Special Collections Subommittee meeting of June 10, 2003

Present: Toby Appel, Richard Boursy, Tom Hyry, Ulla Kasten, George Miles, Jae Rossman, Vivian Perlis, Martha Smalley, David Walls, Richard Warren
Guest: Jennifer Brannock, Kress Fellow

1) Jennifer Brannock, 2003 Kress Foundation Fellow was introducted.

2) Vivian Perlis, Director of Oral History American Music spoke to us about OHAM’s history and current activities.  OHAM will now be represented on the Special Collections Sub-committee.

3) We discussed and updated the compilation of information about record-keeping methods at our collections.  Martha will distribute copies of the updated file.

4) We made the following decisions and assignments re. the Special Collections Fair to be held on Tuesday, October 7th, 12 p.m. – 4 p.m.:

•    All collections should report via email to David on their willingness to participate in the Fair, the number of tables desired, any equipment needed.  David will contact any collections that do not respond or do not have representation on the Special Collections Sub-committee.
•    David will tell Doreen Powers of Beinecke the number of tables needed and find out whether Beinecke will make the arrangements for renting tables and tablecloths..
•    Publicity: Ulla will supervise the creation and placement of table-tents announcing the Fair.  Style/text to be decided in September.
•    Publicity: Jae will request press coverage from the Yale Bulletin & Calendar, Yale Daily News, NH Register, NH Advocate, NY Times.
•    Publicity:  We discussed various methods of contacting graduate students and faculty directly.  We will decide what to do at our September meeting
•    Music: Richard will try to arrange live music for the Fair
•    Handouts: Martha will ask Carolyn Claflin re. the possibility of using the new folded Special Collections map and brochure as a handout.  (The answer: we can have 300 brochures to distribute.)  Martha will also prepare a draft for a one page back-up handout.
•    Giveaways at the Fair: Everyone should investigate giveaway possibilities at their collection and be ready to report at September meeting.  Jae will contact the Art Gallery.  We will use the “orange dot on the handout” method to designate prizewinners.

5) Tom distributed printouts from the database systems used to track reference inquiries and accessions at MSS&A.  Martha will ask Karen Reardon whether a similar reference-tracking database could be set up for use by other repositories.