2020 UMDCC+ MDL Annual Meeting

Digital Projects Showcase
Hear from 3 different organizations as they highlight their unique digital projects. Presenters will discuss digitizing a student archive collection, building a sustainable digital collection platform for maritime heritage materials, and using ArcGIS StoryMaps to showcase collections from the Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board.

Presentation 1: A Case Study: The Ann Jennings Student Print Archive at St. Catherine University
St. Catherine University, St. Paul, MN
The St. Catherine University Fine Art Collection, like so many other collections on campuses, is primarily a teaching collection. The Ann Jennings Student Print Archive continues that tradition, filling a unique place within the Fine Art Collection. The archive is comprised of nearly 1200 prints in various techniques produced by College of St. Catherine students over the multi-decade teaching tenure of the collection’s namesake, Ann Jennings. This talk will detail the history of the collection and the ongoing project to both document it and create a digital archive. The creation of the digital archive has been a collaborative effort, employing both undergraduate students engaged in work study, and graduate assistants. It has been made available to faculty, staff and students for use in a number of ways, from student projects in Omeka to inclusion in the Campus Art Loan Program. Outcomes, outgrowths and future possibilities for this collection, both physical and digital, are also discussed.

Presentation 3: Building Heritage: Using ArcGIS StoryMaps to Document the Evolution of St. Augustine's Built Environment
University of Florida, St. Augustine, FL
Governor’s House Library is located in St. Augustine, Florida and holds the papers of the Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board, a state agency whose mission was to restore and reconstruct historic buildings to reflect St. Augustine’s Spanish colonial heritage in advance of its Quadricentennial Celebration in 1965. Governor’s House completed a two-year NHPRC grant to process our maps, photographs, and design records collections in 2019. Now that our physical collections are organized, we have the opportunity to digitize more items and focus on community outreach. We have recently implemented the ArcGIS StoryMaps platform to create a digital exhibit that explores the four decades of the Preservation Board’s work and how their efforts impacted the built environment of the city. The project ties together each of our five collections through the addition of text, photographs, and digitized items from our library and culminates a decade of grant-supported work. This presentation will explore the ways in which cultural heritage institutions can use ArcGIS StoryMaps to illustrate their collections in a new and accessible way, particularly as we face new challenges in the profession due to COVID-19.