SAA 2013, Part 3: Scanning and Accidental Networking

On Wednesday morning I joined two other archivists in one of the SAA's community service projects.  Every year the SAA tries to give back a little to the community hosting the conference, whether through volunteers helping at a food bank or in a repository.  There were several different options this year and I chose to join the City Park Archives scanning project.  Digitization is something that I haven't had much of an opportunity to work on, either through classes or work, so I was excited to get a little more experience to add to my repertoire.

Unbound minute book being scanned

The project was to help the City Park Archives scan minute books from their collection. The books we were working with from from the 1890s.  They had been unbound and after we scanned them they would be getting rebound.  We got to use a BookEye overhead scanner, which was a first for all of us.  The machine was pretty easy to use, although it got touchy when the size of the pages wasn't exactly what it wanted.  Scanning was slow because of the number of times we had to rearrange and rescan pages, even though the last scan in that same position had gone perfectly.  I'm not sure how many books will eventually be scanned for the project, but we were excited to help, as well as meet some fellow new archivists.

Learning to use a new scanner

The most entertaining part of the experience actually came when we were waiting in the lobby for our ride.  We were joined by two men who asked if we were waiting for a cab.  When we said no they stayed in the lobby as well, clearly waiting for a cab they had called.  When you're standing that close it is impossible not to overhear conversations and it only took a few minutes for them to figure out we were archivists (there are just certain key words that no one else would be using in casual conversation).  They were also in town for the convention, vendors who had been visiting a friend in the same building and were now trying to get to the same hotel we were headed for.  So when our ride came we asked if they could join us, they canceled their cab and we spent the 15 minute drive chatting about the conference, the city, and our jobs.  It was a perfect case of accidental networking.  Everyone exchanged cards and I stopped by their booth the next day to find out more about the scanners they had, which might work well for when the museum has the money to digitize our lantern slide collection.  I'm not a person who's usually comfortable with coming up to strangers at cocktail parties, but it turns out I'm not bad when put into surprise carpools!  On a similar topic, I've discovered that my hair is an ice-breaking asset. Several people came up to me during the conference to compliment me on my hair and then we fell into archival conversations.  I wonder if I can get haircuts to count as business expenses?