SAASC Team – Page 6

Archives of the Month: The Museum of Us

by SAASC Team

The mindfully engaging and culturally relevant Museum of Us has inspired SAASC to highlight this institution for our next installment of Archives of the Month. The museum recently changed its name (previously known as the Museum of Man). The constantly changing temporary exhibits are applicable to present-day societal issues and are inclusive of marginalized communities. There is always something new to see and explore! “The Museum of Us is a place for the diverse stories that define us—especially those that have long been overlooked or silenced by dominant cultural narratives. Our mission is to inspire human connections by exploring the human experience, and support guests in becoming agents of positive change”. The next time you find yourself in San Diego, California, we would encourage you to go visit MU. Its “immersive exhibit experiences create active and sensory-exciting encounters where people can be expressive about personal, cultural, and societal topics”.

Right now, you have multiple exhibits to discover including Post-Secret: an ongoing community mail art project by Frank Warren inviting people around the world to anonymously send in their worries, hopes, and fears via postcard which has created a very relatable and intimate collection. You can also see Maya Peoples: Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth. “Developed in collaboration with Maya community consultants, this exhibit provides a new way to understand the histories of the Maya Peoples and to honor past, present, and future Maya generations”. It features two beautiful murals titled K’AJLAY SUUM (Thread of Memory in K’iche’) and B’ATZ’AL Q’IJ (Thread of Time in K’iche’) created by Alicia Maria Siu.

The OAC, or Online Archive of California, lists some exciting archival collections that are a part of MU’s limited archives and are available to view by appointment. The Abbie Boutelle Papers Collection encompasses Native American research texts, photographs, and descriptions of Native American baskets Boutelle bequeathed to the MU in 1928. The San Diego Natural History Museum Collection is a total of 121 negatives from 8 different photographers which features images taken in and around San Diego, CA and Baja California in Mexico. The Museum of Us archives would be a great place to explore for unique historical research!

As always, if you are interested in becoming a member of SAASC, you can find out more here. Please let us know what you think and if you have any suggestions for future Archives blogs or activities you would like to see SAASC offer! We would love to hear from you via the SAASC Group Discussion on Canvas, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, or you can email us directly at SJSUSAASC@gmail.com. Thank you for reading!

References:

The Museum of Us. (2023). Maya peoples: Heart of sky, heart of earth. [website]. https://museumofus.org/exhibits/maya-peoples-heart-of-sky-heart-of-earth

The Museum of Us. (2023). Mission and values. [website]. https://museumofus.org/mission-and-values

OAC. (n.d.). Museum of Us. [website]. https://oac.cdlib.org/institutions/Museum+of+Us

Archives

UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive

by SAASC Team

Have you considered what life would be like without the ability to record and playback sound? No watching movies or TV at home. No listening to music or podcasts while going about your daily tasks. No way to simply listen to your favorite tune on repeat, capture a loved one’s voice who has passed or engage with sounds only available in the far reaches of the globe. Life would be fundamentally altered without this ubiquitous, and oft taken for granted, technology. Sound recordings are an indispensable record of the human experience in that they document the sights and sounds of everyday life that have evolved or even disappeared in the interim.

All human beings lacked this ability prior to one hundred and fifty years ago. The first time a sound was recorded and played back occurred in 1877 on a tinfoil phonograph invented by Thomas Edison. And from this invention, eventually sprang the wax cylinder, the centerpiece of the Cylinder Audio Archive at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The wax cylinder played an indispensable role in the development of sound technology, thus providing an essential steppingstone to the accessibility of sound recordings today. It was a precursor to MP3s, CDs, cassettes, and vinyl records. Originally intended to record dictation, it quickly became the preferred technology for listening to vaudeville sketches, comic monologues, historical speeches and, much like today, to popular music.

For a chronological history of the development cylinder recording technology, visit the detailed history provide here.

A cylinder made from Edison’s Brown Wax, which is actually made of a metal soap (photo credit: Anna-Maria Manuel).

A “suitcase” phonograph made for general household use that played cylinder recordings that lasted for two minutes

Watch a demonstration of how to record and playback a wax cylinder recording on a 1903 Edison Phonograph here.

The UCSB library, with funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Grammy Foundation, and other donors, created more than 10,000 cylinder recordings. You can download or stream them online for free. The curators at the UCSB Special Research Collections have assembled a playlist of recordings such as historical speeches, Early Black Artists and Composers, Mexican Cylinders: Of National Identity and Sound recordings and Early Hillbilly & Old Time Music. You can also browse by genre. To learn more about the process of creating this archive, visit the about section on the UCSB Cylinder Archive webpage.

Want to take a deeper dive?

Wax Cylinders used in talking dolls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTWaAM_FqlU

History of Cylinder Records: Early Wax Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS-3bqTCgcM

History of Cylinder Records: Early Wax Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrqAP2_OEXc

History of Cylinder Records: Part 3 Four Minute Cylinders
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9clYq1nwh3w

History of Cylinder Records: Part 4 Celluloid Cylinders
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABs-m6qPZO0

History of Cylinder Records: Part 5 Concert Grand HB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21M4jb5bkPo

Archives

Archives of the Month: Womxn Who Rock

by SAASC Team

Happy Women’s History Month! For March, we wanted to highlight a really interesting digital archives that celebrates women through an oral history collection of film shorts and video interviews. The University of Washington Digital Libraries began hosting the Womxn Who Rock Digital Oral History Archive in 2013, making this year their 10^th anniversary! Over 55 people were interviewed for the project between 2011 and 2013. You can watch three amazing interviews here for Dr. Maylei Blackwell who is a professor at UCLA, Martha Gonzalez who is a singer, songwriter, and percussionist, and Carolina Sarmiento who is an assistant professor at UWM.

This archives explores women’s modern history through the lives of creative leaders from many walks of life. “Womxn Who Rock brings together scholars, musicians, media-makers, performers, artists, and activists to explore the role of women and popular music in the creation of cultural scenes and social justice movements in the Americas and beyond” (UW Libraries, n.d.). Our hope is that this archives continues to grow, because it is an inspiring project for women looking to make a difference in their communities and be a part of a creative field.

Good news! Brenda Gunn’s talk Revolutions or Evolutions: Perspectives on Progress in Archivy has been rescheduled for March 23rd at 6pm PT! We look forward to seeing you there and at our upcoming event on April 13th at 7pm PT for Writing and Presenting, where students share their conference experiences from SCA. We are also planning to reveal a super fun competition event soon that we think you all will enjoy, so stay tuned!

As always, if you are interested in becoming a member of SAASC, you can find out more here. And don’t forget to say hello and talk archives with us on our SJSU Discussion Group page, or on our social media platforms via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

References

UW Libraries. (n.d.). Women Who Rock. [website]. https://content.lib.washington.edu/wwrweb/index.html

UW Libraries. (n.d.). Oral Histories. [website]. https://womenwhorockcommunity.org/digital-oral-history-project/oral-histories/

UW Libraries. (n.d.). Womxn Who Rock [Logo image]. https://content.lib.washington.edu/wwrweb/images/logo_frontpg.png

Archives

Archives of the Month: The Black Image Center

by SAASC Team

February is Black History Month, and we felt it was important to highlight a local institution dedicated to preserving Black history in America. The Black Image Center is located in Los Angeles, California, and is a non-profit collective created by six young Black photographers and producers. The center describes itself “as a hub of resources and as a network of economic empowerment for the Black creative community. We are all perpetually changing. Water us and watch us bloom” (BIC, 2022). This group is dedicated to stimulating the imaginations of Black artists while providing support to individuals through further education, community, workshops, and resource access. While they don’t currently house onsite archives, they build them through community projects and events.

What is incredibly inspiring was the Center’s work on The Black Family Archive. Last October, the Center held a 3-day event hosted by Community Build “to celebrate the Black legacy of LA’s Leimert Park neighborhood and the power of holding space for memory, legacy, and family” (BIC, 2022). Participants were encouraged to bring family photos to be digitized. The center also provided consultations on preservation, printouts for born-digital images, and rehousing for damaged or deteriorating photographs. “This [was] a direct attempt to put the stories of the Black experience back into the hands of Black people because too many Black stories have been narrated by other people” (BIC, 2022). You can donate to The Black Image Center here.

Our Blog Banner image includes artwork by Adee Roberson, captured from The Black Family Archive website. Check out her work!

We would also like to encourage you to take a look at the website Black Past. It includes a wealth of resources on archival collections dedicated to Black History both in the United States and Internationally.

Post your favorite Black artist or Black archival collection via SAASC’s Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or Twitter!

As always, If you are interested in becoming a member of SAASC, you can find out more here. Please let us know what you think, and if you have any suggestions for future Archives blogs or activities you would like to see SAASC offer. We would love to hear from you via the SAASC Group Discussion on Canvas or you can email us directly at SJSUSAASC@gmail.com. Thank you for reading!

Archives

Welcome to 2023!

by SAASC Team

Welcome to the first semester of 2023! Here at SJSU’s SAASC, we are so excited to bring you new opportunities to enhance your archival track experience, support your educational explorations, share news and information about SAA, or simply inspire you to take a closer look at an archives near you.

We just held our SAASC Spring Meetup on January 25th and were delighted by the turnout! Katie Burns, our SAASC Chair, said, “It was great to see everyone that was able to come to the January SAASC Meetup! We had a good discussion about classes from new students and those taking on the ePort this semester. So many good recommendations were shared as well! Check out the meeting notes to see what was shared!”

Looking forward to the months ahead, we have lined up some special events for you! Two Speaker Events are already on the books: Special Collections Librarian Brenda Gunn from UVA and Christine Kim. Brenda Gunn’s talk on February 16th at 6 pm PST is entitled Revolutions or Evolutions: Perspectives on Progress in Archivy. Please take a look and join us! Our first Archives of the Month will be posted in February too. We listened closely to your feedback and archival interests over the past few months, so we can highlight archives that are of real interest to you. We are also planning some fun new interactive activities, which we will announce soon!

We are so excited to kick off a new semester with all of you. If you are interested in joining SAASC, you can find out more here. For information on SAA, find out here. Please drop us a line on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, and join us for our best year yet!

Author: <span>SAASC Team</span>

Archives of the Month: The Museum of Us

UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive

Archives of the Month: Womxn Who Rock

Archives of the Month: The Black Image Center

Welcome to 2023!

Become a SAASC member today!