Ohio Connecting to Collections
Summary of Regional Meetings held in July 2010
Following on the success of the Ohio “Connecting to Collections” online survey project
and the May 7, 2010 Preservation Summit meeting, the project partners scheduled a
series of five regional meetings around the state. These half-day sessions were somewhat
similar in nature to the Summit, but focused even more on providing preservation
information resources to the cultural heritage institution staff members and volunteers
working in organizations in Ohio. Overall, the Regional Meetings attracted a total of 110
participants.
Reflecting the wide spectrum of cultural institutions in the state, meetings were
scheduled at a variety of organizational types. The meeting dates, host institutions, cities,
and numbers of attendees are listed below. A brief synopsis of the presentations at each
site is followed by a review of the key questions and discussion topics at each site.
July 15, 2010:
attendees
July 20, 2010:
July 21, 2010:
July 26, 2010:
July 29, 2010:
attendees
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati, OH – 26
Athens Public Library, Athens, OH – 10 attendees
Beeghly Library, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH – 20 attendees
Bedford Historical Society, Cleveland, OH – 31 attendees
Jerome Library, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH – 23
Representatives of each of the Ohio Heritage Partner organizations had a role in
presenting at the regional meeting sessions. Speakers included key staff members from
the State Library of Ohio, the Ohio Historical Society, the Intermuseum Conservation
Association, and LYRASIS (the project consultant’s organization).
At each regional meeting, topics addressed included a Background and Introduction to
the Project; a Discussion of Survey Results and Overview of the Summit (particularly
focusing on breakout group discussions at the Summit meeting); a featured presentation
on “Educational Resources and How to Prioritize Collection Needs;” and a discussion on
the State of Digital Preservation, which also built on findings from the May Summit.
At each of the regional meeting sessions, there was time for questions and discussion
both between presentations and at the end of the meeting. Important issues from each
of the meetings are detailed below, specific to the meeting site.
Cincinnati: Discussion ranged widely from a request for a sample preservation position
description for cultural heritage institutions, to making sure that education offerings in
preservation are available for both Intermediate- and Advanced-level institutions, as well
as those for institutions just beginning preservation activities. Another area of interest was
in the revival of the Cincinnati Alliance for Response initiative, which began in 2004 as a
way to bring together cultural heritage staff and emergency managers/responders to
discuss disaster planning, mitigation, and recovery issues. Other “hot topics” included
deaccessioning practices among museums, the need for more instruction in metadata
for digital objects, and interest in grant writing workshops and strategies.
Athens: Discussion at this session included a testimonial for the high quality of the
Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) online workshop, “Preservation 101”
as basic instruction in the field. Audience members spoke of getting questions on how to
preserve materials at home; the Athens County Historical Society and Museum
announced that they were doing a workshop in July focused on this topic. Interest was
expressed in disaster plan-writing workshops, and the ability to utilize a “mobile scanning
lab” for digitization if this could be one of the services offered in the Ohio Connecting to
Collections Implementation program. A final topic was how to work with dangerous
artifacts, including weapons, degraded film stock, and taxidermy specimens.
Delaware/Columbus Area: There was quite a bit of discussion on identifying important
private collections in need of preservation, and also in topics related to caring for
personal treasures. The development of collection policies was an important topic, and
both at and after the workshop, there were numerous questions about fundraising and
grant writing for preservation and digitization.
Bedford/Cleveland Area: Although part of the presentation on the survey results focused
on funding sources for preservation, there were additional questions from the audience
about categories and deadlines for grants. Participants were very interested in
assistance in grant development. The Foundation Center collections in Cleveland and
Akron/Summit County were mentioned, as was a Kent State University-sponsored
workshop on designing successful library grant projects.
Bowling Green: There was interest from participants in this session in the availability of
model disaster plans which they could adapt to their institution. Additionally in disaster
planning, people wanted assistance in helping to determine salvage priorities for their
materials. Metadata issues for digital collections was an area of interest here, as
participants wanted to know more about mapping and crosswalking metadata
between different types of institutions and collections. Regional meetings focused on
single topics in preservation were suggested; one approach was to be able to have a
forum in which to compare and share preservation plans and policies. Tailoring
information on collection management and funding to small, volunteer-based institutions
was also seen as important. Preservation funding – potentially from local sources such as
community foundations – was identified as an important issue as well. A final thread of
discussion at this session was on deaccessioning practices for cultural heritage institutions.
Overall Trends: The Ohio Connecting to Collections Regional Meeting Series allowed for
additional discussion and information dissemination on important preservation topics with
a variety of cultural heritage staff and volunteers from around the state. During the
discussions, there were a number of areas of interest expressed by the meeting
attendees which should be considered for focus on and inclusion in any Connecting to
Collections Implementation Grant from Ohio. The key topics which were discussed at
length, in more than one meeting, include:





Preserving personal collections
Grants and funding assistance for preservation and digitization
Resource information for developing disaster plans
Development of collection policies, including deaccessioning practices
Metadata issues for digitized collections
As many of the regional meeting attendees were representing smaller museums, libraries,
and historical societies, making sure educational and informational activities are geared
to this type of institution is very important, although the needs of larger institutions must
be addressed as well.
In conjunction with the preservation training and assistance needs which surfaced in
both the project Web Survey and at the May 7 Summit meeting, all of these topics should
be regarded as areas for emphasis in further workshops, presentations, and information
provision from the Ohio Heritage Partnership group.
Report submitted by Tom Clareson, Senior Consultant for New Initiatives, LYRASIS