in short: News | Grants | Events | Ideas | Webinars | Jobs

Advocacy Day is March 2 and will be virtual again. NYLA is putting together their tips and resources, which are all helpfully laid out on their Library Advocacy Day website: LAD2022 - NYLA. SCRLC advocacy efforts are done in coordination with our three library systems (FLLS, STLS, and 4CLS).

Email Mary-Carol Lindbloom if you'd like to be included in meetings with your local representatives.

If you need to find a name, address, or business in Elmira, Elmira Heights, or Horseheads from 1860 through 1924, you're in luck! SCRLC just finished our first job as a digitization vendor: 20,000 pages of Elmira City Directories, now available on nyheritage.org for all to browse and search.

Not-for-profit organizations with historical records can apply for DHP grants of up to $25,000 for projects that expand access to New York State's historical record. Government agencies are not eligible (but go look at LGRMIF grants instead). This grant opportunity includes digitization, as well as processing, like arrangement and description. Grant applications are due March 22.

Apply for grants of up to $1,000 from the Foundation of Advancement in Conservation toward a conservation project. "Sites may be historic houses, museums, or any organization that has a need for basic collections care, conservation consultation or simple preventive conservation such as re-housing collections. The deadline is February 15, and will come up again in September.

The Museum Association of New York and the New York State Council on the Arts will award $500,000 in capacity building grants to non-profit museums located in New York State. 100 grants of $5,000 will be awarded. The grant portal, here, will open on February 15 and be due on April 1.

Rachel Dworkin, the archivist at Chemung County Historical Society, wrote another fantastic blog post last month, this time about the Fugitive Slave Act and its reverberations in Elmira. Take a look!

Do you know about Ithaca's movie history? The Wharton Studio Museum and Historic Ithaca just installed a new exhibit, Biggest Little Movie City: Ithaca’s Movie Theaters Then and Now, at the History Center in Tompkins County. They received support for the exhibit from Canopy by Hilton.

The History Center in Tompkins County has very recently acquired two wheelchairs for visitor use in their museum! This is a great idea for every organization.

As part of their ARPA-funded Museum/Library partnership grant, Seymour Library hosted a historical symposium for cultural heritage organizations in Cayuga County. I gave a short presentation about NYHeritage and metadata after Kerry Sclafani and Priscilla Brendler of the Greater Hudson Heritage Network discussed digital exhibits. Two things in particular came up during their talk which I thought might be interesting to you: 1) ThingLink, which can add interactive dots to images and 2) Virmuze, which can be used to create beautiful digital exhibits quickly and easily.

Yates County Historical Society has a brand-new blog hosted on Tumblr, in which they're sharing biographical sketches. Check it out here.

A car raffle wouldn't work for every organization, but it's a perfect fit for the International Motor Racing Research Center. IMRRC's new president, Mark Steigerwald (who used to be on SCRLC's board!) announced the sweepstakes prize for their 2022 contest.

MANY's 2022 conference will be in person in Corning from Sunday, April 9 through Wednesday, April 12. Registration opens on Monday, February 7, which is also the deadline to apply for a NYS Council on the Arts professional development grant in order to attend.

The Association of Public Historians of New York State will have their conference in person in Kingston, NY, September 19-21, 2022. They'll also have a virtual option, too. They're looking for programs on the theme of "Expanding the Narrative," with proposals due April 30.

Claire Bellerjeau, the former Historian and Director of Education at a small house museum on Long Island, will be presenting a webinar through the NYS Library on February 3. After years of working in the house museum, Bellerjeau pieced together a fascinating story of an enslaved woman known as Elizabeth (or Liss) who was born there. The book has been very well-received and has rave reviews from Vanessa Williams and Nathaniel Philbrick. Could there be similarly great stories to come out of your institution?

In case you missed it, Netflix has a new show called Archive 81, roughly based on a podcase of the same name (Archive 81). "When archivist Dan Turner takes a mysterious job restoring a collection of damaged videotapes from 1994, he finds himself reconstructing the work of documentary filmmaker Melody Pendras and her investigation into a dangerous cult." This is as good a time as ever to say - feel free to borrow our VCR & video converter if you have some cursed VHS to digitize!

Some satire for your snowy day: How Non-Librarians Imagine a Librarian's Typical Workday.

Wednesday, February 9 at 1 pm

Wednesday, February 9 at 1 pm

Thursday, February 10 at 1:30 pm

Tuesday, February 15 at 1 pm

Wednesday, February 16 at 2 pm

Thursday, February 17 at 10 am

Friday, February 18 at 10 am

Tuesday, February 22 from 10 am to 3:30 pm ($155)

Tuesday, February 22 at 12:30 pm

Tuesday, February 22 at 2 pm

Tuesday, February 22 at 4 pm

Thursday, February 24 at 3 pm

Thursday, February 24 at 4 pm

Friday, February 25 at 10 am

Monday, February 28 at 11 am

Monday, February 28 at 2 pm

That's all for this month! Send me an email if there's anything at your organization you'd like me to include in the next newsletter: [email protected] | Claire Lovell, Digital Services Librarian