Advancing Access and Preservation Best Practices in Florida

News from the Florida Archivist Newsletter:
FREE ARCHIVAL WORKSHOPS FOR ARCHIVISTS, LIBRARIANS AND MUSEUM STAFF WORKING IN FLORIDA’S CULTURAL HERITAGE REPOSITORIES
Florida will host four FREE Society of American Archivists workshops (SAA) this year thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Over the past nine years, several Florida repositories and institutions have partnered in an initiative called Opening Archives in Florida, which provides education and training to archivists and others who care for historical records. In December, the Opening Archives team was awarded an NEH Preservation and Access Education and Training Grant to support our statewide education and training program, Advancing Access and Preservation Best Practices in Florida.
The primary goal of this education project is to provide training to archivists and others who care for historical records through a series of workshops covering preservation and access standards and practices including: basic arrangement and description, minimal level processing, archival information systems, and descriptive standards. SAA will conduct four workshops in Miami, Tampa and either Orlando or Gainesville on the topics listed below. Seating will be limited, but it will be at no cost to attendees.
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Thanks to the financial support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the following archival education workshops are available free of charge to staff working in Florida’s libraries, museums, archives, and other cultural heritage repositories. Students and interns in Florida also are eligible for free workshop registration. These workshops are organized by the Opening Archives team, which included members from the Florida Center for Library Automation, the University of Florida, the University of Miami, the University of Central Florida, Florida State University, the University of South Florida, and others. The workshops are co-sponsored by SFA, and the second workshop, DACS, will be held in conjunction with the SFA Annual Meeting in Tampa in May.
The first three workshops, which are described in greater detail below, are:

  • Arrangement and Description of Manuscript Collections
  • Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)
  • Introduction to Archon Archives Management Software

Information on the fourth workshop, MPLP, is forthcoming.
WORKSHOPS INFORMATION:
Arrangement and Description of Manuscript Collections #0148
Details:
Thu, Mar 18, 2010,through Fri, Mar 19, 2010 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Instructors: Pam Hackbart-Dean and Susan Potts McDonald
University of Miami
Coral Gables, FL
DESCRIPTION:
This workshop focuses on the day-to-day decisions you’re making in arranging and describing manuscript collections! That includes developing processing work plans, identifying common arrangement schemes for particular types of collections, as well as physically organizing materials during processing. Pinpointing the essential elements of a finding aid, applying descriptive standards, and creatively constructing container lists will also be highlighted.
REGISTRATION:
If you work for an archive, library, museum, or other cultural heritage organization in Florida, you are eligible for free registration for this workshop, sponsored by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Division of Preservation and Access. If so, please contact John Nemmers (jnemmers@ufl.edu, 352-273-2766) for more information on free registration. Registrations will be accepted and confirmed on a first-come, first-served basis. You will be notified by email about registration confirmation.
Attendance is limited to a maximum of 20 participants. Registration will be limited to a maximum of 2 participants from any Florida repository.
More information on the SAA website here.
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Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS) #0149
DETAILS:
Tue, May 04, 2010 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM
Instructors: Roslyn Holdzkom
Tampa, FL
Note: This will be held as a pre-conference workshop for the SFA Annual Meeting in Tampa in May.

DESCRIPTION:
Want practical strategies for implementing DACS? This is the introductory workshop for you! Get an in-depth, practical consideration of the key concepts and descriptive elements in Describing Archives: A Content Standard , the U.S. standard. Explore strategies for incorporating this standard into workflows for accessioning, arrangement, and description through discussions and hands-on work with a variety of exercises, culminating in a DACS-based analysis of existing finding aids. This workshop, a basic introduction to the standard, focuses on application of DACS rules and concepts, which participants can apply to repository processes and descriptive outputs.
REGISTRATION:
If you work for an archive, library, museum, or other cultural heritage organization in Florida, you are eligible for free registration for this workshop, sponsored by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Division of Preservation and Access. If so, please contact John Nemmers (jnemmers@ufl.edu, 352-273-2766) for more information on free registration. Registrations will be accepted and confirmed on a first-come, first-served basis. You will be notified by email about registration confirmation.
Attendance is limited to a maximum of 20 participants. Registration will be limited to a maximum of 2 participants from any organization.
More information on the SAA website here.
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Implement DACS in Integrated CMS: Using Archon
DETAILS:
Thu, Aug 19, 2010,through Fri, Aug 20, 2010 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Instructors: Kyle Rimkus and Scott Schwartz
University of Miami
Coral Gables, FL
DESCRIPTION:
In this 2-day hands-on workshop, you’ll learn how to describe your collections according to the rules of DACS, the national content standard for preparing such descriptions, within the context of an integrated content management system using Archon™ *, an open-source application available for managing descriptive information about archival records and manuscript collections. The archival data elements and rules supplied by DACS are an integral component of Archon, providing you with an easy way to integrate standards-based description into your repository’s processing workflow. Practical exercises, lecture, class discussions, and demonstrations will assist you in learning Archon’s basic functions and relationships to DACS.
REGISTRATION:
If you work for an archive, library, museum, or other cultural heritage organization in Florida, you are eligible for free registration for this workshop, sponsored by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Division of Preservation and Access. If so, please contact John Nemmers (jnemmers@ufl.edu, 352-273-2766) for more information on free registration. Registrations will be accepted and confirmed on a first-come, first-served basis. You will be notified by email about registration confirmation.
Attendance is limited to a maximum of 25 participants. Registration will be limited to a maximum of 2 participants from any organization.
More information on the SAA website here.