[CA-SCGS] Port of Los Angeles Archives is in Danger

 The Port of Los Angeles Archives Needs Your Help.

In 2010, the Port of Los Angeles began an important program of identifying, processing, and preserving approximately 25,000 linear feet of historical materials. This historic resource is now in jeopardy. After being moved out of their climate controlled building earlier this year to an open warehouse storage facility near the water, the Archives are endangered due to high humidity and vermin infestation.

As researchers with interests in California, and especially in Los Angeles, we all need to be aware of the crisis facing these records.  

To read more about the Port of Los Angeles Archives, visit this site and read the Open Letter to the Community.  

To sign the online petition calling on the Harbor Commission and the Port of Los Angeles to act now to preserve these records, click here.

SCGS at LAasSubject's Archives Bazaar

 Leo and Paula are doing Ancestry.com look-ups at the LAasSubject ‪#‎ArchivesBazaar. It's been such a successful day! We found great-grandmother Emily Dalecky, born in the Czech Republic in 1888. Not only did we find her in the 1930 and 1940 censuses, we also found the manifest for the ship the George Washington, as well as her Naturalization Record index. Best look-up ever! And yes, there were tears--for both of us. There is nothing like helping to ignite that passion in another person.

Doing public look-ups is our favorite outreach activity, and it's evident that the increased media focus on genealogy has been effective at stirring interest in family history. It's very gratifying!! We have been swamped all day with requests and could have used a couple more volunteers. What a great way to spend a Saturday!

Los Angeles Archives Bazaar Saturday 25 Oct at USC

Come visit SCGS at the Los Angeles Archives Bazaar! Leo and Paula will be staffing the table and doing free look-ups in the 1940 Census.

The Ninth Annual Archives Bazaar will be held on Saturday, October 25th from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm at the Doheny Memorial Library on the campus of USC, University Park. Experience the diversity of stories that make Southern California such a place of discovery.

A broad array of institutions and archives will have experts on hand to show off their collections and answer questions. Exhibitors from large repositories, such as the Autry National Center of the American West and the Los Angeles Public Library, will be represented, as will private collectors whose materials fill the gaps left in the region’s history. In all, more than 70 archives, including the Southern California Genealogical Society, can be found at this free event, which is open to the public.

This year, the Bazaar will feature an Archives Roadshow, where anyone can bring historic photos or documents from home that they want scanned.

USC is minutes from downtown Los Angeles and is easily accessible by major freeways, and the new Metro Expo line. Doheny Library is located in the center of campus, adjacent to Alumni Park and across from Bovard Auditorium, on Trousdale Avenue.

More information, including the complete list of exhibitors and parking details, can be found on the LAasSubject website.

Webinar - Photo Preservation - 23 April

FREE WEBINAR to celebrate Preservation Week
NOTE: THIS IS NOT SPONSORED BY SCGS

The Preservation of Family Photographs: Here, There and Everywhere
April 23, 2013

11am Pacific, noon Mountain, 1pm Central, and 2pm Eastern time.

For additional information and access to registration links, please go to the following website: http://www.ala.org/alcts/confevents/upcoming/webinar/pres/042313 

Description: This presentation will offer basic guidance on the care and preservation of family photographs from 19th-century tintypes to contemporary color prints. The webinar will address the fundamental physical and chemical properties of photographic print and negative materials, including albums and scrapbooks, and the causes and mechanisms of their deterioration. Strategies for preservation, such as proper handling, storage and display techniques, will be shared.

This webinar is offered for free to celebrate Preservation Week.
ALCTS thanks Archival Products for sponsoring this webinar and supporting Preservation Week.

Learning outcomes: Upon completion of the session, attendees will better understand: • Basic characterization and identification of albumen, silver gelatin, and chromogenic color print materials, and film base negatives

• Agents of deterioration for photographic materials
• Storage and exhibition practices
• Handling guidelines
• Prioritization for preservation

Who should attend? Anyone responsible for the preservation of family or other photographic holdings and collections and interested in the preservation of our global photographic heritage.
Presenter: Debra Hess Norris is Chair of the Art Conservation Department at the University of Delaware, and Professor of Photograph Conservation.

Since 1985, Norris has authored more than 30 articles and book chapters on care and treatment of photographic materials, emergency response, ethics, and conservation education; and taught more than 100 workshops and seminars for conservators and allied professionals. Norris has lectured and consulted on the preservation of photographic collections worldwide.

For additional information and access to registration links, please go to the following website: http://www.ala.org/alcts/confevents/upcoming/webinar/pres/042313 

ALCTS webinars are recorded and registrants receive a link to the recording shortly following the live event.

For questions about registration, contact ALA Registration by calling 1-800-545-2433 and press 5 or email registration@ala.org. For all other questions or comments related to the webinars, contact Julie Reese, ALCTS Events Manager at 1-800-545-2433, ext. 5034 or alctsce@ala.org.

This information has been forwarded by:
Susan Hanks
Library Programs Consultant
Library Development Services
California State Library
916-653-0661

Book Release: Californians in Colonial America

If you are researching ancestors in Southern California, here are 9 essays that describe early life in several different voices.

We pass this on for our friends at the Huntington Library Press:

Alta California: Peoples in Motion, Identities in Formation, 1769-1850
Edited by: Steven W. Hackel

Spanish California—with its diverse mix of Indians, soldiers, settlers, and missionaries—provides a fascinating site for the investigation of individual and collective identity in colonial America. Through innovative methodologies and extensive archival research, the nine essays in this volume reshape our understanding of how people in the northernmost Spanish Borderlands viewed themselves and remade their worlds. Essays examine Franciscan identity and missionary tactics in Alta California, Sonora, and the Sierra Gorda; Spanish and Mexican settlers’ identity as revealed in mission records, family relationships, political affiliations, and genetic origins; and Indian identity as shown in mission orchestras and choral guilds as well as in the life of Pablo Tac, a Luiseño who penned his own remembrance of the Spanish conquest of Alta California. The concluding essays examine the identity and historiography of the field of the Spanish Borderlands as it has developed over the last century in North America and Spain.

Huntington Library Press
Established in 1920, the Huntington Library Press is one of Southern California's oldest book publishers. Its current publishing agenda includes a quarterly journal for scholars and a mixture of scholarly books, conference papers, exhibition catalogs, facsimiles from its collections, and visitor publications.

SCGS at the LA as Subject Archives Bazaar Oct 22

Join SCGS at the 6th-Annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar
hosted by LA as Subject

Saturday, October 22, 2011
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Doheny Memorial Library
USC University Park Campus

Located in the beautiful Doheny Memorial Library, this is a great event at which to learn about important archives in Los Angeles and meet like-minded archivists, historians and genealogists.

Event details are at http://www.laassubject.org/index.php/archives_bazaar. The program list was posted today (October 20) and it can be found at http://www.laassubject.org/index.php/archives_bazaar/program/2011

See last year's post at <http://scgsgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/10/scgs-1890-project-sleuth-spotted-at-5th.html>

30M manuscripts and 16M archives at Virginia Heritage

VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia, is pleased to announce the availability of VIRGINIA HERITAGE (http://www.lib.virginia.edu/vhp/), a database of guides, or finding aids, describing archives and manuscripts in eleven repositories in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

"From the settlement at Jamestown in 1607, through the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and into the tumult of the 20th century, the Commonwealth of Virginia has stood at the center of America's history. Many of the priceless documents of American history, literature and political thought reside in the special collections of Virginia's colleges, universities, and other research libraries."

Founded in 1994, VIVA (http://www.vivalib.org/) consists of the libraries of the thirty-nine state assisted colleges and universities within Virginia, and an additional twenty-nine independent, not-for-profit educational institutions. VIVA's mission is to provide, in an equitable, cooperative and cost-effective manner, enhanced access to library and information resources for the Commonwealth of Virginia's research libraries serving the higher education community.

For more information about VIRGINIA HERITAGE, contact Edward Gaynor at gaynor@virginia.edu or at (434) 924-3138.

Area Event: Photo Workshop at Huntington Library

We are posting this on behalf of our friends at the Huntington Library. If the genealogy budget fairy suddenly appeared and made a pile o' money magically appear, this would be a wonderful opportunity.

Care and Identification of Photographs
April 11-14, 2011
Location: This workshop will be hosted by the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens (San Marino, CA)
Instructor: Gawain Weaver

REGISTER NOW:
http://gawainweaver.com/workshop/care-id-photos-2011-losangeles/

Registration Includes:
  4-day workshop
  280-page color notebook
  60x LED handheld microscope
  OPTIONAL: Basic Photographic Sample Set

This 4-day workshop is an introduction to the history, identification, and preservation of photographic materials. Participants will acquire hands-on identification skills and learn practical photograph preservation techniques. Using hand-held 60x microscopes and a large set of photographic and photo-mechanical samples, they will learn how a variety of processes were created, why they look the way they do, and how they deteriorate. Knowledge about photographic processes is essential to their preservation and leads to a greater appreciation of the aesthetics and history of photographic prints.

Preservation topics include enclosures, handling guidelines, environmental monitoring, the effects of temperature and relative humidity on collections, and the importance of cold storage for certain photographic materials.

Processes examined in detail include but are not limited to the following: daguerreotype, albumen, collodion and gelatin printing-out processes (POP), matte collodion, gelatin silver, photogravure, offset litho, letterpress halftone, collotype, chromogenic color, inkjet, and dye sublimation. Group ID sessions, using a digital microscope and screen projection, will allow participants to practice their identification skills in a guided setting.

The registration fee for this 4-day workshop is $645 and includes a hand-held microscope, and a workshop notebook with lecture handouts, Quick ID Sheets for each process, and a selection of readings on photograph preservation. The Basic Photographic Sample Set, consisting of 18 identified photographic and photo-mechanical processes, is available with registration for $75.

Due to the hands-on nature of this workshop, the number of participants will be limited to 12.

REGISTRATION: http://gawainweaver.com/workshop/care-id-photos-2011-losangeles/

OTHER WORKSHOP DATES AND LOCATIONS: http://gawainweaver.com/workshops/

HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPHIC SAMPLE SETS: http://gawainweaver.com/store/

The Academy of Certified Archivists (ACA), a certifying organization of professional archivists, will award 15 Archival Recertification Credits (ARCs) to eligible Certified Archivists (CAs) attending this workshop.

WHAT PREVIOUS STUDENTS HAVE SAID ABOUT THIS WORKSHOP:

Can't thank you enough, Gawain! Your knowledge, and the presentation of it, far exceeded expectations.
--Jean Marie Smart, Visual Resources Curator, University of Arizona

Thank you for a jam packed & fascinating, not to mention useful, workshop!
--Mary Anne Redding, Curator of Photography, New Mexico History Museum

For more information, please contact the instructor:

Gawain Weaver
Photograph Conservator
San Rafael, CA
tel 415.446.9138
info@gawainweaver.com
http://gawainweaver.com/

Area Event: Basic Archives Workshop

The Friends of California Archives and the California State Archives are offering a one-day basic archives workshop on Friday, March 4, 2011 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. This workshop is designed for anyone who works with historical records, but has little or no formal training.

Participants will get practical advice, sample forms and policies, and learn basic practices for collecting, organizing, protecting, and helping people use historical records.

The workshop will be held at the University of Southern California, Doheny Memorial Library, Lecture Hall, Room 240, 3550 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90089.

In this workshop you'll learn about:
-Identifying historical records.
-What to keep.
-Securing legal title to your collections.
-Organizing historical collections.
-Copyright issues.
-Helping researchers use your collections.
-Preservation of historical records.
-Handling photographs, maps,audiovisual records, and electronic records.
-Proper building environment.
-Security for historical records.
-Promoting your collections.
-Where to go for more information.

Cost for the workshop is $50.00 per person payable by cash or check. If paying by check, make it payable to "Friends of California Archives". Registration will be limited to thirty people.

To register, send your name, name of organization, phone number, and email address to Sherrie Lujan at sherrie.lujan@sos.ca.gov. The registration deadline is February 25, 2011. Mail your payment to:

Basics of Archives Workshop
Friends of California Archives
1020 O Street
Sacramento, CA 95814

Payment must be received by March 1, 2011.