Digital Tools for Archives: Movies and Music and Comics...Oh My!

Nicole Carmolingo, AARL intern, was at a recent Society of Georgia Archivists workshop called "Technology for Advocacy and Outreach: A Bootcamp for Archivists Going Digital." The seminar was held Saturday, May 14, on campus at the University of West Georgia. In one day, participants created both a web comic and a video relating to part of their institutional collections. Nicole chose to focus her creations on Henry Rutherford Butler.

Henry Rutherford Butler lived from 1862-1931, attended medical school and became one of the first African American physicians to open a practice in Atlanta. Butler and his wife were highly active in both Atlanta and national African American organizations, both as members and founders. The Selena Sloan Butler papers, held by the AARL, contain valuable material about Butler, his wife and their son, as well as life in Atlanta in this era.

As you can see, Nicole used Comic Life and Moviemaker, two open source media programs, to create the content above and below. We hope you enjoy learning a little more about Butler's life. You can click here to link to the AARL finding aid for the Selena Sloan Butler Collection. We would love to hear from you about whether you would like to see more video and comic strip content from us.

Posted by Jessica Epstein, AARL Archives Intern

Archives and Publics: Freedom Riders Redux

As a quick refresher, the archives and publics series draws attention to relationships between repositories and users. Part advocacy, part outreach, posts highlight research developments, institutional partnerships, community projects that use primary sources, and much more. Below is an excerpt from an e-mail I received recently from UGA's Dr. Barbara McCaskill. In it, she shares good news, which I happily pass along.

Hi Wesley! JoyEllen Freeman, who has been helping Christina and me on the J. Richardson Jones project and visited AARL with us last time, was selected as one of the 40 college students re-enacting the Freedom Rides between May 6 and May 16. If you think it's appropriate, we'd love for you to announce this on the AARL blog, and also to include the link below to the PBS website. JoyEllen has begun to post blogs and pictures from the trip and your readers can follow them on this link and respond.

I'll be sending pictures from the Jacksonville trip, along with information about two terrific students for the graduate internships, in a few days--I am knee deep in grading and exams right now. I also have received new information about Mr. Jones's radio shows from a collector who has contacted us, and who is sending us copies of the shows. I'll send more information about that for a new blog entry when I contact you again soon. Thanks!

Below is an introductory video to JoyEllen, one of the inspirational 2011 Student Freedom Riders.

Watch the full episode. See more American Experience.

We congratulate JoyEllen, and look forward to sharing more updates on the J. Richardson Jones project and to announcing a creative, new internship partnership developed by Dr. Barbara McCaskill.

Posted by Wesley Chenault, Library Research Associate