Conference in Shanghai

I'm very fortunate that I was able to travel to China twice in one year.  I was invited to attend the  2nd Global Perspective Academic Library Directors' Forum at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics in Shanghai, China November 18-20.  The conference theme was Academic Libraries' Strategic Transformation:  Organizational Change and Librarians' Career Development and so I presented on our liaison restructuring.   This is the library from which we've had several visitors and I saw most of them there.  And Sha Li attended and presented as well so I visited with her.

It was very interesting to see how a Chinese conference works.  The presentations were very formal  and more theoretical than those we usually experience at a U.S. conference.  The SUFE hosts were incredibly gracious and took excellent care of us. We got to do some touring and well as conferencing and the food was wonderful! 

My only hitch was being delayed a day in Shanghai due to flight cancellation.  But, I was re-routed through Tokyo so now I can say I've been to Japan.

Here are some pictures if you want to look through them.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/24010313@N04/sets/72157649072687340/

Notes & Lessons from Charleston Conference 2014

I posted a recap of this years action in Charleston.  --Steve Cramer

Representing World War I: Perspectives at the Centenary

On October 30, 2014, Kathelene Smith, Jennifer Motszko, and I traveled to Toronto to present at an international conference on the centenary of World War One.  Upon our arrival at our downtown hotel, we were met with cool fall temperatures, overcast skies, and Canadians wearing red poppies on the lapels of their winter jackets.  It was a somber sight.  But, it was also a striking reminder of how Canada and the other member states of the Commonwealth of Nations commemorate and mourn the fallen of the “Great War” and subsequent conflicts.  We were struck by this very public and collective act of remembrance.

The three day conference, Representing World War I: Perspectives at the Centenary, was jointly sponsored by Toronto’s International Festival of Authors and the Humber School of Liberal Arts and Sciences.  The conference drew historians, political scientists, literary scholars, and archivists from France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Hungary, Canada, Australia, and the United States.  Presentation topics addressed such issues as: war and national identity, life on the home front, state propaganda, gender and armed conflict, race relations and modern warfare, memorialization and mythmaking, and European colonies and their role in a global war.  With a field of inquiry long dominated by military historians, it was refreshing to see how new research questions and methods have broadened the scholarly discussion of this bloody war.

Each day of the academic conference began with a keynote speaker who pointedly addressed emerging research trends and ongoing scholarly debates.  These opening sessions sparked a great deal of discussion amongst attendees.  The first keynote speaker, Dr. Michael S. Neiberg, challenged the way scholars have explained and taught the causes for the outbreak of the war in Europe in 1914.  Neiberg argued that the scholarly focus on a small number of decision-making elites is terribly misplaced.  While acknowledging the influence of military alliances and critical political decisions, Neiberg provocatively suggested that most Europeans did not blindly follow their leaders nor did they desire war.  The keynote speaker for the second day, Dr. David Stevenson, addressed the origins of World War One through the lens of a prewar arms race and a breakdown of international diplomacy.  Additionally, Stevenson explored the “war aims” of each of the combatant countries.  Through this study of war aims and their impact on the postwar settlement, Stevenson sought to draw connections to the outbreak of World War Two, and the development of the Cold War, as well as the current military tensions in Europe.

Drawing on the rich holdings in Special Collections and University Archives at UNCG, Kathelene Smith, Jennifer Motszko, and I assembled a panel on American women and propaganda during World War One.  We were the sole panel that was made up exclusively of archivists.  In her talk entitled “We Need You: Portrayals of Women in World War I American Red Cross Posters,” Jennifer discussed how women were being actively recruited for service with the Red Cross.  Through an examination of the visual imagery in wartime Red Cross posters, Jennifer argued that the posters themselves reflected the changing position of women in society, from supplicant to participant.   

In the presentation entitled “Every Girl Pulling for Victory: Sacrifice and Social Consciousness during the Great War,” Kathelene examined the ways students and faculty at the State Normal (now UNCG)  responded to the American declaration of war and the mobilization of the home front.  Students took an active role in buying liberty bonds, sewing socks, preserving food, and meeting a labor shortage.  Additionally, Kathelene discussed how the experience of the war energized and rallied students around the issue of suffrage, a natural consequence of the war effort. 

My presentation was based on the large World War One pamphlet collection that resides in Special Collections and University Archives.  Specifically, I was very interested in how American propaganda mobilized women to assist in the cultivation and preservation of food.  The title of my presentation was “’Doing Their Bit’: Food, Propaganda, and the Mobilization of the American Home Front.”   I explored how gender specific representations of “patriotism” and “duty” were used to mobilize women in the private and public spheres that constituted the home front.  I looked at pamphlets that promoted the cultivation of “war gardens,” the preserving of food, and the adoption of new recipes to address wartime shortages of wheat and meat.  I also looked at the state’s efforts to recruit women for commercial agricultural work through the Woman’s Land Army. 

Our session was well attended.  There was a lengthy question and answer session.  Audience members were very interested in how race and class may have impacted American propaganda efforts on both the national level and local level. 

As we were preparing to return to North Carolina, I was listening to a news commentator discuss the upcoming Remembrance Day activities in Canada.  While noting the centenary of the outbreak of World War One, he declared that this year’s commemoration (and the wearing of a poppy) took on extra meaning due to a recent terrorist attack at Canada’s National War Memorial and to the fact that the nation was beginning airstrikes on the Islamic State in Iraq.

Society of Georgia Archivists annual meeting

The annual meeting of the Society of Georgia Archivists took place November 6-7 in Athens, GA. The meeting theme was "Plans and Strategies for the Future of Archives." A primary focus of the meeting was discussion of issues related to born-digital archival records. There were small group discussion sessions and formal paper sessions focused on the challenges of acquiring, managing, and providing access to these types of records.

As part of this focus, Richard and I presented a poster and product demonstration for BDRM (born-digital records management system). We discussed our development workflow, user training, and product specifications.

Interestingly, many at the meeting were particularly interested in how we got the development project started in the first place -- the internal advocacy and planning we did that ensured a sustained collaboration across departments.