Message from the Past Chair

History

Laura Hibbler, Editor

It’s been a productive time for the History Section. The RUSA Board has approved a new Gale Cengage History Section Research and Innovation Award. We have gotten to this point through the diligent efforts of Agnes Widder. The monetary award is intended to promote and further research relating to history and history librarianship. We are still awaiting approval from the ALA Executive Council before advertising the award this fall.

The History Section annual program this year was sponsored by the Genealogy Committee and entitled “Mining Gold from the 1940 Census.” The main speaker was Joel Weintraub, a volunteer at the National Archives and Records Administration, Riverside. A panel discussion followed and included Amy Crow of Archives.com, Michael Hall from Family Search, and Bill Forsyth from ProQuest. Over 100 people attended the program. The Genealogy Committee meeting discussed getting youth involved in genealogy research and what to do with donated genealogy research papers.

One of the communication avenues available to History Section members is History-L. This listserv has 279 subscribers with eighty-nine messages sent to the list from July 1, 2011 to June 20, 2012. If you are not a member of the History-L, you can subscribe you can do so by going to http://lists.ala.org/wws/info/history-l. You can also find out about History Section events and activities by “liking us” on Facebook.

The Genealogy & Local History Discussion Group had a presentation by a representative of Fold3 who talked about their military content. There was also a discussion about Family History Books, a free website containing free digital genealogy books.

The Historical Materials Committee finalized their list of Best Historical Materials for publication in RUSQ. The committee also started planning the 2014 History Section program.

The Instruction & Research Services (IRS) Committee had a discussion on history standards for college students. They are developing a set of guidelines on this topic. The guidelines were brought before the RUSA Standards & Guidelines Committee prior to the Annual Conference. A few changes are needed. IRS is planning the 2013 History Section annual program. The topic will be Digital History.

The Local History Committee updated Guidelines for Establishing Local History Collections. It was approved by the RUSA Standards & Guidelines Committee prior to the Annual Conference as well as being approved by the RUSA Board prior to the conference. The major discussion in the meeting centered on how to find new publications of county histories.

Membership in the History Section committees is open to any RUSA History Section member. You will find a link to the volunteer form at http://www.ala.org/rusa/about/divisioncommittees.

Janice Schultz
History Section Past Chair