SPEC Kit 317: Special Collections Engagement · 95
Press releases.
Publicity concerning new acquisitions and/or newly processed collections.
Research stipends offered by the Peabody Awards Office to bring researches in to use collections.
Return to community is one of four main principles of the university’s academic plan. In that context we work with
educators, teachers, schools, and professional societies to provide grade 6–12 material and professional teaching
objects. We develop our Web sites and give instruction to improve public access to our collections for groups like
architects and planners, calligraphers, and genealogists. We publish papers and give conference presentations, and
serve on our professional bodies. The Military Museum’s mandate is directed primarily to the external community.
Speaking to interest groups at meetings, blogs.
Staff participation in conferences, research proposals and published papers.
The Head of Special Collections gives presentations to community groups and historical societies to engage unaffiliated
researchers. The Special Collections and Archives Public Services Librarian gives classes on artists’ books to interested
community groups. The Southeast Asian Archives Librarian frequently gives presentations at conferences and in the
community about the Southeast Asian Archive, which is part of the Special Collections &Archives Department.
The same activities are used to promote our collections and services whether to our own university community or to
unaffiliated researchers about half of our use is from outside our own institution.
Travel grants for non-local researchers.
Travel-to-collection grants. Conferences. High School classes.
University workshops and events, such as a recent SAA workshop on obtaining grants, a day spent with a high school
botany class as part of a university tour, etc.
W. Ormiston Roy Fellowship, Ellison Durant Smith Research Fellowship, William Gilmore Simms Visiting Professorship,
William Gilmore Simms Research Scholar, Lewis P. Jones Research Fellowship in South Carolina History.
We announce new acquisitions, as well as new collections open for research, in local history journals/newsletters and
provincial library/archives associations’ newsletters.
We are a public university, so we do not make a distinction between affiliated and unaffiliated researchers.
We create Web sites for many exhibits which serve the primary purpose of reaching outside our own community. Also,
many of our events are open to the public.
We welcome and receive a good deal of local publicity which draws outside researchers.
Web-based exhibits.
Web site “gateway” pages to some of our major collections. Value-added Web content such as a “National History Day
Help Page.” Digitization efforts also promote collection use.
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