2023 ARLIES Submissions

The renovation of the Special Collections department, located at the Central Library in Copley Square, was a five-year project made possible by a $15.7 million capital investment from the City of Boston. It was a collaboration between the Boston Public Library, the City of Boston’s Public Facilities Department, and Finegold Alexander Architects. The 31,000 square foot renovation includes improvements to public spaces, including a new reading room and lobby; upgraded collections storage for rare books and manuscript collections totaling nearly 7 miles of specialized shelving; new staff workspaces; and a state-of-the-art conservation lab and fire suppression system. The improvements will ensure the long-term preservation of – and continued public access to – the library’s exceptional and historic collections. The new space was designed to support a welcoming, user-centered service model, encouraging patrons to visit and engage with the storied collection.

LSU Libraries Special Collections is restoring a historic Mardi Gras scrapbook that provides unique insight into Louisiana’s history and culture through the perspective of the individual who collected and curated its contents. The scrapbook, which was acquired in the 1950s, is dated circa 1871–1907 and contains materials relating to local New Orleans attractions and Mardi Gras in New Orleans, including invitations to balls, event programs, holiday cards and clippings.

The Libraries wanted to film a “behind-the-scenes” video detailing the restoration work being performed on the scrapbook by Caroline Ziegler, LSU Libraries’ Conservation Coordinator, as well as including interviews with an expert in LSU’s College of Art & Design who could comment on its historical and cultural significance.

In addition to raising awareness of a unique item in LSU’s Special Collections and some of the functions of Special Collections, LSU thought this bright and colorful video would be perfect for generating some good publicity around Mardi Gras/Carnival Season. Consequently, the university chose to promote it on YouTube and social media in February 2023. Therefore, a secondary purpose of the video became to highlight LSU as an appealing place for students to matriculate due to its location in South Louisiana and proximity to unique cultural experiences like this.”

This film was made to coincide with the 2022 public release of the Anne Rice archival collection for research through the Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC), a division of Tulane University Libraries. The collection was created and managed by three authors — Rice, her husband Stan Rice, and her sister Alice Borchardt — and documents their professional development. Tulane’s Howard-Tilton Memorial Library acquired Rice’s complete archives in 2019, thanks to a gift from Stuart Rose and the Stuart Rose Family Foundation. The film was featured in the press release on Tulane’s news site: https://news.tulane.edu/pr/tulane-university-opens-anne-rices-complete-archive-research. The film is intended for the general public as well as campus community and has received over 600 views on the Tulane Libraries YouTube channel.

In Spring 2021, UBC Library Rare Books and Special Collections received an unparalleled rare book and archival collection, dating from the Klondike Gold Rush (1894-1904), from UBC alumnus and Canadian telecommunications icon Philip B. Lind, CM. The gift included a $2 million gift that will support the collection at the library.

The Library Communications team created the announcement video to profile the donation of the Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection and to accompany the media release. The video highlights materials from the Lind Collection, speaks to why UBC was the right place for it, provides further context about its significance and touches on the kinds of research it could spark at UBC with quotes from the UBC President, University Librarian, the donor and a faculty subject matter expert, Dr. Laura Ishiguro. Footage of Phil Lind was filmed by Public and Rogers Media, and used with permission for this video.

The 3-minute video was included as part of the media release package, and featured on UBC’s YouTube channel. A 30-second trailer version of the video was created for social media sharing.

We identified two key audiences for our video: 1) Canadian researchers and academics with an interest in British Columbian history and the Klondike Gold Rush era, and 2) UBC donors, past and prospective.

During the campaign period, the video accumulated more than 460 views on YouTube and 4.6k video views on UBC Library’s social media channels.

The story was pitched to key media outlets and saw coverage from Vancouver Sun, The Province, Calgary Herald, Radio Canada International, Global News, Vancouver is Awesome, CBC, and Globe & Mail with the video often embedded within the media stories. We also pitched niche publications in areas such as Canadian history, mining, and higher education, resulting in coverage from Academica group, NiCHE, the Canadian Historical Association newsletter and the Association of Research Libraries.

As we neared completion of a massive media preservation project, and in celebration of World Digital Preservation Day, Libraries and Cultural Resources musical team members recorded a parody song of Sarah McLachlan’s Adia.

In “Media” we reflect on the challenges preserving our vast AV collections, through migration and digitization. We have an ongoing commitment to preserve the digital files produced for future researchers worldwide. Digital preservation is ongoing work, but we will remain vigilant.

Original music and lyrics: Sarah McLachlan, Pierre Marchand
Parody lyrics, vocals and video editing: Kathryn Ruddock
Audio engineer: Marc Stoeckle
Piano: Nicola Johnson
Guitar and bass: Dave Brown
Flute: Lelland Reed
Video: Andy Nichols

The video was aired on our media walls during World Digital Preservation Day, and posted on our YouTube site.

“Buller,” is a 16.13 minute documentary exploring the founding of the University of Manitoba and the early life of the City of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada, through the voluminous records of one of the first professors hired by the University. The film also exposes the behind-the-scenes negotiations that led to the University Archives acquiring the papers, and then putting them to use.
(See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuirjunpaSY for the full documentary)

Buller was a botanist, a geologist and an eccentric individual, but he was so much more than that. He led the development of the teaching of science in the province, was an internationally renowned mycological researcher, a prolific writer, and in particular, a champion of women. At a time when many women were discouraged from attempting higher education, a number of his female students went on to take graduate degrees and have outstanding careers of their own in a variety of scientific arenas. He also championed the first women participating in the Manitoba Scientific and Historical Society.

In 2019, in a unique collaboration representing three major institutions in the city, Shelley Sweeney (then head of the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections), Nicole Fletcher (the Winnipeg Art Gallery), and Katherine Pettipas (recently retired from the Manitoba Museum) co-curated the exhibit “He was the Very Model of a Modern Research Scientist: Reginald Buller and the Founding of the University of Manitoba.” The Department of Biological Sciences and the WIN Herbarium that Buller had founded at the University of Manitoba also participated by loaning many of his original specimens. (See: https://news.umanitoba.ca/exhibition-recreates-office-and-lab-of-prolific-unique-founding-professor/) The purpose of the exhibit was to draw attention to this outstanding collection for use by students, faculty, researchers, and the general public. Or as archives volunteer Wayne Chan put it: “The point is to pique people’s interest and get them to visit the archives to ask about the records” (December 21, 2022).

The exhibit recreated Buller’s office and lab using his own furniture and that of one of his contemporaries enhanced with specimens and various materials. These complemented nine cases of archival and library materials that explored different aspects of his life and career, his influence on the university, the world of mycology, and the city of Winnipeg. The exhibit was based on nearly 5 metres of textual records, including photographs and correspondence, posters and wall charts, a bookcase and massive library, lantern slides, an oversized wooden map cabinet and maps, his wooden herbarium and card catalogue, and scientific and photographic artifacts.

The display was intended to run from October 15, 2019 till August 31, 2020 but by late March of 2020, the COVID Pandemic shut down the campus and all access to the exhibit was terminated. In an effort to increase knowledge of all the materials gathered for the exhibit by the public and to further foster an appreciation for the archival collection and the University of Manitoba Archives, the new head of the archives, Heather Bidzinski, decided to create a documentary using these materials with the help of Mike Latchislaw, a multimedia technician on campus.

The audience for the film is students, faculty, researchers and the general public. Working under very challenging conditions, the Archives did a soft launch of the film with Libraries staff in June of 2022. The video was then posted to YouTube on the Archives’ channel (623 subscribers) on November 22, 2022, and in the four months since then has achieved 1,100 views, 3 comments and 18 likes. This has been accomplished through tweets, targeted media contacts, posting to arcan-l, a national listserv for archives and archivists, and direct email contacts. Additional publicity includes:

• Darren Berhardt, “What Remains: Buried Secrets on the University of Manitoba Campus,” CBC News (December 31, 2022), https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/professor-buller-university-manitoba-remains-campus-1.6666556. This contains the link to the video embedded in the article.
• The above story made the “Top Ten” trending stories affecting postsecondary education in Canada by Academica group for January 6, 2023, https://www.academica.ca/topten/20230106
• “CBC: Buried Secrets on the University of Manitoba Campus,” UM News (January 4, 2023), https://news.umanitoba.ca/cbc-buried-secrets-on-the-university-of-manitoba-campus/ (which was also posted to both the Archives’ and the Libraries’ newsfeeds)
• It has since been posted to the Faculty of Science’s Microbiology website: https://umanitoba.ca/science/microbiology. The Faculty intends to roll it out in a larger campaign later in the term
• Biological Sciences sent a link to the video to all their staff
• “Buller Video,” Arcan-l (March 14, 2023), https://mailman.srv.ualberta.ca/mailman/private/arcan-l/2023-March/013976.html
• “UMASC Documentary,” AMA Newsletter (March 2023), https://www.mbarchives.ca/Blog/13151431

Further promotion is planned including introducing “Buller” to various mycological societies and organizations.

Reaction has been very favourable:

• “It was an excellent piece of history and detective work. Very entertaining and beautifully produced with snippets, music and background setting photos,” Scott Redhead, Curator, National Mycological Herbarium, March 4, 2023
• “My favorite parts are of course the “Buller Ghost” …, and Buller and the “Magic Mushroom” city — no wonder he was popular with the students!” Brian Hubner, March 4, 2023
• “Superb!” Leslie Latta, Provincial Archivist of Alberta, March 14, 2023
• “You have done a wonderful job of highlighting the importance of the historical record while telling a compelling story,” Matt Szybalski, March 16, 2023
• “It’s just great! My compliments to you and Dr. Goldsborough for your commentary and narration; and to the rest of the crew involved in making it happen,” Andrew Roger, March 16, 2023
• “It was a great video! So wonderful to share these important and fascinating stories and our collections,” Kim Arnold, March 16, 2023
• “This is wonderful! I’ve asked our web manager to find a place for it on our new website,” Brian Mark, Dean, Faculty of Science, March 20, 2023
• “What an interesting man in interesting times!” Mary Lochhead, April 3, 2023

The attached film has been edited down to 3 minutes and focuses on the collection and a particular aspect of Buller’s life and career extracted from the longer narrative.

As the University of Waterloo (in Ontario, Canada) develops an aspirational vision for the institution at 100 years, the video celebrates and promotes the launch of a new oral history program to document the diverse voices that make up the University community. This first phase of the oral history hub allowed us to interview nine members of our community including students, staff, and faculty and has enabled us to move to the next phase, after securing additional funding, to conduct another ten interviews. Black students, staff, and faculty are being interviewed and the result will be launched during Black History Month in 2024.

On October 6, 2017, UNC-Chapel Hill launched its most significant fundraising campaign ever–the Campaign for Carolina–with a goal to raise $4.25 billion by December 31, 2022. The University Libraries’ share of this goal was an ambitious $5 million.

In October 2022, the University Libraries hosted a luncheon for top donors and debuted “Your gift opens doors at the University Libraries” to express our gratitude for their generosity. The film itself left a door open for viewers to meet the deadline and make a gift in the campaign’s final months. Between October and December, the University Libraries shared the video in multiple ways, including:

• Primary audience: Donor event — audience of 100
  
• Secondary audience: Post-event donor email — sent to 550 contacts, 56% open rate
  
• Other: Views on University Libraries channels (web, YouTube, social) — 1,331

The University Libraries closed the campaign with the unprecedented total of $48.9 million given. While we cannot trace specific gifts to the video, we are pleased to have offered this authentic and heartfelt snapshot of the impact and importance of private giving.

Project Purpose:
The Neil Richards Collection of Sexual and Gender Diversity was established in 2010 and contains more than 8,000 unique items including books, photos, videos, artifacts, personal records, and records from prominent LGBT2S+ organizations in Saskatchewan, Canada. Neil Richards spent his life and career at the University of Saskatchewan preserving LGBT history in Saskatchewan. Sadly, Neil Richards passed away in 2018, and without his enthusiastic and engaging personality, the collection became underutilized. The aim of this project was to create a marketing video that would revive the awareness and use of the collection, with a hope to inspire additions of content or solicit monetary donations to this collection. What resulted was a series of ten videos that cover various experiences with the collection from faculty, students and community members. The video we have submitted is a general short promotional video for the collection.

Audience:

A video was chosen as the format for the marketing campaign because it provided the opportunity for us to showcase the dynamic and eclectic collection, and to feature real life consumers to connect more effectively with viewers. This format also allows us to utilize the video across several different platforms. Videos are a major priority for marketers with younger demographics shifting to platforms such as YouTube and Instagram. To get this collection out in the broadest way possible our digital strategy included cross posting and promotion to YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, as well as including it in the LibGuide that is associated with the collection. This video was also shared at in person Saskatoon Pride events like Spark Your Pride and the University of Saskatchewan Library hosted their first Drag Storytime for Adults where this video was also featured. In addition, this video was also sent directly to potential donors to give them a sense of the collection. As a result we have reached a wide variety of audiences such as students, staff, faculty, and community members in Saskatchewan and across Canada.

Measure of impact:

The Neil Richards Promo video by itself has had over 248 views in the last 9 months and has begun accomplishing the objectives we had set out to engage users with this collection, and to expand its contents.

We have hosted two Drag Story time for adult events that utilized resources from the collection:

• June 15, 2022 with Chelazon Leroux with 55+ attendees
• October 13, 2022 in partnership with our student union (USSU) we hosted two drag story times with over 86+ attendees

We have several active collaborations with the Neil Richards Collection:

• August 5, 2022 — Western Development Museum collaboration to include digitized Richards materials to support their film project’s next phase
• August 11, 2022 — OUTSaskatoon Presentation request for Youth Programming about Queer History in SK
• September 21, 2022 — JusticeTrans re: partnership request
• December 22, 2022 — MacEwan University — Edmonton Queer History Project

Donations to the Neil Richards Collection:

• July 25, 2022 – Spark Your Pride Saskatoon Pride – Donation of $500 specifically for the Neil Richards Collection– matched by the University of Saskatchewan Library for $1000 total
• September 13, 2022 – Community member re: donation of queer publications
• October 22, 2022 – Local Drag Queen contacted us regarding a donation of materials relating to their career
• November 21, 2022 – Community member offered to donate full run of Perceptions
• February, 2023 – Private donation of $10k – matched by the University of Saskatchewan Library for a total of $20k

Our initial donation goal was $10k. The University Library matches donations made specifically to the Neil Richards Collection, and with the help of the promotional video we have accumulated well over $20k in donations.

In addition we have consistent access requests for the collection, that have led to new ongoing work with the collection:

Ongoing work with the collection:

• July, 2022 — Summer student hired for digitization of Richards materials
• September 25, 2022 — Neil Richards chronology update in partnership with Women and Gender Studies at the University of Saskatchewan (the new edition hopes to cover 2005 to 2020). Original chronology here: https://library.usask.ca/srsd/chronology/SRSD_Chronology.pdf
• January, 2023 — Updating the Saskatchewan Resources of Sexual and Gender Diversity website that houses the digitized Neil Richards Collection https://library.usask.ca/srsd/

Each year, the Foundation at UW-Madison hosts the Day of the Badger, the most significant fundraiser of the year where each unit can highlight its work, in hopes of donors giving back to those units.

As essential partners in discovery, instruction, and scholarship, the resources provided by the UW-Madison Libraries impact every student, so the Libraries place a significant focus on the Day of the Badger efforts, growing steadily over the last three years. This fundraiser is not easy, as the Libraries, having no defined graduate/donor base like a school or college, must go above and beyond to reach our potential donors, somewhat in competition with the academic units. This video is sent to our donor list (defined by our development director) in an e-blast, as well as shared extensively on social media.

This year (2023), our goal was to raise $5,000 in order to “unlock” our matching gift from a generous donor. This year, we raised nearly $16,000, which is a 70% increase in unmatched dollars, a 39% increase in matched dollars, and a 34% increase in the number of donors. 2023 was our best year yet.

The attached video submission was made to recognize and celebrate the achievements of all who completed the spring 2022 semester at Michigan State University. The audience for the video is prospective students, current students, alumni, and family and friends who are proud of their Spartans for reaching this stage in life. The impact of the video can be seen in the response to the MSU Libraries’ social media channels, where it had 377 views on Twitter, 340 on Facebook, 321 views on Instagram and 55 views on YouTube; view counts either met or exceeded averages for these channels. On a more personal level, when I was photographing the students featured in the photos in the video, I had the opportunity to connect with them to hear what they were currently working on, which in a lot of cases was finals preparation. A lot of the photos were staged to capture the excitement of completing their degree or being finished with their school semester, which I believe helped spark engagement and interaction between students within the library as we worked together. This sort of energy can be especially positive during times like finals week, which can be both emotionally and physically daunting for students. Thinking about the importance of recognizing the amount of work that students undertake in this time and in their overall academic careers—sometimes without necessarily having support systems in place to appreciate their efforts—is why I wanted to showcase the achievements of our MSU students in this video.

Each year, The Ohio State University celebrates BuckeyeLove, a campus-wide campaign that takes place during Random Acts of Kindness Week in February. This year, we wanted to surprise and delight visitors to Thompson Library with a giant heart on the glass walls of the book stacks area overlooking the atrium. The University Libraries Marketing & Communications team planned and coordinated the installation, and Amanda deJonge, social media production associate from the university’s Office of Marketing & Communications, filmed and edited the reel for social media. The heart itself generated many smiles and achieved the desired goal of showing appreciation for the many individuals who use Thompson Library daily, while also serving as a great selfie spot! On Instagram, the reel received more than 115,000 views and more than 8,000 likes. It appeared on both the University Libraries profile (@osulibraries) and the main Ohio State account (@theohiostateuniversity). It was an extremely successful piece of affinity content, while also promoting University Libraries spaces to a broad audience.

Each year, the University of Minnesota Libaries staff and student employees march in the University Homecoming Parade, held Friday evening before the Saturday homecoming football game. We participate as a way to show our support and connection to campus and to provide awareness about all we do. In 2022, we were overwhelmed by the support of students, staff, faculty, and alumni who were cheered us on throughout the evening.

The video entry, The Legacy of Barbara Jordan, showcases three minutes of a 14-minute short documentary produced as an instructional resource for 4th and 7th grade teachers.

This resource, along with many others, is part of the Texas History for Teachers project in development by the UNT Libraries, the UNT History Department, and partner institutions across Texas. The goal of the Texas History for Teachers (TX4T) project is to provide resources to teachers that is contextual, creative, and from the vantage points of individuals and groups who’s voices were not regularly heard in the traditional recapitulations of regional history.

The Legacy of Barbara Jordan video is a unique resource in the deep collection of multimedia options provided within the TX4T Portal (https://education.texashistory.unt.edu) because it included a collaboration between the UNT Libraries and Texas Southern University. Approaching a celebration of the life of Barbara Jordan at a banquet hosted at TSU, the UNT Libraries and Andrew Torget, professor of history at UNT, were invited to produce a short documentary with Dr. Karen L. Kossie-Chernyshev, professor of history at TSU, showcasing Jordan’s life and impact on civil rights in the South. In the video, Dr. Kossie-Chernyshev shares stories of the remarkable courage and brilliance Barbara Jordan embodied, within a format that a new generation of scholars and instructors can appreciate. Hers was a life of many firsts – the first African American elected (1966) to the Texas House of Representatives since 1883, the first African American from the South elected to U.S. Congress in 1972, and the first woman and African American to speak at the Democratic National Convention in 1976. The UNT Libraries were elated to partner with TSU and the Barbara Jordan Foundation to provide teachers and learners an opportunity to re-experience the remarkable life of a true Texas trailblazer.

A fairly recent tutorial, the Primary Resources video’s primary audience is undergraduate students and other researchers at the University of Delaware. This asset is intended for use in the classroom by instruction librarians and will be embedded in research guides and other course platforms. The video has 67 views in the two weeks since it has been launched.

Every student at Colorado State University can find their vibe at Morgan Library, whether they’re at the library to study, learn, bond or chill. “Find Your Vibe” was created by dance students who led the planning, choreography, filming, editing and distribution of the video. The goal of the video was to encourage students to engage with library spaces in new, creative ways in order to nurture feelings of ownership and belonging. The video was shared via YouTube and Instagram as a series of posts and short reels. Engagement on Instagram with the content was above average for our account, and we received enthusiastic comments from students and staff about the creativity and positive energy spotlighted in the video.

This film, highlighting the history and current focus of the Georgia Tech Library, was created to help give an overview of the organization for a recent Presidential Cabinet meeting. It was produced entirely in-house without the use of funding. It exclusively uses Archives and Institute material.

Noah Brock is Alkek Library’s MakerSpace Supervisor, but he’s also a talented artist. In this unscripted interview, Noah walks the audience through the creation process of his sculpture, “Newton’s Bucket.” He details how every step of the process could be completed within the MakerSpace. This film and the longer 6 minute version was made to showcase the MakerSpace’s resources, introduce patrons to Noah’s expertise, and demystify the creation process.

The University of Chicago Library’s Preservation Laboratories are where art meets science, and where our collections are transformed. Reflecting both the artistry of traditional practices and the ingenuity of modern innovation, conservators and digitization specialists create multiple pathways to our scholarly resources and extend their longevity. This 3-minute clip, from a 15-minute documentary film, explores how the team rescued and digitized a 16th-century antiphonarium.

The Libraries proposed and advocated for the passage of a new campus-wide policy titled “Equitable Access to Scholarly Articles Authored by University Faculty” which passed the UMD Senate and was finalized on April 8, 2022. The Libraries, now responsible for operationalizing and implementing the policy, needed an engaging and compelling way to introduce the new policy and communicate essential information about the policy to campus faculty. The purpose of this video is to educate faculty members about what it will mean for their scholarly research and what will be required of them to comply with the policy. Perhaps most importantly, the video needed to communicate the “why” behind the policy — the value it provides to the scholarly community and the public at large. This includes how the policy positively impacts sustainable scholarly communication, social and economic justice, increased use and preservation of scholarly articles, compliance with public-access mandates, and its benefits to individual faculty authors.

The video is featured on the homepage of the policy website (https://equitableaccess.umd.edu/) and has been shown at high-profile campus meetings of administrators, deans, and department heads, and has been shared by the Libraries’ liaison librarians to their respective colleges and schools. It is also published on the Libraries YouTube channel (1.93k subscribers) where it has garnered over 100 views. There is also a communication plan in place to distribute this video via email to every faculty member on campus via a message from the Provost as well as placement in Maryland Today, the university’s daily news update that goes to all campus community members. The video has been and will continue to be an invaluable tool to raise awareness about this paradigm-shifting policy and its benefit for the public good.