2012 SNCA Annual Meeting

1. 2012 SNCA Annual Meeting Tractor Building and Tobacco Curing: Exposing Agricultural Collections Kristen Merryman SPECIAL COLLECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER

2. BACKGROUND Cultivating a Revolution Digital Project • 2 year LSTA funded project • Digitizing agricultural innovation research at NCSU materials from 1950s-1970s • Outputs: • 20,000-25,000 individual page scans from 15 archival collections • 114 16mm films (14.5 hours) reformatted • K-12 Teacher Resources (Related Topic Essays and Lesson Plans) • Online access at the folder level • Materials are accessible at http://go.ncsu.edu/cultivatingarevolution

3. BACKGROUND Cultivating a Revolution Digital Project

4. BACKGROUND Cultivating a Revolution Digital Project

5. BACKGROUND Cultivating a Revolution Digital Project

6. BACKGROUND Goals of Outreach Efforts Outreach not a primary grant goal – BUT! • promote knowledge and use of project materials • if people don't know the project and accessible materials exist - what's the point of digitizing them? • Conversations with potential users influence how we provide access and what is included in the grant - flexible plan for material inclusion • Strong effort to get word out in Year 1, so materials are already being used by Year 2 and before the end of the project

7. Challenges • Materials being digitized aren't easily understood - scientific/research data heavy • We need to think differently about our resources and how they can be used - how can students use them beyond paper writing • Appealing to "non-traditional" users • Non-traditional = not a historian (esp. not a social/political/economic historian) • tend to be less invested because it is harder for them to see use cases - more effort on our part to get them to talk to us, nevermind discuss uses

8. OPPORTUNITY Despite Challenges - Big Opportunities NCSU is an Ag School, First and Foremost

9. METHOD Potential Users • Sociologists • Agriculture people (faculty, students, Alpha Zeta, student groups) • Horticulturists • Weed Scientists • Scientific Organization Historians • History of science and technology • Environmental Scientists and Students

10. METHOD Internal and External Outreach • Academic departments/faculty we have a relationship with already • Special academic programs (Jefferson Scholars, Honors Program) • Student Groups • Department colleagues • Library/Institution colleagues • Student employees

11. METHOD Capturing Interest

12. METHOD • drop-ins are your friend! • casual conversations work better than formal presentations • have ready examples for how students and faculty can use your materials - either through projects or as research topics • be able to bring up specific examples of materials to grab their interest • bring along technology to show it off!

13. THE END Conclusions • Utilize people you already know (both internally at your institution and externally) • Take advantage of programs that combine humanities and sciences • Have casual conversations to create working relationships that will last Kristen Merryman Digital Project Librarian for Cultivating a Revolution (919) 513-3359 kristen_merryman@ncsu.edu