Collecting the New and Unearthing the Old (Building Oral History Collections)

Presenters: Scott Lillard & Jamie Corson

This presentation will focus on collecting new oral histories in your community and unearthing old oral histories within your archival collection. From working with interview prospects to digitizing old stories on tape, we'll cover the lessons we've learned building a robust oral history collection here at Memphis Public Libraries. 
    This will include:
      -Building a platform for outside groups to use for interviews
      -How to be a good interviewer (Hint: This isn't gotcha journalism, but do research)
      -Dealing with the back end of the interview process (Including having AI assist with transcription)
      -Digitizing old interviews on cassette tapes, reel to reel, or vinyl
      -Audio editing for fixing issues with old recordings
We'll use three examples from our collection for this presentation: the 901Voices Oral History Collection, the Everett R. Cook Oral History Collection, and the Negro Leagues Baseball Collection.  

Scott Lillard is a reference librarian in the history department at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library. The de facto multimedia specialist within the department, he's been responsible for the oral history program since 2022 and is also responsible for digitizing audiovisual materials. He's currently working on a very large collection of footage donated by a local production company including recordings of Libertyland, the Mid-South Fair, Mud Island, and more. A native Memphian, he grew up a stone's throw from Overton Park. His dream donation is a collection of old tapes of Prince Mongo and local wrestling.

Jamie Corson is the digital projects manager for Memphis Public Libraries. Responsible for the library's digital archive (DIG Memphis), she's created nearly a dozen digital collections during her time in the role. Some of the more notable ones include "Votes for Women-Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment", ""Mid-South Coliseum Collection", "A. Schwab Collection", and the "Negro Leagues Baseball Collection."

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Communicating Value and Impact: Building a Dashboard of Tennessee's Repositories

Presenter: Carolyn Runyun

Tennessee’s archival record is distributed across universities, public libraries, museums, historical societies, government agencies, religious organizations, community archives, and other local institutions. Although many of these organizations hold significant collections, there is no single, regularly updated source of statewide information about archival staffing, holdings, and services. 

Academic librarians use ACRL’s Academic Library Trends and Statistics to demonstrate impact, benchmark their work, and make data-informed decisions. Archivists need a comparable source of data to document the scale, scope, and value of archival repositories throughout Tennessee. Such data would help archivists demonstrate their unique contributions to funders, institutional leaders, and policymakers. 

Join a facilitated discussion to explore a statewide approach for collecting and reporting information about Tennessee archives’ repositories, personnel, holdings, and public services.

Carolyn Runyon is a Professor and the Director of Special Collections at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Carolyn embraces a collaborative working style, prioritizing collective input and consensus-building while grounding decision-making in evidence. 

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Underground Tennessee Music Voices in Local Archives

Presenters: Jon Sewell, John Rash, Dan Drinkard

Examining the similarities and differences between 3 local approaches to preserving the history of their music communities from both academic and community-based initiatives, including the Memphis Punk Archive, the Southern Punk Archive, and the Nashville Underground Music Archive, this panel conversation brings together various local history practitioners along with the varied experiences of their local music archives. The archives represented here focus on underground and punk music primarily in the South, an unconventional location for these scenes. The Southern Punk Archive, housed within the Center for Southern Culture, at Ole Miss, led by John Rash utilizes a documentary style approach to record and maintain these histories with the resources of an academic setting. On the other hand, the Memphis Punk Archive represents the will and ambition of two former participants from the 1990s and 2000s to preserve their local music history. Operating on no budget, the project makes use of free websites, such as YouTube, Band Camp, and Instagram to present data-intensive files and stories to the public. The Nashville Underground Music Archive started as research into local 1990s underground scenes with the primary focus now being the early rock and roll scenes in Nashville in the 1950s and '60s with community members still around. The aims of this panel for audience members include knowing the differences in preserving history from academic affiliated archives and community-created models; feeling the passion in preservation of local music scenes similar to those who created and continue to encourage these often under-the-radar communities; and providing feedback for growth, learning how to start their own (or become involved with an existing archive) and the benefits and obstacles of the various models represented.

Jon Sewell Abstract: 

Building upon his own experience bridging multiple archival spaces, Jon will facilitate the conversation between music-based community and academic archives. Having founded The Nashville Underground Music Archive in 2020, his research focus includes the early rock & roll scenes in Nashville in the 1950s and '60s, with ongoing support for the Music City Punk project, looking at parallel youth-oriented movements in the 1970s and ‘80s. These initiatives involve oral histories to complement a growing collection of material culture and several digital outputs. His experience at the Center for Popular Music, which recently received the Maximum RocknRoll collection (one of the worlds largest punk vinyl and ephemera collections), also helps to inform a broader look at the affective positioning alongside applied practices. 

How these passions connect with public engagement, theory and practice, help inform methods of emotional preservation, and memory, from a local community oriented perspective whether in academic, non-profits, or completely volunteer passion projects. This affective investment presents from participants in the panel and audience, who are invited to participate in the conversation.
This panel will continue Sewell’s research and presentation. A panel at AASLH in Cincinnati, last fall, included a packed attendance of audience members that generated more participation than time allowed. A research presentation at the Society of American Archivists (SAA) by Jon Sewell over last summer led to a panel at SAA in New orleans this year of a capacity crowd. Upcoming panels at conferences for SHA (Southern Historical Association in November, 2026) and AHA (American Historical Association in January, 2027) will engage a more regional audience. Just as the collections being archived, these panels generate conversations between presenters and audience and provide a democratizing effect for reflections on the fields of history and preservation, advocacy, and organizing among practitioners at various levels of skill and institution. 


John Rash Abstract:
A panel based around archives of underground and independent music in the American South provides a unique perspective into an emerging archival trend within an unconventional landscape. While admittedly being limited geographically the focus on punk archives in a non-traditional ecosystem helps document voices and stories that until now often fell under more dominant discussions of punk by LA and New York based histories. The Southern Punk Archive helps fill a regional gap even where local initiatives in more urban settings exist. Furthermore by examining these music archives from a viewpoint spanning the institutional spectrum practitioners from community lead projects interact with peers benefiting from institutional backing. In many cases these practitioners span and connect both worlds. As founder of the Southern Punk Archive within the Center for Southern Culture at University of Miss, Rash utilizes a documentary style approach to record and maintain these histories within the resources of an academic setting. Building on an experience similar to their Blues Archive. Rash partnered with Director Greg Johnson (Head of Special Collections, Blues Curator, and Professor) to build upon the scale extant within the institutions to expand its collecting scope within this new initiative. As a participating member of the communities they wish to highlight, Rash and Johnson, come from a variety of professional and academic backgrounds, demonstrate various journeys toward a common goal. Building on his experience as a documentation, Rash provides insights into several documentary processes that help inform archival practice. His films on Negro Terror, a black Memphis based punk group, as well as Our Movment Starts here on the ecological activism in North Carolina, utilize a place-based lens to inform the archival pratice at Ole Miss, within a local and regional scope.

Dan Drinkard Abstract:
The Memphis Punk Archive is a “fan-run archive” that works to preserve an almost-forgotten chapter of punk history in Memphis. Created by Memphis natives Drew Ryan and Daniel Drinkard, who now live in Chicago and Birmingham respectively, the archive digitally preserves Memphis punk materials like music, photographs and posters. Without cost, users of the digital archive can listen to (and download) albums, tapes, and demos on [the] Bandcamp site and gain a visceral interpretation of the Memphis punk scene. As with other community archives, the founders of the Memphis Punk Archive saw a gap in the historical record outside of mainstream tradition and felt a need to preserve a legacy of punk rock in the region. In writing about DIY music archives, Sarah Cuk notes, “The relevance of DIY music archives extends beyond the specific community that maintains jurisdiction …underrepresented and marginalized histories are everyone’s history.” Preserving the story of Memphis punk echoes this sentiment by representing a community at large. As Alex Peterson of Memphis Magazine puts it, “Punk is not one of Memphis’ most common musical exports, but it still followed the core ethos of the city: Do it yourself, support others, and love your hometown.” As part of community engagement, Drinkard and Ryan host a special on local radio station, WYXR, where they played records from their collection of 90s and 2000s punk to discuss the Memphis Punk Archive. Digital preservation practices include community digitization days in a post-custodial framework where owners return with their item, while it gets a second-life online. Physical donations get routes to WYXR, and today Drinkard, now in Birmingham, has enlisted more local help running the social accounts and digitization efforts. Discussing the obstacles involved naturally involves trends in community-run initiatives, at large, within the archival space.
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Jon Sewell Biography: As the founder of the Nashville Underground Music Archive, Jon works as a GA at the Center for Popular Music at MTSU en route to his PhD in Public History. Working to preserve local stories back to the days of early Rock n Roll in Nashville, his output includes a website, with a database of performers, labels, and venues, as well as oral histories, and building a collection of related material culture, from vinyl to video. 

John Rash Biography: Assistant Professor of Film Production and Southern Studies, Rash is a filmmaker, photographer, and video artist who earned his M.F.A. in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University. As a visual storyteller and educator in the United States and China for more than 20 years, his research and teaching are focused on Documentary Studies, Southern Studies, film production, avant-garde cinema, expanded cinema, and moving-image installation. As the founder/curator of the Southern Punk Archive, John works to preserve the music, stories, and ephemera from vibrant D.I.Y. punk and hardcore communities throughout the American South.

Dan Drinkard Biography: As a long-time musician and early participant in the Memphis punk scene, Dan today lives in Birmingham where, still active in the music scene, he runs Seasick records. His passion to preserve the local music history combined with another Memphis-born musician Drew Ryan to create the Memphis Punk Archive, by transforming old forms of media to a digital space. The two collect music, photographs, posters, and other ephemera to digitize it for their site. On a shoestring budget, the archive utilizes free websites to host data-intensive files. Any donations they receive go to the nonprofit radio station WYXR.

John Rash Biography: Assistant Professor of Film Production and Southern Studies, Rash is a filmmaker, photographer, and video artist who earned his M.F.A. in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University. As a visual storyteller and educator in the United States and China for more than 20 years, his research and teaching are focused on Documentary Studies, Southern Studies, film production, avant-garde cinema, expanded cinema, and moving-image installation. As the founder/curator of the Southern Punk Archive, John works to preserve the music, stories, and ephemera from vibrant D.I.Y. punk and hardcore communities throughout the American South.

Dan Drinkard Biography: As a long-time musician and early participant in the Memphis punk scene, Dan today lives in Birmingham where, still active in the music scene, he runs Seasick records. His passion to preserve the local music history combined with another Memphis-born musician Drew Ryan to create the Memphis Punk Archive, by transforming old forms of media to a digital space. The two collect music, photographs, posters, and other ephemera to digitize it for their site. On a shoestring budget, the archive utilizes free websites to host data-intensive files. Any donations they receive go to the nonprofit radio station WYXR.

John Rash Biography: Assistant Professor of Film Production and Southern Studies, Rash is a filmmaker, photographer, and video artist who earned his M.F.A. in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University. As a visual storyteller and educator in the United States and China for more than 20 years, his research and teaching are focused on Documentary Studies, Southern Studies, film production, avant-garde cinema, expanded cinema, and moving-image installation. As the founder/curator of the Southern Punk Archive, John works to preserve the music, stories, and ephemera from vibrant D.I.Y. punk and hardcore communities throughout the American South.

Dan Drinkard Biography: As a long-time musician and early participant in the Memphis punk scene, Dan today lives in Birmingham where, still active in the music scene, he runs Seasick records. His passion to preserve the local music history combined with another Memphis-born musician Drew Ryan to create the Memphis Punk Archive, by transforming old forms of media to a digital space. The two collect music, photographs, posters, and other ephemera to digitize it for their site. On a shoestring budget, the archive utilizes free websites to host data-intensive files. Any donations they receive go to the nonprofit radio station WYXR.

John Rash Biography: Assistant Professor of Film Production and Southern Studies, Rash is a filmmaker, photographer, and video artist who earned his M.F.A. in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University. As a visual storyteller and educator in the United States and China for more than 20 years, his research and teaching are focused on Documentary Studies, Southern Studies, film production, avant-garde cinema, expanded cinema, and moving-image installation. As the founder/curator of the Southern Punk Archive, John works to preserve the music, stories, and ephemera from vibrant D.I.Y. punk and hardcore communities throughout the American South.

Dan Drinkard Biography: As a long-time musician and early participant in the Memphis punk scene, Dan today lives in Birmingham where, still active in the music scene, he runs Seasick records. His passion to preserve the local music history combined with another Memphis-born musician Drew Ryan to create the Memphis Punk Archive, by transforming old forms of media to a digital space. The two collect music, photographs, posters, and other ephemera to digitize it for their site. On a shoestring budget, the archive utilizes free websites to host data-intensive files. Any donations they receive go to the nonprofit radio station WYXR. 

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Commemorations at Cannonsburgh: Reading Against the Grain of Private Collections at 250

Presenters: Nancy Prescott 

"Commemorations at Cannonsburgh” explores the joys and challenges of staging a Murfreesboro-based 250th exhibit entitled “250 Years of Commemorating American Independence” curated by Nancy Prescott and Dr. Amy Sayward. This exhibit, staged in the Cannonsburgh Museum complex, posed unique challenges in working with donors, community partners, considerable time constraints, and the search for evidence of underrepresented Americans within a private collection with a narrow scope. 

The John and Linda Vile Collection of commemorative objects includes printed copies of the Declaration of Independence, craftwork, artwork, glass and tableware, and plenty of ephemera spanning the American Jubilee, Centennial, Sesquicentennial, Bicentennial, and beyond. While on the surface these objects seem like fun collectables, the exhibit helps visitors identify 250 years of shifts in national priorities such as liberty, unification, and eventually global capital and military dominance. With care, curators discovered stories that transcended narrow "Great Man" narratives and allowed the objects to yield a more comprehensive view of the lives of emancipated people, native people, women, and the competition to expand the national identity and display a broader American tapestry. 

Nancy Prescott is a former music business professional turned PhD student in Public History at MTSU. Her work focuses primarily on the histories of American popular music, women, enslavement, reconstruction and the progressive era South, sex work, the carceral state, and beyond. A Harold Love Award winner, she is dedicated to voter registration and civic engagement efforts and leverages that passion in her work as Student Engagement and Programs Coordinator in MTSU’s University Honors College. 

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Jefferson Street Sound: a Music and Local Culture Community Museum and Archive

Presenter: Jon Sewell

This case study explores the community and house settings of Jefferson Street Sound Museum. Nestled in North Nashville, a major corridor for the historically black community, Jefferson Street connects Tennessee State University, Meharry Medical College, and Fisk to downtown where churches, venues, and black-owened businesses thrived prior to urban revitalization projects and the interstate expansion. Today run by two spry yet aging principals, JSSM emerged from private collections of artifacts, clothing, records, glossies, and memorabilia, with a mission to celebrate the musical scenes from the 1940s-’70s with robust community engagement programming. Utilizing an open storage plan, the museum residency and case study presented here includes proposal focus areas of sustainability and institutional resilience through policy creation. Formalizing guiding principles in documents will inform the next generation with the charge of holding this collection in public trust. A focus on collections and digitization through improved archival and conservation practice facilitates organizational development and operations, while strategic planning and succession goals for institutional sustainability inform continuity.

Relevant to this year’s theme, this case study examines a museum forged by a local musical culture of many voices with a vision for future preservation and action. Recently added to the US Civil Rights Trail, as a building location JSSM witnessed a changing Tennessee neighborhood with a collection inside that highlights the intersection of music and the Civil Rights Movement. The passion of its founder, longtime music industry veteran Lorenzo Washington, along with vice-president Karen Coffee, provides first hand connections. JSSM operates like many small house museums under the passion of a young-at-heart yet aging founder, where outside skilled volunteer work can help platform succession, stewardship, and success. This poster presentation hopefully will help meet folks with previous experience in small shoestring settings and strong programming as precedent to help set JSSM up to thrive.

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Underrepresented Voices that Built Memphis

Presenter: Mark Scott

The voices of African Americans in Memphis have been underrepresented especially those of the enslaved and those that experienced the ending of educational segregation. The topic would focus on two projects in which the presenter has been engaged. Those being Enslavement along Adams Avenue and the closure of the last one room schoolhouse in Shelby County in 1964. I will be using power point to describe how each of these projects originated, developed using archives and libraries, some of the found stories, and how they are intended to help facilitate the idea of One Memphis. These topics are relevant to the Society of Tennessee Archivists because they bring to the forefront the historically underrepresented, how archives and libraries, both physical and online, have enabled the discovery of these voices of the past which have affected the shared present of Memphis citizens, as well as, encourage more inclusive awareness of the people who built this city upon the Fourth Chickasaw Bluff.

Mark Scott, a native Memphian, spent three decades teaching Standard/Advanced Placement US History and Facing History in Memphis public schools. Mark has always believed that students who understand their community’s past show greater interest in the larger world. In 2009, he led a student effort to save Shelby County’s last remaining one-room schoolhouse. This earned him the Gilder Lehrman Preservation Teacher of the Year Award for Tennessee. In retirement, Mark manages the Mallory-Neely House, a Victorian-era home that is part of the Pink Palace Museum of Science and History. He now studies the lives of enslaved people who lived and worked there.

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Activating Archives: Bringing Special Collections to Life in Digital Commons

Presenters: Grace Neeley & Casey Parkman

The Special Collections and Innovation & Scholarly Communication Departments at the University of Memphis McWherter Library teamed up to utilize the Digital Commons platform to bring more awareness and engaging access points to Special Collections and the Library. Through the "Item of the Month" and "Picturing Memphis" projects, we aimed to connect users to Special Collections' archival holdings through interactive tools and unique visual displays.

Grace Neeley, MBA, MLIS, is an Archivist/Librarian, Assistant Professor, in the Special Collections Department at the University of Memphis Ned McWherter Library. She is a processing archivist, tackling new accessions and the backlog one collection at a time. She also assists with the department's researcher inquiries and instruction sessions, and creates special projects for Special Collections on Digital Commons. She is the current Secretary for the Society of Tennessee Archivists.

Casey Parkman, Digital Initiatives Librarian/Asst. Professor, is part of the Innovation and Scholarly Communication Department at the University of Memphis Ned McWherter Library. He helps manage the Digital Commons for the University Libraries, adds and creates content, and helps build collections for this institutional digital repository. In addition, he leads the Libraries’ Creative Media Team responsible for recording, archiving, and creating digital content and material for the Digital Commons, the Library, the University, and for Community groups.

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Uncovering Hidden History: The Underground Railroad at the Burkle Estate

Presenter: Elaine Lee Turner

The presentation will focus on the multiple facets of history that intertwined to weave together the long-kept secret of an Underground Railroad location in Memphis, known as the Burkle Estate, a story that was waiting to be told after more than 100 years. It will show how a community held onto oral history, folklore, family stories, myths, rumors, forbidden secrets and finally research to uncover the clandestine operations of courageous individuals who risked their lives and safety to free enslaved people from bondage. 

In uncovering certain aspects of African American history there is often much scrutiny associated with telling unknown stories. However, the story of Slave Haven Underground Railroad Museum (Burkle Estate) came to light in spite of skepticism, criticism, and downright denial of long-time Southerners who preferred to hold onto antiquated beliefs that enslaved Africans could not have possibly outwitted their enslavers and made such daring escapes. Equally held in scrutiny is the notion that none of their fellow white Southerners would have been a traitor and engaged in such activities. 

One of the more interesting aspects of learning about the Underground Railroad is showing how the story continues to unfold and secrets are constantly being revealed through family histories, coded language, messages, as well as, research. 

Preserving the history of the Slave Haven Underground Railroad Museum is crucial because it represents history in a time capsule. It is there for everyone who visits to see, touch, and feel the history come alive, and at the same time have an impact on their own lives. The uniqueness of its existence, 170 years later, compels us to preserve this treasure, learn from it and appreciate the lessons that it teaches. 

Slave Haven Underground Railroad Museum recently experienced a fire which could have jeopardized its very existence. However, we are on the rebound. Having lost some of our artifacts in the fire, the recovery has been challenging. During this recovery period, we have been searching for replacements that will assist us in continuing to tell the Underground Railroad story. Fortunately, we have also received some donations of artifacts.

Elaine Lee Turner has served the Memphis community in various capacities as an educator, a civil rights activist, an entrepreneur and a historian. Elaine Turner serves as the director of Slave Haven Underground Railroad Museum and the director of the W. C. Handy Memphis Home & Museum on Beale Street. 

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Hair Everywhere: How a Primary Source Workshop Turned into So Much More

Presenters: Brigitte Billeaudeaux & Anna Kirby

In 1969, the Memphis State University became the first and only university to perform the musical HAIR while it was still on Broadway to a sold-out campus/local community. In 1970, George Fleischer submitted his thesis; a finding aid created for a collection of material that he had amassed from the Annunga Runga Tribe.  The collection came to the University Libraries’ Special Collections Department in two donations, the first in 1993 and the second after the 25th anniversary in 1995. Our Department, in 2025, partnered with University of Memphis Musicology faculty to create an immersive and in-depth archiving experience that led to larger scholarship opportunities. For Special Collections staff this revealed something much more unsettling; the collection we had housed for decades was much larger than we anticipated and was largely unprocessed. Additionally, what was processed was not done to archival standards due to the collection being a non-archival thesis. What began as a workshop to provide musicology students with archival research experience that turned into student projects became a mission to fully process a collection of important work that bridged race relations in a city recovering from tragedy and that challenged the status quo of a conservative city in the South. This presentation will uncover methods that were employed to impact student success through primary source education, student research, and exhibition. We will discuss an amateur’s versus a professional’s processing experience and perspective with this collection.

Brigitte Billeaudeaux is the Head of Special Collections at the University of Memphis Libraries. She has served the University Libraries since 2010 and has held her current position since 2024. She holds a Master of Arts from the University of Memphis in Anthropology, a Master of Science in Information Science from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and a professional certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Memphis. Ms. Billeaudeaux has worked in cultural heritage management for almost 20 years in areas of digitization, processing, exhibit development, copyright, and consulting. 

Anna Kirby is a Library Assistant II in Special Collections at the University of Memphis Libraries. She has served the University Libraries since 2022 and has held her current position since 2025. She holds a Master of Science in Information Science from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

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Weaving History Strand by Strand

Presenter: Jody Johnson

This workshop explores the history, social impact, and craftsmanship of Victorian hair work, a misunderstood 19th-century art form. Led by independent researcher and practicing hair artist Jody Johnson of Oaklands Mansion, the presentation examines how nineteenth-century society viewed human hair as a sentimental and durable art medium, looking past modern stereotypes. The workshop starts with a historical overview of hair's many uses. It then explores the lives of the era's hair artists—including their footprint in Tennessee—and explains how this craft provided Victorian women with a respected path toward independent artistry and entrepreneurship.

In addition to the historical lecture, Jody will bring a showcase of original, antique examples of hair art, historical reading materials, and perform live demonstrations of traditional table-braiding and wirework methods using specialized tools. The program also features an interactive workshop segment where attendees learn the traditional techniques of wirework to construct their own historical hair flower. This hands-on experience is designed to appeal to those interested in history, art, and anthropology, offering an immersive look at how this nearly lost historical craft is brought back to life.

Jody Johnson is a staff member at Oaklands Mansion and an independent researcher specializing in the art, history, and restoration of Victorian hair work. Over the past four years, she has dedicated herself to collecting antique hair art and mastering traditional techniques. Her formal training includes studying Swedish hair work at the North House Folk School, coursework at Leila’s Hair Museum, and co-hosting a specialized workshop alongside Hair Anthropology. Passionate about historical preservation, Jody actively restores antique pieces and educates audiences on the rich local, national, and international history of this intricate, nearly lost 19th-century craft.

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Preserving and Providing Free Access to Born-Digital Content from Tennessee State Agencies   

Presenter: Perveen Rustomfram   

As one of six depository libraries (in the state) for Tennessee state agency documents, the University Libraries at the University of Memphis plays its part in “preserving the richness and complexity of Tennessee’s documentary heritage.” The Libraries preserves and provides free online access to an ever-increasing number of born-digital state publications through its Digital Commons repository. This presentation addresses the processes and discusses the challenges of making this collection compliant with the enhanced accessibility standards of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Perveen Rustomfram is Head of Government Publications at the University Libraries, the University of Memphis. She oversees the regional federal depository for the state of Tennessee and the state documents collection. She provides in-house and online research assistance, research consultations, and library instruction.

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ADA Title II Accessibility Standards and Electronic Theses and Dissertations at the University of Memphis   

Presenter: Elizabeth McDonald   

The University of Memphis’s electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) are hosted on a digital repository maintained by the University Libraries.  The revised accessibility standards of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act impact these documents and the repository going forward.  This presentation will discuss efforts of the University to address and comply with these changes with respect to ETDs.

Elizabeth McDonald Bio: Special Projects Cataloger in the Government Publications Department at the University of Memphis. Worked with Electronic Theses and Dissertations since their inception at the University of Memphis.

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An Itinerant Mathematician: Paul Erdős and One Person’s Immigrant Story

Presenter: Anna Kirby

Paul Erdős was a well-known and respected mathematician who was a frequent visitor and professor at the University of Memphis. He was famous for both his mathematical genius, his hundreds of published papers written with hundreds of co-writers, and for never having a permanent address both academically and personally. Erdős was born in 1913 to a Jewish Hungarian family, and during the Second World War he fled to the United States. Like many Jewish European academics, he ended up at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. But even after Nazi Germany was defeated, Erdős rarely returned to his homeland. Instead, he spent most of his time traveling to academic homes across the world, though he spent many years with the University of Memphis Department of Mathematical Sciences where he was deeply influential. He died in 1996 while attending a conference in Poland. His personal correspondence with fellow mathematicians and academics was donated to the University of Memphis Libraries’ Special Collections department in 2016. Since Erdős frequently posed mathematical questions and theories in his correspondence, the collection gives an insight into his process. This lightning talk will give a brief overview of Erdős’ life, especially his experiences as a refugee and immigrant, and will touch on the experience of processing his collection.

Anna Kirby is a Library Assistant II in Special Collections at the University of Memphis Libraries. She has served the University Libraries since 2022 and has held her current position since 2025. She holds a Master of Science in Information Science from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

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The Well-connected Archivist

Presenter: Brynna Farris

How do researchers and scholars find repositories and relevant collections? While ArchiveGrid and other databases are excellent sources, they don’t provide narratives or information that is personalized to the user’s needs--this is the job of the archivist. One way archivists can provide a more personalized approach to research (in addition to knowing details of what a collection contains), is through the development of relationships with scholars using materials. During this lightning session, we will discuss the importance of “word of mouth” research and the networking and engagement opportunities it can bring to your archive. Asking questions about what your patrons are researching, as well as their project goals not only provide a useful narrative for the work we archivists perform, but can allow archivists to link scholars, projects, and give insight to growing research areas. Over time, this fosters a more collaborative academic community and creates opportunities that highlight the value of the archivist.

Brynna Farris is the Public Services Archivist for Vanderbilt University’s Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA). At Vanderbilt, Brynna works with patrons and researchers to find and access archival materials from SCUA’s collections. Before joining Vanderbilt University, Brynna worked for HCA Healthcare as a Research Publications Coordinator where she evaluated medical research submissions and managed access to library materials for faculty, staff, and medical residents. She received her Master's degree in Information Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2024.
Brynna's passion lies in research, and she loves instructing K-12 students and adults on utilizing archival collections. 

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