Now is a good time to consider doing a library school practicum, a history department internship, or some other type of volunteer project in Special Collections at the Cleveland State University Library. We are doing some exciting things with the Cleveland Digital Library metadata site, digitizing texts and photos and building web sites around local history topics for the Cleveland Memory Project and Special Collections has new, enlarged quarters.
We moving fast in several important directions and have been pleased to host many student interns over the past few years, without whom we'd never have gotten this far. [STAFF]
Here are a few ideas of projects we'd like help with, but if you have some particular need, interest, or background you'd like to pursue, PLEASE tell me about it and we'll probably be able to accommodate it. Our philosophy is that graduate students and upperclass undergraduates are generally smart enough, motivated enough and experienced enough to be trusted with a meaningful amount of independent responsibility, while still learning about a particular topic or skill. We try to balance the academic with the practical and we want to utilize your experiences while teaching you new things, like html or scanning. The particular mix will depend upon the individual, but here are some possible projects:
Acquisitions: We have been busy setting up the new reading room and now need to consider various collection development issues remaining unexamined. KSU's Teresa Calderone worked hard recently, studying the arrangement and description of our books and trying to determine what belongs in Special Collections and what doesn't. Now we need to build on her work for additions to the collection. How, for example, do we keep in touch with all the various rare book and map dealers who could have things for the collections? We have funds to spend, but no systematic program for spending them. Image databases and GIS on the web: Our many image sites have become so large that we are converting over to delivering them via an image database. We also have a CIS student working on a web-based GIS (geographic information system) to provide spatially-referenced access to these images. Plus, we're beginning to brainstorm about modeling the Terminal Tower complex on the web in 3D, so there's no shortage of innovative things going on. Marketing/PR: The new room and our constantly-expanding digital library projects are wonderful signs of growth, but we need to tell the world about them. We need to critically examine our historical and digital collections and design services to targeted user groups. How can we best serve each of our constituent patron groups and tell them about these services? Processing: If you want to examine a rare collection of materials and learn how to put it into proper archival order, we have several to choose from. Most recently, for example, we received a set of records from the old Euclid Avenue Baptist Church, formerly on what's now the CSU campus, but for decades "Rockefeller's Church." Some of these records recount meetings in JDR's office in 1868! Fund Raising: Is this a topic of interest to anyone? Library and historical society development is a real career enhancer and Cleveland Memory, Special Collections and the Cleveland Digital Library are unique, attractive candidates around which to build a fund raising program. There are major fundraising resource available to us nearby. Come help us get a handle on this subject. Bibliographies: In addition to the full-text and image content we offer via the Cleveland Digital Library and Cleveland Memory, we also plan to build a comprehensive bibliography of local history resources. If you would like to do an in-depth literature survey of any of our specialty topics, this could be a good opportunity to do everyone a good turn. On-line Reference: How can we plan a program of on-line reference to students, faculty, the general public, local historians, genealogists, local K-12 teachers and other area librarians, using our holdings of paper and digital history resources?
Any other ideas? Let me know if you have interests in local history collections or digital library topics I haven't mentioned. I have a long list of thoughts on this subject and we're very open to your suggestions, needs and interests. Working in academic libraries really can be fun when you're doing something meaningful to both you and us!
Call or write me, as I'm always available to discuss this.
Bill Barrow, Special Collections Librarian
MA - History (Cleveland State, 1997)
MLS - Library and Information Science (Kent State, 1998)
Cleveland State University Library
1860 East 22nd Street
Cleveland, OH 44114
(216) 687-6998 (office)
(216) 687-2449 (Special Collections)
(216) 687-9328 (fax)
w.barrow@csuohio.edu
http://web.ulib.csuohio.edu/SpecColl/ (Special Collections)
Cleveland Digital Library:
http://web.ulib.csuohio.edu/SpecColl/cdl
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