History and Preservation Section
We had four meetings for the 2015/2016 year.
July 2016: Our first meeting was held at the Trenton Public Library, where the New Jersey Office of Historic Preservation gave a presentation on their collections.
October 2016: Our second meeting was at the Monmouth County Archives, where we participated in Transportation Day, attending several lectures and a tour of the facility.
February 2017: Our third meeting was at the Morris County Library, where we were given a tour of the Morris County Heritage Commission archives and the Morris County Library’s local history collection.
April 2017: Our fourth and final meeting of the 2016/2017 year was held at conference.
Continuing Education
Paul Martinez was our first Continuing Education coordinator. He arranged a well-received webinar "Digitization Basics for Newspapers and Photographs” in fall 2016, with Isaiah Beard, Digital Data Curator at Rutgers that benefited many people.
I coordinated two other money-making programs that made about 700-800 dollars for NJLA. The Plainfield Library generously hosted our group’s successful program, “Save Your Books” in November 2016 featuring book repair expert Kim Avagliano, and our January program at Rutgers, “Archival Basics for Librarians” featured archivist Erika Gorder and head of preservation Tim Corlis, helping many people who were new to archives and preservation. It is our hope that the library community at large gained from these programs that were geared to a larger audience.
Ongoing contributions by our members
Our newsletter was written, produced and delivered regularly by Sarah Hull, and member Danny Klein and others got the word out about our group and preservation and history events on social media. Archivist Gary Saretsky, maintained our group’s records. H & P member Sarah Hull won the Susan Schwartzberg award for excellence in practicing and promoting preservation and conservation in libraries. jessica Myers helped VP Tom Ankner by organizing the Author's Program at conference.
Conference programs
Vice President Tom Ankner organized and promoted terrific programs at the 2017 conference. The programs were informative and well attended.
- Historic Maps in Public Libraries
- "Look What I Found In the Attic!": Organizing an Archival Collection
- Bringing History to Life: Programming and Exhibits
- NJ Authors Speak
Historic Maps in Public Libraries
John Beekman introduced the topic broadly - why maps are important and embody what local history collections bring to a public library collection in terms of connecting the institution to the community. Debra Schiff spoke about the life cycle of the conservation process of a 19th century map
"Look What I Found In the Attic!"
Yesenia Lopez, an archivist in the Newark Public Library's New Jersey Hispanic Research and Information Center, spoke from personal experience about establishing a new archive: collecting materials, building the archive, and organizing its contents. Laura Poll, archivist of the Trentoniana collection at the Trenton Free Public Library, talked about the special challenges inherent in organizing and managing an established archive.
Sarah Kiefer, the local history librarian at Ridgewood Public Library addressed the unique issues related to managing an archive in a smaller institution.
Bringing History to Life: History Programming and Exhibits
George Robb, professor of history at William Paterson University in Wayne, spoke about the differences between public and academic library exhibits and historic re-enactor/story teller Carol Levin spoke of her work.
Author’s Program
David Vasey talked about historical New Jersey Architecture, and author/title researcher Joe Grabas discussed historical land records and properties, covering primary documents, early historic properties, land grabs, and border wars in early New Jersey. Paul Clemons spoke about the history of Rutgers in his new book.
We manned a table at Conference and spoke to attendees about our group and the benefits of joining, and gave away brochures about what we offer.