Jackson, MS (Three Institutions):

Jackson State University Library --Jump
http://www.jsums.edu/~univlibraries/

Mississippi Department of Archives and History --Jump
http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/

Right: Students and mentors on a porch in jackson, MS.
See more of the Jackson MS student's extracurricular fun!

Projects:

Lanell James worked with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History to process the Aurelia Young collection in the Tougaloo College Civil Rights collection. Aurelia Young is the widow of Jack Young, a prominent civil rights attorney during the 1960s and the "point man" for the NAACP legal team in Jackson. Mrs. Young is an accomplished musician and headed the music departments at Tougaloo College and Jackson State University. Lanell worked on weeding, re-arranging and re-housing the collection. she also assisted with the preparation of a finding aid and catalog record.

Christie Peterson spent her time at the Jackson State University Henry T. Sampson Library. She used Dreamweaver 8 and Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator to create a web site for the Gibbs-Green Memorial Digital Collection. The Phillip Gibbs and James Green Memorial Collection documents the shooting of two black students by Mississippi law enforcement during a campus protest just two weeks after similar shootings at Kent State. The event was a pivotal moment in Mississippi's civil rights history and touched off weeks of protest and boycotts. EAD finding aids for this collection, as well as selected digital images, will be available in the Mississippi Digital Library.

Erin Passehl worked at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, with the Milbume Crow Album. Milbume Crowe was the unofficial historian of Mound Bayou, a town in the Mississippi Delta founded by ex-slaves in 1887 and one of the oldest African American towns in the nation. Erin's job was to prepare the album for public access by assessing, describing and digitizing it. This involved research and writing, conservation recommendations, scanning, creating metadata and technical information and working within the MDAH Electronic Archives graphical user interface (gui) blueprint to make the digitized images available. She also worked with MDAH staff to create a MARC catalog record for the album.

Sarah Walch worked at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. She worked with a collection of 600+ web pages produced by Mississippi government agencies and entities following Hurricane Katrina. These were subsequently captured by MDAR Electronic Archives, documenting the disaster's impact on government operation and services. Sarah had the chance to help write the perl script for extracting the web pages. She then extracted the remaining MARC information (title, agency, and comment info) so that the archived web pages could be made accessible.


What Students Had to Say:

" The people were awesome, and really concerned with us having a good experience."

" [My ASB experience in Mississippi] made me realize that alternative parts of the country (beyond the normal destinations) have their own shine."



"Because of ASB, I now have another skill that I can confidently list on my resume, and a sample of my work that I can provide to potential employers."

" [My] Supervisor was fantastic. She made a packet for me with all the information I needed to do my project, and throughout the week was eager to help in any way she could. I could not have asked for better."

" I DID SOMETHING THAT WAS MEANINGFUL FOR THE ORGANIZATION."

"[My supervisor] was fantastic. He was always willing to listen to my questions and along with both of the individuals he supervised gave me a really good idea of what is going on currently in the field of Electronic Records. I also gained quite a bit of contextual history of the department (and Mississippi) from conversations we had periodically throughout the week."

Original Projects:
Jump to: Mississippi Department of Archives and History | Jackson State University Libraries | Mississippi Digital Library
Red Text = Organization's top priority projects (this is an fyi--you are welcome to list preference for any project).


Mississippi Department of Archives and history Projects:
(Jump to: Non Civil Rights Projects | Civil Rights Projects)

Non Civil Rights Projects (MDAH)

1) Evaluate and recommend Changes in Descriptive Access: Utilize the online catalog and available research tools including paper finding aids and indices, from the point of view of various types of researchers. Analyze the effectiveness of these tools and suggest changes to make the descriptive tools more useful and user-friendly to researchers. Work would include describing instances in which the online and paper aids give conflicting and/or confusing information, and in what ways they could be made to work more effectively.

2) Process Mississippi Government Agency Hurricane Katrina Web Pages: Work with hundreds of web pages produced by Mississippi government agencies and entities following Hurricane Katrina and subsequently captured by MDAR Electronic Archives, documenting the disaster's impact on government operation and services. Work will include framing the pages as archived snapshots, composing descriptive metadata, clarifying rights management issues, and other work necessary to prepare the collection for public access.

3) Design and Conduct a User Survey of the Online Public Catalog: The OPAC
was recently upgraded and redesigned in order to be more "user-friendly". This project would help to determine what works and what needs improvement. Work would include designing a consent form, deciding which tasks patrons would be asked to perform while "thinking aloud," devising an evaluation form, writing the survey "script" (to establish consistency in giving the survey and talking to participants), conducting the survey with approximately eight patrons, and producing a written report of the findings and recommendations.

4) Catalog Amateur Film Collection: Use existing narrative descriptions to create MARC catalog records for a collection of 30+ amateur films by Mississippians, circa 1930-1950, most documenting rural life.

5) Enhance Access to the Register of Commissions, 1853-1858: Compiled by the Secretary of State's office, the Register of Commissions contains information about state, county and municipal commissions. Work will include entering information in established database and designing a user-friendly interface for its access. This project will enable the fragile original items to be preserved.

6) Digitize NaturalScienceMuseum Lantern Slides: Scan and complete metadata for a set of lantern slides, circa 1920, by Fannye A. Cook, founder of the conservation movement in Mississippi.

7) Prepare Digitized Civil War Diary for Public Access: Work within the MDAH Electronic Archives graphical user interface (gui) blueprint to make the digitized diary of Jesse L. Henderson of the 41" Mississippi Infantry Regiment available to researchers. Work will include describing the collection, compiling general and technical information, composing descriptive metadata for each image, linking to diary transcriptions, and producing a collection level MARC record.

8) Assess, Appraise, and Arrange the Robinson Family Papers: The collection (one cubic foot) consists of correspondence and financial papers, including detailed store accounts, from the 1830s and 1840s, of the Robinson family of Rankin County, Mississippi. Also included, dating in the 1870s, are the records of Wall Grange No. 75 of Smith County, Mississippi. Work will include creating appraising and assessing the collection; cleaning, foldering, and reboxing the material; and drafting a preliminary finding aid.

Civil Rights Projects (MDAH) (These projects are listed in order of priority.)

9) Assess and Describe the Milburn Crowe Album; Digitize Album & Prepare for Public Access: Milbume Crowe was the unofficial historian of Mound Bayou, a town in the Mississippi Delta founded by ex-slaves in 1887 and one of the oldest African American towns in the nation. The photograph album consists of 90 b/w images of and related to the Montgomery Family of Mound Bayou, 1860-1900; Isaiah T. Montgomery was a former slave on the plantation of Joseph E. Davis, founder of Mound Bayou, and the only black delegate to the 1890 Mississippi Constitutional Convention. The work will consist of 1) researching and writing detailed scope and content note for the photograph album; 2) assessing conservation needs & recommending treatments for water damage, mold, and mildew; 3) scanning the images; 4) working within the MDAH Electronic Archives graphical user interface (gui) blueprint to make available the digitized images, including site layout and design, composing descriptive metadata for each image, compiling general and technical information, and producing a collection level MARC record.  

10) Process the Aurelia Young Collection in the Tougaloo College Civil Rights Collection: Aurelia Young is the widow of Jack Young, a prominent civil rights attorney during the 1960s and the "point man" for the NAACP legal team in Jackson. Mrs. Young was (is) an accomplished musician and headed the music departments at Tougaloo College and Jackson State University. She also was the prime mover for bringing a radio station to Tougaloo. The collection (5 cu. ft.) contains primarily articles (pasted on composition paper) that Mrs. Young collected about events important to her; letters, notes, cards, and other documents reflect Mrs. Young's involvement in the Movement and other events in Mississippi during this period. Work will include collection weeding, rearrangement and re-boxing; folder preparation; and preparation of a finding aid and catalog record.

11) Process the Christopher Hexter Mississippi Summer Project Papers: The papers of Christopher T. Hexter (app. .33 cu. ft.) document his civil rights work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Mississippi Summer Project in Ruleville and Indinanola, Sunflower County, Mississippi, in 1964. Essays, speeches, newsletters, and photographs are included in the collection. Work will include researching and writing a biography of Hexter, arranging the collection, and drafting a finding aid and catalog record.

12) Process the Robert G. Clark Collection in the TougalooCollege Civil Rights Collection: Robert Clark was the first black legislator elected to the Mississippi Legislature since Reconstruction. His election was aided by active assistance of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Clark maintained a close association with the Tougaloo College Social Science division during his early years in the legislature. The collection (2 cu. ft.) contains letters and documents related to SNCC, pictures of Clark, and copies of unidentified legislative material. Work will include collection weeding and rearrangement; folder preparation; and preparation of a finding aid and catalog record.

13) Provide Enhanced Access to Moncrief Collection Photographs: Work with the MDAH Electronic Archives graphical user interface (gui) for the digitized Moncrief Collection photographs, which center around 1960s civil rights activities in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The work will build upon the basic gui, more fully identifying photographs in terms of locations, events, and individuals; placing each event within its historical context with brief descriptions; and linking to other salient records within MDAH collections.

14) Process the John R. Warner, Jr. Mississippi Freedom Summer Collection: This collection (app. 0.25 cubic ft.) is composed of printed material, original manuscripts, correspondence, and photographs documenting the activities of John R. Warner, Jr., a chaplain from the National Council of Churches assigned to Laurel, Jones County, Mississippi, during the Mississippi Freedom Summer. Warner worked with several civil rights organizations, including COFO and SNCC. Work will include researching and writing a biography of Warner, arranging the collection, and drafting a finding aid and catalog record.


Jackson State University Library Projects: All are Civil Rights related projects.

1) Preserve, arrange, and describe the Jane Ellen McAllister Photograph Collection:
Jane McAllister was the first African American woman in the world to earn a doctorate in education. As a professor of education at Jackson State College from 1951 to 1969, she instituted a number of innovative programs in the 1950s to improve Mississippi's rural black schools through teacher education. In the 1960s, she created the first initiatives in the state to provide black youth with college preparation, enrichment programs, and classical studies. The Photograph Collection not only documents these educational experiments, but also contains photographs of McAllister's family in Vicksburg, Mississippi, dating to the late nineteenth century.

2) Complete the arrangement and description of the OPEPA/SOUTH Collection:
OPERA/SOUTH, founded in 1970 in Jackson, Mississippi, by three local, historically-black colleges, was one of only two black professional opera companies in the nation. The company not only encouraged the development of black performers and composers, but also broke new ground in Mississippi by presenting interracial casts. The student will arrange an unprocessed addendum, complete and finding aid, and inventory the photographs.

3) Design a web page for the Phillip Gibbs and James Green Memorial digital collection:
The Phillip Gibbs and James Green Memorial Collection documents the shooting of two black students by Mississippi law enforcement during a campus protest just two weeks after similar shootings at Kent State. The event was a pivotal moment in Mississippi's civil rights history and touched off weeks of protest and boycotts. EAD finding aids for this collection, as well as selected digital images, will be available in the Mississippi Digital Library. The student will design a web page to enhance access to these digital resources (examples will be provided).
 
4) Collection survey and collection-level EAD records:
Working with the Mississippi Digital Library Field Archivist, the student will survey civil rights- related archival collections and prepare collection-level brief records in order to enhance access to these "hidden" collections.

Mississippi Digital Library Projects:
(Jump to: Non Civil Rights Projects | Civil Rights Projects)

Non Civil Rights Projects

1) Sustainability of state digital libraries: Research and report on existing models for the sustainability of collaborative, state-based digital library projects. Of particular concern are governing structures; business models; and strategies that existing projects have used to transition from pilot phase to long term sustainability; governing structures; and business models. After working with Mississippi Digital Library participants to identify critical questions, the student will use online resources and interview (by phone and email) representatives from selected projects to identify strategies and make recommendations.

Civil Rights Projects

2) Copyright research and database: A key part of the Mississippi Digital Library involves addressing intellectual property issues for digitizing twentieth-century collections. A unique challenge of the project is the complicated nature of copyright status for archival materials created by ad-hoc, grassroots civil rights organizations that are no longer in existence. Four repositories are involved in securing permissions from copyright holders to make digital copies of letters, photographs, and manuscripts available online. Currently, each repository maintains separate paperwork documenting its permissions process. The student(s) will work on the development of a shared database to be used for tracking the permissions process across these four repositories, as well as research issues related to the copyright status of materials created by these organizations.

3) Update Civil Rights Timeline: As part of the Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive (the precursor to the Mississippi Digital Library), staff members at The University of Southern Mississippi created a timeline of Mississippi civil rights events to provide historical context for the digital archive (http://www.lib.usm.edu/~spcol/crda/hist/timeline.htm). The timeline focused heavily on the Hattiesburg area, where USM is located. As additional repositories join the digital library effort, the timeline needs to be updated to reflect the historical context of the entire state. The student will use finding aids from partner repositories, as well as other print and online resources, to add additional entries to the timeline.