The Agenda - Faculty and Staff Newsletter

Author: Elizabeth Surles

  • Update on the Basie Collection

    The Institute of Jazz Studies has been working diligently to inventory the Basie family papers as part of the project funded by a $433,500 Save America’s Treasures Grant, awarded to the Institute in late 2020.  Ben Houtman started in his position as Project Coordinator in January 2021 and quickly facilitated the safe transport of the collection to Dana Library for the inventory.  After the inventory is complete, the Institute will send unstable and damaged artifacts and archival materials from the collection to a team of conservators for treatment.  Finally, with support from a $23,500 New Jersey Historical Commission grant, the Institute will arrange and describe the archival materials in the collection to open it for use in 2022.

    14k gold money clip, inscribed from Jerry Lewis to the “Count”
    Hohner soprano melodica
    Photo album page
    Ebony Lifetime Achievement Award to Count Basie

  • Announcing Archival Description of Notated Music and the Guidelines for Archival Description of Notated Music

    In early October the Society of American Archivists (SAA) and the Music Library Association (MLA) co-published a new open-access ebook, Archival Description of Notated Music (ADNM), co-authored by the MLA Working Group for Archival Description of Music Materials, which I had the pleasure of co-chairing with Dr. John Bewley, a Rutgers alumnus and the retired associate librarian/archivist at the University at Buffalo Music Library.  Working Group members also included Sofía Becerra-Licha, lead archivist at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; Maristella Feustle, music special collections librarian at the University of North Texas; Vincent J. Novara, head of the Acquisitions and Processing Section in the Music Division at the Library of Congress; Matthew Snyder, archivist at the New York Public Library; and Karen Spicher, manuscript cataloger and processing archivist at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

    ADNM provides guidance intended for a wide readership and is helpful for experienced archivists with limited knowledge of music, music librarians with limited knowledge of archival practice, students in MLIS and archival studies programs, and others with responsibility for archival collections with notated music. The book includes discussion of fundamental archival principles as applied to collections with notated music, recommendations for descriptive approaches based on the musical and non-musical content of a collection, a glossary, and an annotated resource list. In addition, included as an appendix are the Guidelines for Archival Description of Notated Music, which provide a standard for archival description of notated music and represent the first subject-specific supplement to Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS). The Guidelines were endorsed by the SAA Council as an external standard at the end of 2019. Both the Guidelines and ADNM are available via MLA’s Humanities Commons repository. ADNM may also be downloaded free-of-charge from the SAA Bookstore.

    The Working Group started the project in 2016, and none of us expected it to become a full-length book and professionally-endorsed standard, much less require four years and countless hours of meetings to complete. We took a collective approach to authorship: one or two group members drafted each section of the book, which we then revised and edited as a group. Although this approach was time-consuming, the final publications represent our consensus agreement on standardized archival practice and the full range of group members’ considerable expertise. We also solicited and incorporated feedback from colleagues in other music libraries and archives and collaborated closely with SAA’s Technical Subcommittee on DACS, which contributed to SAA’s endorsement of the Guidelines. This cross-organizational collaboration was essential to the successful outcome and will hopefully serve as a model for future DACS supplements.

  • Dana Library and Institute of Jazz Studies Host Society of American Archivists Workshops

    workshop photo
    The SAA workshops provided free training on archival basics to non-professionals who work or volunteer at institutions that cannot afford to employ professional archivists.

    In November and December 2018, Dana Library and the Institute of Jazz Studies hosted a series of five workshops presented by the Society of American Archivists (SAA) via SAA’s “Lone Arranger” Section. The workshops provided free training on archival basics to non-professionals who work or volunteer at institutions that cannot afford to employ professional archivists. The overall goal was to help preserve and provide access to archival collections in New Jersey, hidden due to limited access to information on professional archival practice. Similar workshops were held across the state in Atlantic City, Trenton, and Chester, including one led by the Libraries’ Tara Maharjan. Special thanks to Adriana Cuervo for arranging for refreshments and to Mark Papianni for setting up the workshop space.

  • MARAC Conference

    On April 20th through the 22nd, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) will hold its spring meeting in Newark at the Robert Treat Hotel. The meeting’s theme, “Adaptable Archives: Redefine, Repurpose and Renew,” is a fitting reflection of Newark’s continued renaissance. As a tri-chair for the meeting’s Local Arrangements Committee, I’m incredibly excited to welcome the expected 300-350 attendees and support their professional development while making an impact in Newark and showcasing the city and its transformation. MARAC serves archivists in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C., locations rich with a diverse array of archives. The meeting’s program is jam-packed with tours of area historic sites, attractions, and repositories; sessions on topics ranging from Hurricane Sandy recovery to digital preservation of faculty and student research; workshops about using APIs in archives, identification of photographic formats, and more; and lots of opportunities for professional networking.

    Numerous Rutgers divisions have been instrumental in supporting the meeting, including Rutgers University Libraries, the School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University—Newark, and the Clement A. Price Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience. RUL deserves special recognition because of its role as sponsor and host of the all-conference reception via the Institute of Jazz Studies; for underwriting the cost of transportation for one of the tours to a local historic site; for its encouragement of library faculty, staff, and librarians to serve on the Local Arrangements and Program Committees, including Natalie Borisovets, Tim Corlis, Angela Lawrence, Tara Maharjan, and Bob Vietrogoski; and for providing space for Local Arrangement Committee meetings at Dana Library. RUL is also well represented in the program, with presenters including Christie Lutz, Sheridan Sayles, Krista White, and Ron Becker, and a tour of the Institute of Jazz Studies and its new exhibit Records at Play: The Institute of Jazz Studies @50. Clearly, Rutgers will be in the spotlight at the meeting!

    Many of the meeting programs should be of interest not only to archivists and special collections professionals, but also to librarians, so I encourage all RUL faculty, staff, and librarians to peruse the conference program and consider attending. Early bird registration ends March 22nd, and more information is available on the conference blog, created by RUL’s own Tara Maharjan.

    In closing, I would like to express my deep gratitude for RUL’s support and for the efforts of all RUL faculty, staff, and librarians involved in the meeting. Hope to see you in Newark this April!

  • Now Open for Research: The Andrew Hill Papers, Music, and Audiovisual Recordings

    2016 Jazz Archives Fellows and Institute of Jazz Studies and Dana Library faculty and staff pose with Joanne Robinson Hill and the processed Andrew Hill collection. Pictured (L-R) Angela Lawrence, Adriana Cuervo, Bob Nahory, Brad San Martin, Krista White, Joanne Robinson Hill, Veronica Johnson, Max Dienemann, Treshani Perera, Elizabeth Surles, and Tad Hershorn. Photo by Ed Berger, some rights reserved.
    2016 Jazz Archives Fellows and Institute of Jazz Studies and Dana Library faculty and staff pose with Joanne Robinson Hill and the processed Andrew Hill collection. Pictured (L-R) Angela Lawrence, Adriana Cuervo, Bob Nahory, Brad San Martin, Krista White, Joanne Robinson Hill, Veronica Johnson, Max Dienemann, Treshani Perera, Elizabeth Surles, and Tad Hershorn. Photo by Ed Berger, some rights reserved.

    The Institute of Jazz Studies (IJS) is pleased to announce the availability of the Andrew Hill papers, music and audiovisual recordings, 1956–2011. Hill (1931–2007) was an influential and acclaimed jazz pianist, composer, band leader, educator, and winner of numerous prestigious jazz accolades, including the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master award in 2008, among the highest honors in jazz in the United States. The extensive collection, generously donated in 2015 by Hill’s widow, Joanne Robinson Hill, includes materials ranging from his musical compositions, sound recordings, correspondence, and awards, to press kits and even one of his favorite hats.

    The collection was processed as part of the 2016 Jazz Archives Fellows residency, with IJS archivists Angela Lawrence, Tad Hershorn, and Elizabeth Surles working in tandem with jazz fellows Veronica Johnson, Brad San Martin, and Treshani Perera and intern Max Dienemann to arrange, describe, and rehouse the collection and create an EAD finding aid for the materials. The (IJS) started the Jazz Archives Fellows program in 2012 with two purposes in mind: to improve diversity in the archives profession and to provide a meaningful professional development opportunity for early career archivists and for students in graduate programs who intend to become archivists. In addition, the IJS benefits directly from the fellows’ work to process a collection. To see firsthand the fellows’ work and learn more about the collection and Andrew Hill, please explore the online finding aid at http://www2.scc.rutgers.edu/ead/ijs/hillf.html.

    The processing of the collection is timely. While it has only been open to researchers for a couple of months (before being announced publicly), the collection has already been used to produce a series of Andrew Hill legacy concerts at the Jazz Standard in New York City to celebrate what would have been Hill’s 85th birthday, as well as supported research by scholars visiting the Institute.

  • Making an Impact: Bringing the Spring 2017 Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference Meeting to Newark

    MARAC newarkUnder the leadership of Chancellor Nancy Cantor, Rutgers University—Newark (RUN) is implementing a number of initiatives to advance the role of RUN as an anchor institution in the city. In the spirit of these efforts, in June 2014 I organized an informal group, the Brick City Archivists and Friends (BCAF), to bring together local archivists, librarians, and community members who care for and support historic collections.

    With help from Natalie Borisovets and Gayle Malmgreen of the Newark Archives Project, I obtained contact information for potential Brick City members and convened an initial happy hour to coincide with the Institute of Jazz Studies’ (IJS) Jazz Archives Fellowship residency. The event was well-attended, so I continued to organize regular gatherings. Having the support of RUL’s Angela Lawrence, Bob Vietrogoski, and Adriana Cuervo has been particularly invaluable in the growth and sustenance of the BCAF, and I am grateful for their support. In all, fifteen archivists and other interested folks have come to events, and we’ve toured four area institutions along the way.

    I began to announce upcoming BCAF meetings via the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference’s (MARAC) New Jersey caucus listserv, and evidently, MARAC noticed. In late 2014 MARAC leadership decided that New Jersey deserved a turn as a meeting host, and given that Newark had not hosted a MARAC meeting since the 1970s, it was selected as the location for the spring 2017 conference. I like to think that the BCAF also played a role in this decision.

    We announced the exciting news to a joint meeting at the IJS of MARAC’s New Jersey caucus and the BCAF in January 2015. Shortly before this meeting, I was asked to serve as a Local Arrangements Committee (LAC) tri-chair, a position that I gladly accepted. Becoming a tri-chair appealed to me because it offers me the opportunity to serve MARAC’s membership and the archives profession, represent RUL in a leadership role, and support RUN’s efforts to make an impact in Newark. Seven of the twenty-two LAC members have been active in the BCAF, and RUL is also well-represented on the LAC through the service of Natalie Borisovets, Tim Corlis, Angela Lawrence, Tara Maharjan, and Bob Vietrogoski.

    Bringing MARAC to Newark provides opportunities to give back to the Newark community and to showcase Rutgers University Libraries:

    • To support local historical collections, the LAC is planning a “Day of Service” through which MARAC members will help a Newark institution with a hands-on archives project.
    • RUN and the IJS are sponsoring the all-attendee reception on April 21st, which will be held in the Great Hall at 15 Washington Street in Newark, adjacent to the IJS-sponsored and soon-to-open “Clem’s Place,” a lounge and performance venue dedicated to the late Dr. Clement Price currently being developed for RUN faculty and special guests.
    • The IJS will showcase its most ambitious exhibition to date, Records at Play: A Century of Jazz from New Orleans to Newark, which is scheduled to open in January 2017 and run through the end of the semester. Records at Play will be the inaugural exhibit in RUN’s Express Newark, a university-community collaboratory under development in the former Hahne and Company Department Store. Stay tuned for more information about the exhibit in a future edition of The Agenda!

    The meeting will be April 20th through 22nd at the Robert Treat Hotel, and we expect between 350-400 conference-goers. Even though the conference is a year away, the LAC is currently recruiting volunteers to work during the meeting, so please contact me at elizabeth.surles@rutgers.edu if you have an interest in getting involved.