Space Exploration Resources

This article highlights primary resources on the Internet regarding United States space exploration

History Day Collaboration: Maximizing Resources to Serve Students

In tough economic times, History Day provides an excellent opportunity for units at a university and interested parties in the community to collaborate in new and interesting ways. A focus on collaboration at St. Cloud State University (SCSU) helped ensure that History Day participants in central Minnesota had a more level playing field with their counterparts in the Twin Cities area. Strong relationships were built over three years of programming, which has become a stabilizing force as members of the team weather more new challenges due to the economic recession

How to Decide, Archon or Archivists’ Toolkit: Open Source Software Solutions to Manage and Provide Access to Archival Information

Often times librarians find themselves working with archival materials, and archivists find themselves working with library materials. Armed with enough knowledge to preserve and inventory the catalog, it is easy, whether you are an archivist in a library or a librarian in an archives, to be paralyzed when it comes to more technical tasks like SQL databases, EAD, MARC XML, or CSS Stylesheets. As we try to find ways to do tasks that push us outside of our comfort zones or even those that we are comfortable with, there are open source collection management software that can help: Archon and Archivists’ Toolkit. These allow institutions to use a single tool to manage their collections and provide access to processed records and digital objects while entering data only once and not in multiple tools. Hear about the success and challenges faced by a university archives, a public library, and a museum library/archive. With minimal tech support or knowledge, Archon and Archivists’ Toolkit can be used out of the box to allow information professionals to create EAD finding aids, MARC XML records, etc. The presenters, speaking first hand of their decision to implement and use of Archon and Archivists’ Toolkit, will have attendees consider using these tools, rather than building home-grown systems. The presenters will discuss the tools’ ability to manage collections, provide access to processed records and digital objects, user interface, and outputting data to MARC or XML supported EAD finding aids, what was useful and not and the impact to their services. Although the merger of these tools has been announced, this session will provide information professionals with the knowledge to decide what will be the best stop-gap measure until these tools become one. Keywords: Archon; Archivists’ Toolkit; Archives; Access; Open Source Software; Records; Digital Objects; Managing Records; Librarian