On Saturday, November 14, two dozen SLA-SD members and friends descended on the San Diego Public Library's Central Library. There, we helped with two projects owned by the library's California Room, whose collection pertains to California history.
Info pros Bee Bornheimer, Robin Dodds, Melinda Hansen, Vani Inampudi (pushing the cart in the photo here), Marita Johnson, Peggy Makie, Sabrina Nespeca, Camerin Poulson, Melanie Quinn, Jennifer Snapp-Cook and Kate Vigderson all pitched in and gave the effort their all.
These intrepid volunteers helped sort and sleeve several boxes of historic photographs and helped box and sleeve several drawers of San Diego postcards. SLA-SD President Cindy Shamel also participated.
Prior to getting started on our work, we all enjoyed a tour of the California Room and the library's Wangenheim Room, which contains a collection of rare books, manuscripts and artifacts illustrating the development of the book through the ages.
Special Collections Supervisor Rick Crawford, a member of the California Room staff, provided an orientation to the California Room. Also he kindly made the volunteer opportunity possible and guided participants through the work needing doing.
The volunteer work party was staged as a way to give back to the California Room, whose staff help provide access to the SLA-SD chapter archives which are housed in the Central Library.
At the end of day, when the working and networking came to a close, all agreed that the event had been productive and lots of fun. Most importantly, Rick expressed appreciation for the group having put in place the first steps toward making the postcard and photo collections accessible to the public.
Anyone interested in volunteering for the California Room can contact Rick at rcrawford[AT]sandiego.gov.
Anyone interested in participating in future SLA-SD volunteer work parties just needs to stay tuned to this blog. Given the good results from this year's work party at the downtown San Diego Public Library, another work party on behalf of the California Room may be in the works for 2010.
See photos taken by SLA-SD President Cindy Shamel.
See photos taken by SLA-SD Archivist Daria DeCooman.
XXX
Article written by Daria DeCooman
Thanks for coordinating this, Daria. And thanks to Rick Crawford for the amazing tour!
I'll definitely be sending anyone interested in California history or archiving his direction.
Posted by: Sabrina Nespeca | 12/07/2009 at 08:53 PM