Projects and partnerships - looking back on 2023

It’s important to take time to reflect on the work we do at SCHS, particularly the ways we’ve carried out our mission, the projects we’ve completed, and the relationships we’ve built. On this blog, we periodically talk about the work that goes into running the Grems-Doolittle Library. Some of these posts focus on big projects and changes such as the African American Historical Records Project and last year’s archival shelving upgrade. Looking back on 2023, we have a couple of special projects and partnerships that we’d like to highlight. While some of these are single, stand-alone activities, most of them represent relationships that will generate collaborations and projects in 2024 and beyond.

Union Street between Ferry Street and Church Street, 1892 (photo from the Stockade 1892 Photo Album, Grems-Doolittle Library). This is one of the properties students researched during the Siena Service Learning Project.

Siena College Service Learning Project- During March of this year, the Siena students worked with Marietta and the library volunteers to transcribe 19^th century legal documents, create metadata for early 20^th century photos, create condition reports for archival materials in the Grems-Doolittle Library, and compose descriptions for our small manuscript collections. Their work will be incorporated into future NY Heritage and Consider the Source NY digital collections, enable greater access to our archival collections, and improve the information available in our online catalog and resources. In April, the students researched buildings on State and Union Streets and composed narratives that Mike will utilize in developing future walking tours and programs.

Goose Hill Neighborhood History Project - Led by the Goose Hill Neighborhood Association, this is an ongoing project to record the history of the Goose Hill neighborhood through oral histories, conversations with long-time residents, research, and preservation of photos, documents and other personal items related to the area’s history.

View of the Goose Hill neighborhood from the top of the Seneca St. tower, circa 1950. Photo from the Larry Hart Photograph Collection, Grems-Doolittle Library.

City and Town Historians scanning and consultations - SCHS has always built and maintained relationships with the county and municipal historians in our area. Our collections often support their research and they’ve regularly contributed to our programming and publications. In the past few years, we’ve expanded our work with the municipal historians to include digitizing and preserving at-risk items in their collections, consulting on preservation and archival processing, and providing guidance on collection development and record-keeping.

Jazz collection with Susan Brink - We often work with individuals, families, and organizations to add their archival collections to the SCHS Library, and we’re always excited to talk to them about how their materials connect to broader Schenectady County history. Occasionally, an individual contacts us about collaborating on a collection that is broader and more varied in scope. This is an example of such an undertaking: Susan Brink, journalist and producer, has been active in the jazz community for years and recently started collecting Schenectady’s jazz history, focusing on the musicians and organizers who kept jazz alive in our area. The collection is now part of the SCHS Library and we’re excited to continue working with Susan and other jazz aficionados to build the collection.

Poster for the 16th Annual Accordion Center Band Concert, 1960, from the Jazz Collection, Grems-Doolittle Library.

Collaborative Knowledge Center and Digitization Hub - Two years ago, SCHS was invited to serve as the Capital Region’s Diversity and Collaborative Knowledge Center by the NYS Archives Partnership Trust. This was part of a grant project to expand access to historical materials related to underrepresented people and events in NY state history, train K-12 teachers on how to access and use these materials in their classrooms, and develop relationships between educators, historians, archivists, and institutions in our area. We’ve continued serving in this capacity this year and supporting institutions in our area who are working to digitize and describe materials in their collections and increase access to those resources. One example from this year: Historic Cherry Hill used our scanning equipment to digitize a set of diaries which document race, class, gender relations, household management and economy, and family structure in one Gilded Age Albany household. The diaries will soon be available on NY Heritage.

It’s also important to talk about the day-to-day, continuous work like processing collections, digitizing materials, transcribing documents, preserving items and collections, cataloging, and creating guides and other discovery tools. Thanks to our fantastic volunteers, we make steady, significant progress on our preserving priorities, make our collections discoverable and available for researchers, and use the materials for exhibits and education. In 2024, I plan to spend more time posting about the day-to-day, behind the scenes operations of the library. I hope you're able to take time to reflect on this past year, rest and recharge, and look to new year with excitement!