2012 SNCA Annual Meeting

Kristen MerrymanSPECIAL COLLECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER

Tractor Building and Tobacco Curing: Exposing Agricultural Collections

BACKGROUND

Cultivating a Revolution Digital Project

• 2 year LSTA funded project

• Digitizing agricultural innovation research at NCSU materials from 1950s-1970s

• Outputs:o 20,000-25,000 individual page scans from 15 archival collectionso 114 16mm films (14.5 hours) reformattedo K-12 Teacher Resources (Related Topic Essays and Lesson Plans)

• Online access at the folder level

• Materials are accessible at http://go.ncsu.edu/cultivatingarevolution

BACKGROUND

Cultivating a Revolution Digital Project

BACKGROUND

Cultivating a Revolution Digital Project

BACKGROUND

Cultivating a Revolution Digital Project

BACKGROUND

Goals of Outreach Efforts

Outreach not a primary grant goal – BUT!

• promote knowledge and use of project materials

• if people don't know the project and accessible materials exist - what's the point of digitizing them?

• Conversations with potential users influence how we provide access and what is included in the grant - flexible plan for material inclusion

• Strong effort to get word out in Year 1, so materials are already being used by Year 2 and before the end of the project

Challenges

• Materials being digitized aren't easily understood - scientific/research data heavyo We need to think differently about our

resources and how they can be used - how can students use them beyond paper writing

• Appealing to "non-traditional" userso Non-traditional = not a historian (esp.

not a social/political/economic historian)

o tend to be less invested because it is harder for them to see use cases - more effort on our part to get them to talk to us, nevermind discuss uses

OPPORTUNITY

NCSU is an Ag School, First and Foremost

Despite Challenges - Big Opportunities

METHOD

Potential Users• Sociologists• Agriculture people (faculty,

students, Alpha Zeta, student groups)

• Horticulturists• Weed Scientists

• Scientific Organization Historians

• History of science and technology

• Environmental Scientists and Students

METHOD

Internal and External Outreach

• Department colleagues

• Library/Institution colleagues

• Student employees

• Academic departments/faculty we have a relationship with already

• Special academic programs (Jefferson Scholars, Honors Program)

• Student Groups

METHOD

Capturing Interest

METHOD

• drop-ins are your friend!

• casual conversations work better than formal presentations

• have ready examples for how students and faculty can use your materials - either through projects or as research topics

• be able to bring up specific examples of materials to grab their interest

• bring along technology to show it off!

THE END

Conclusions

• Utilize people you already know (both internally at your institution and externally)

• Take advantage of programs that combine humanities and sciences

• Have casual conversations to create working relationships that will last

Kristen MerrymanDigital Project Librarian for Cultivating a Revolution

(919) 513-3359 kristen_merryman@ncsu.edu