access online archive offers a glimpse of the power of digital storytelling to bridge the divide between tradition and progress.

In this presentation, Susquehanna students and librarians will address some of the issues raised by the Crusader History Harvest such as how students learn by documenting history as it is being made and how a community preserves its traditions while managing necessary change.

Ryan Ake joined Susquehanna University as Outreach & Collection Development Librarian in January 2015. He is responsible for all outreach activities of the library and oversees all print and electronic collections. His main areas of interest include ancient Mediterranean history, local & genealogical research, collection assessment, community outreach and digital humanities research. Previously, Ryan served as a Reference & Instruction Librarian at Penn State University, working in the Tombros & McWhirter Knowledge Commons. In this role, he provided information literacy instruction to first-year students and supervised all Knowledge Commons and Research Hub student employees. He earned his MLS from Clarion University and his BA in Classics & Ancient Mediterranean Studies from Penn State University.

Rob Sieczkiewicz joined Susquehanna University as Digital Scholarship Librarian in February 2015. He is responsible for working with students and faculty to use digital tools to improve teaching and scholarship. He was previously University Archivist at Drexel University where he led a multi-year oral history project. He earned an MLS from Drexel University, an MA in History from University of Massachusetts Boston, and a BA from Hampshire College.

Rachel Baer is a senior history major at Susquehanna University with museum studies, German, and Honors Program minors.  She is a student assistant for two professors in the history department, which allows her to complete original research in the history of medicine.  She has also had multiple internships in museum studies, including in Susquehanna University’s archives.  She most recently interned in the Archives and Special Collections at the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington in Mount Vernon, Virginia.

Jess Deibert is a senior English major at Susquehanna University with photography and publishing and editing minors.  Currently she is an Outreach Intern and Community Engagement Officer at Susquehanna’s Blough-Weis Library.  She has also had multiple internships in literary and library studies, including a position in Cape Town, South Africa and most recently in the Digital Resources department at the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington in Mount Vernon, Virginia.