SWE - Fall 2008 - (Page 64)

The campus student organization offices may keep records for several years before sending them to the campus archives, so it is important to check both. In our case, the university archives held nearly 20 years’ worth of records, from the first officer board of 1960 through the late 1970s. This enabled us to compile a list of our key early officers and trace out ebbs and flows in membership throughout that formative period. 60th Anniversary Celebration As part of its upcoming 60th anniversary celebration in 2010, SWE is working to help local sections capture their histories and preserve their records locally. A Section and Region Records Guide is available on the SWE Online Communities Archives Community, and SWE members are invited to join the community to discuss the archival process and their section histories. The StoryCorps® Door-to-Door Project recorded interviews between the eight pairs of SWE members at the WE07 conference in Nashville, and StoryCorps is slated to return to the WE08 conference in Baltimore. Also at the conference this year, SWE Archivist Troy Eller will be hosting a workshop on writing section histories, and the WE09 conference in Long Beach will include a workshop on conducting oral history interviews. Participating sections are encouraged to send copies of their written and oral histories to the SWE archivist for inclusion in the national archives. In addition, awards for the best section histories and oral histories will be presented at the 2009 and 2010 conferences, respectively. By Troy Eller, SWE Archivist Digitization Poring through historical documents and writing a summary narrative is one way to document a section’s history, but a scanned PDF of 30 years’ worth of meeting minutes is just as easy to share with the world as a one-page narrative. Narratives are important for putting everything in perspective, but it is the incredible wealth of “little details” in the original materials that are often the most fascinating. For example, a description of events held over the years can tant considerations. Security simply refers to the fact that any digitized material that is posted to the Web site should first be vetted to ensure that it does not contain any potentially sensitive information, such as a bank account number listed in the minutes from an officer board meeting. Copyright is more problematic and refers to the fact that many materials are protected by copyright restrictions that prohibit your scanning and republishing this project in the fall, with the hope of sending letters to alumni asking if we could talk further with them about what SWE was like in their day. While we are very fortunate to have an established alumni relations program on our campus to tap into, it is likely other sections will find their own alumni associations to be useful resources in trying to track down less-recent alumni. Stirring up interest in the process Not everyone enjoys reading through pages of old meeting minutes, so it is usually easier to find people interested in looking through scrapbooks and piles of old photos. Photos are also a fantastic way to engage alumni. Scan more-recent photos and send them to recent alumni asking if they recognize anyone. This will bring back memories of their collegiate days, and they will often forward the photos and requests to others with whom they keep in touch. If you have an alumni newsletter, start including a few scanned photos in each issue and let those images work for you. I Kalev Leetaru is coordinator of information technology and research at the University of Illinois Cline Center for Democracy where he established and oversees its mass access digitization center. He has worked extensively with digital history projects and advises a number of digitization and digital history initiatives. Jessica Wood currently serves as a Region H collegiate representative for SWE after a year and a half as president of the University of Illinois SWE section, where she helped lead its diversity and history initiatives. If you have an alumni newsletter, start including a few scanned photos in each issue and let those images work for you. link to scanned photographs of those events. A discussion of gender equity can link to a 1961 newspaper clipping marveling how a “blonde” engineer is part of the space program — this was one more gem we found in our archives. Yet another way to make history come alive might be posting the founding officer minutes from 50 years ago, where the officers debated over the early structure of the Society, or perusing descriptions of engineering open house projects from the 1970s. UIUC SWE has posted all of our historical material on our Web site in searchable format, which has opened our history to our members and to the world at large. When digitizing historical material for your section’s Web site, security and copyright are importhem on the Web. The Library of Congress Copyright Clearance at www.copyright.gov is one comprehensive source of guidance, but we also recommend Cornell University’s Copyright Information Center’s site at www.copyright.cornell.edu/publi c_domain/ Connecting present and past: alumni association The written record of an organization can tell only so much about its history: The vast majority of the stories and events that gave it its life are preserved only in the memories of its alumni, whom we have begun to contact with the help of the alumni association. While we are still in the beginning stages of this final cornerstone of our initiative, early results are encouraging. We will be devoting considerable efforts to 64 SWE FALL 2008 http://www.copyright.gov http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain/ http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain/

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of SWE - Fall 2008

SWE - Fall 2008 Heritage Club Contents Farewell Message from FY08 President Michelle Tortolani Congratulations SWE Magazine A Conversation with FY09 President Virginia Connolly, P.E. Introducing the FY09 Board of Directors View from the Executive Suite Editor's Page Public Policy Update SWE Retention Study, Part 6 Membership Information & Calendar A&B SWE Member Kristina Johnson First Woman to Receive John Fritz Medal University Labs Fuel a New Era in Energy Women Engineering Leaders in Academe 2008 Opening the Gateways to Engineering Your Collegiate Section History is Waiting to Be Discovered Honoring the Legacy of Ada Pressman, P.E. Report from WEPAN Engineering World Proposed Bylaws Amendments Point of View Correction Career Toolbox Corporate Partnership Council Book Review SWE Smiles In Memory Opportunity Index SWE Scrapbook

SWE - Fall 2008

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