Rebecca Goldman Drexel University Archives August 14, 2010

Our HIST285 project  Research a technology at Drexel  Develop a thesis, and find supporting material in the Archives  Create a digital exhibition of findings on the Archives website

A HIST285 exhibit

Why collaborate with an undergraduate class?  opportunity for outreach  learn new things about our collections  support Library's mission  students are future alumni  stress test for our procedures

HIST285 by the numbers, Fall 2009  90+ student researchers  9 group projects  10-week quarter  And…2 full-time Archives staff

Challenges in Fall 2009  tracking team research progress  scheduling researchers, interns and student workers  tracking offsite storage requests  tracking scan requests

Managing the hordes: Solutions for Spring 2010

JIRA  Bug-tracking software customized for tracking reference questions

You can assign and schedule reference questions…

…add attachments and comments…

…track progress on a question…

…and search the whole database.

Google Calendar  Track researcher appointments, student and intern schedules, and archives closures on the same calendar

Google Spreadsheets  Track requests from off-site storage (on a small scale)

Paper files  Folder for each group Sign-in sheet to track when groups come, which members come, and what Archives staff need to do before the next visit Scan request form Paper materials generated during research (research notes, photocopies of materials, printouts of search results)

Looking to the future

Future plans for HIST285  More instruction on exhibition design  Have students blog about their experiences  Find ways to involve interns in the process

Thinking about working with an undergraduate class?  Recommend good research topics  Maintain contact with students  Set multiple deadlines  Group projects suck  Manage expectations of the Archives  Manage your own expectations of students  Participate in creating assignments and grading  Be a partner in the research process

What do students think? Some survey responses  All said archives research was at least “sort of fun.”  All said research took as much time or less time than they expected  Most common favorite part: seeing old documents and photographs  Used to keyword searching, and would have preferred to have more content available online

“I'm a nerd and felt like Batman when I was doing it.”

Contact info  Rebecca Goldman Digital Archives Technician, Drexel University Archives

Thanks  Photo credit: Drexel University Archives  Drexel University Libraries  Dr. Erik Rau  Laurie Rizzo  Rob Sieczkiewicz