Leveraging Alumni Archives for Campus Engagement
This presentation explores the innovative use of alumni and school archival materials to foster relationships on campus with limited resources. By repurposing unsolicited donations and conducting oral history interviews, library workers can revitalize dormant archival programs and enhance alumni engagement efforts. The future vision includes a more formalized collecting policy and expanded oral history projects.
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Easy Engagement: Using Special Collections for Intramural Relationship Building on the Cheap Joe Neumann / Thurgood Marshall Law Library / University of Maryland School of Law / Baltimore TCAL 2019 / Albert S. Cook Library / Towson University / July 25, 2019
What this presentation is about Using alumni/school archival material to make friends on campus Marshalling modest resources to productive ends Who this presentation is for Library workers in institutions with small or dormant archival programs Library workers in institutions with archival programs who ve been asked to do more with less Library workers interested in extending their alumni/school archival collections
Thurgood Marshall Law Librarys special collections: a little background Active in the 2000s, more or less dormant since 2011 Only a handful of processed collections No collecting policy or focus Occasional reference provision sole activity
How things started: a happy accident Unsolicited donation to Alumni Engagement Throwaway suggestion becomes plan Foam core Everybody is shocked by the positive response
The Office of Alumni Engagement An office heavily focused on making alums happy An office always looking for new ways to connect with alums An office more aware of others investment in school history than most
Oral histories: small bites StoryCorps Ambushing alums after they ve had a drink or two Everybody likes talking about their careers Communications and Admissions become interested Law school videographer: I ve recorded dozens of these interviews over the years, but nobody has ever asked for them, do you want them? Alumni affairs wants to do this again before seeing the finished product
The future Real oral histories (Environmental Law Clinic, BLSA/MD African American attorneys) Photo history project Formalized collecting policy More StoryCorps, for real this time
Preliminary outcomes? Increased donations of material from internal and external sources The library has a dedicated archival storage space again Service provision to campus staff increasingly important role Library as the law school s problem solver The library director is pleased with me
What if I could do this in a less haphazard way? 10% time Actual needs assessment: what does office X want/need? Actual needs assessment: what do we (the royal we) want/need? Prior planning is more convincing than ex post facto justifications Hidden resources or materials uncovered
What kind of material or content is available to me? The bar is low Student newspapers Photos Campus ephemera
Who are my possible partners? Alumni Affairs/Engagement Development Communications Admissions Athletics
What are some possible projects I could do? Simple Low overhead Crowd pleasing Iterative
Okay but why do this? Put underused resources to work The relationships you build now between units may pay off in unexpected ways Raising profile of library with other units Creation of unexpected workflows for technicians Work you put into alumni/school historical materials can be reused over and over
Questions? jneumann@law.umaryland.edu
