All sessions will take place at the Oakland Marriott unless otherwise listed.
8:00 am – 5:00 pm Registration (Atrium)
9:00 am – 4:00 pm Workshop: A Multi-Faceted Exploration of Digital Exhibitions for Special Collections Libraries [SOLD OUT ticketed event] (Jr. Ballroom 1)
Sponsored by Juxta Editions
9:00 am – 4:00 pm Workshop: Active Learning with Challenging Objects [SOLD OUT ticketed event] (Jr. Ballroom 2 & 3)
9:00 am – 4:00 am Tour: Historic Richmond [SOLD OUT ticketed event].
Sponsored by Richmond Public Library Foundation
9:30 am – 3:00 pm Tour: UC Berkeley Campus Tour [ticketed event].
12:30 pm – 4:00 pm Workshop: A Very Speedy Introduction to Vernacular English Paleography [SOLD OUT ticketed event] (Jr. Ballroom 4)
1:00 pm – 3:30 pm Tour: African American Museum and Library at Oakland [ticketed event].
1:00 pm – 3:30 pm Tour: Oakland History Room, Oakland Public Library [ticketed event].
1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Workshop: Printing with Wood Type: Cabarets, Capitalism, & Snake Oil during the Industrial Revolution [SOLD OUT ticketed event] (City College of San Francisco Mission Campus Letterpress Shop, 1125 Valencia St. (between 22nd and 23rd), Room 207)
Sponsored by Maggs Bros Ltd.
3:00 pm – 4:00 pm Poster Session Preview (Atrium)
“Special Collections in STEM Education,” Juliet Burba and Rachel Howell, The Bakken Museum
The Bakken Library is collaborating with the Minneapolis Public School District to use its rare book library in STEM education. The project draws on The Bakken’s collection of historical works on science, technology, and medicine to teach science-specific literacy skills in grade 6-12 classrooms. The project, “Science Learning from the Works of Scientists,” funded by the IMLS Sparks! Ignition Grants for Libraries program, focuses on school districts’ need to address the Common Core Literacy Standards in Science and Technology and seeks to demonstrate the potential for special collections libraries to contribute to STEM education. It is intended as a model for other special collections libraries and archives in partnership with schools or school districts. The poster describes the model and discusses mid-project successes and challenges.
“Comic Book Index: Using Omeka to Manage Print Collections,” Elizabeth McDaniel, Virginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries Special Collections has a large collection of comic books, mostly uncataloged. In order to provide immediate public access to our 50,000+ comic books, we have used Omeka’s .csv import function to create a comic book index based on a spreadsheet of accession information maintained by staff for internal use. Patrons and staff may now use Omeka to find comics by title, issue title, story arc, number, writer, artist, or publisher. This project could be a model for providing quick, public access to hidden collections managed locally with lists or spreadsheets.
“From NUCMC to DPLA: The Technological Underpinnings of Access,” Juli McLoone, University of Michigan, Nikki Lynn Thomas, University of Texas at San Antonio, and Sean Heyliger, African American Museum & Library at Oakland
This year’s conference focuses on the opportunities special collections provide for students to pursue problem-based learning and work with original materials. At the heart of these opportunities is the user-artifact relationship. How technological changes mediate this relationship is a central question for those seeking to ensure that special collections reaches its full potential as a liberal arts laboratory and to understand how students (and other users) discover, understand, and make use of descriptions of archival materials. Our project seeks to show how technological developments have played a crucial role by providing the necessary preconditions to support increasing access and interaction with original research materials. Our research examines discovery tools, promotional tools, and reproductions by looking at the ways technological innovation has impacted users’ access to archival materials.
“Puzzles and the University,” Andrew Rhoda, Indiana University
The Jerry Slocum Mechanical Puzzle Collection is the only collection of its kind in the world, and is an example of the wide range of collections held at Indiana University’s Lilly Library. The puzzle collection consists of over 32,000 mechanical puzzles, along with related books and manuscripts. It holds puzzles by the leading mechanical puzzle designers in the world. Unfortunately, most people know little about the collection, which is much more than jigsaws and crosswords. The goal of this poster is to introduce the collection, discuss how the Jerry Slocum Mechanical Puzzle Collection has become an integral part of the collection and how it provides outreach opportunities to many academic departments and community groups at Indiana University.
“Building Collaborative Web Archives and Special Collections Datasets,” Sylvie Rollason-Cass and Jefferson Bailey, Internet Archive, Archive-It
The Internet Archive, working with Washington University, Maryland Institution for Technology and the Humanities (MITH), and crowdsourced contributions, has created a web archive documenting the recent events in Ferguson, MO and around the country (online at: https://archive-it.org/collections/4783). Large datasets are being generated from this collection featuring specific types of metadata, such as web page titles and metatags, hyperlinks, named entities, and geolocation data, that can be provided to
researchers for large-scale, longitudinal analysis. The poster will explore the success and challenges of these innovative methods of collaboratively building event-based collections and will outline the new forms of access being provided to collection-based datasets that are supporting data-driven research, digital humanities work, and other technology-dependent forms of scholarship.
“Teaching the Literary Marketplace: Special Collections, Austen’s Competition, and Modern Publishers,” Gregory Schmidt, Auburn University
Through a series of class sessions in Special Collections, Auburn University students enrolled in Nineteenth Century British Literature “adopted” a nineteenth Century English novel for which no modern edited edition existed and, with guidance from library and English faculty, created a proposal for a modern edition. Their effort culminated with poster presentations and an exhibit of the original novels alongside the student proposals. Students reported greater awareness of historical and current publishing practices, and two students from the first course have pursued further education in document design. Two students from the class submitted their project and won the Auburn Research Week Undergraduate Humanities Award. This poster will document the original course, the learning outcomes, and the potential for innovative humanities education in Special Collections.
“The Way We Live (and Work) Now: A Report on the Results of the 2015 RBMS Membership Survey,” Elspeth Healey, University of Kansas and Melissa Nykanen, Pepperdine University
This poster will report on and analyze the findings of the 2015 RBMS Membership Survey. Modeled closely on the first survey of our membership, conducted in 1997, the 2015 survey will provide new insight into the life of the profession, including data on the types of positions and institutions that comprise the special collections field, membership demographics, and involvement in RBMS initiatives. In addition to offering a summary of the survey findings, the poster will highlight some of its more interesting results. We will drill down into the data to explore, for example, how membership priorities have changed over the last eighteen years and what the survey reveals about career trajectories within the field.
“Medical Rare Books in an Interdisciplinary Context,” Elisabeth Brander, Washington University
The Bernard Becker Medical Library at Washington University in St. Louis is home to a rich collection of historical medical texts spanning the period from 1500 to the mid-twentieth century. This is a valuable resource for scholars and students working in both the humanities and medicine. Staff members working in the Archives and Rare Books division engage in a variety of outreach and educational activities to promote awareness of the library’s special collections at both the medical school and the school of arts and sciences. These activities include physical and digital exhibits, assisting with classes, and outreach on social media.
“Shaking Things Up – How Effective Collaboration Can Turn Special Collections into a Learning Laboratory,” Michaela Ullmann, University of Southern California
Numerous examples will showcase the exciting and thriving collaborations between Special Collections librarians and teaching faculty from a variety of departments at the University of Southern California. Results include innovative and original instruction designs such as student-driven acquisition of broadsides for a History class on the Victorian Era, and a mapping activity for a History class on the Printing Revolution in which students used GIS technology to map woodcuts from the Nuremberg Chronicle. Examples for outreach initiatives feature faculty-driven acquisitions culminating in an open house for Art and Design students, and in an exhibit curated by students in the Italian department.
4:00 pm – 5:00 pm Conference Orientation and Introduction to RBMS (Grand Ballroom EFGH)
This session provides a brief overview of the conference offerings and an introduction to the organizational structure of RBMS, including section committees, the Buddy Program, and membership information. If this is your first conference, or you are looking to become more involved in RBMS, we encourage you to attend!
5:00 pm – 6:30 pm New Members’ Mixer [ticketed event] (Skyline)
This event will be held celebrating new attendees. Everyone is welcome to get to know new members and enjoy each other’s company. Make sure to include this event in your registration! The $25 ticket price includes select appetizers and wine/beer.
Sponsored by Atlas Systems
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm ABAA Booksellers’ Showcase Welcome Reception (Convention Center Hall East 1)
A reception sponsored in part by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA). We encourage you to visit the showcase and browse books, meet the booksellers, and catch up with your colleagues. Drinks and appetizers will be served.
