Many happy returns5
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Archival Advocacy presentation
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Many happy returns5
- 1. MANY HAPPY RETURNS: THE SEQUEL Prepared for University of Massachusetts Amherst November 4, 2011
- 4. MANY HAPPY RETURNS: ADVOCACY AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARCHIVES Advocacy is part of the core work of an archives; it is not an add-on, or in reality, an option.
- 9. CENTER FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE
- 11. ARCHIVES FOR WOMEN IN MEDICINE– HISTORY OF THE PROJECT Birthday Card From the Myrtelle M. Canavan papers
- 12. ARCHIVES FOR WOMEN IN MEDICINE– HISTORY OF THE PROJECT American Medical Women’s Association pamphlet, 1960s.
- 14. ARCHIVES FOR WOMEN IN MEDICINE– HISTORY OF THE PROJECT First class of women at Harvard, 1949.
- 15. ARCHIVES FOR WOMEN IN MEDICINE– HISTORY OF THE PROJECT First class of women at Harvard, 1949. “ Those who hold the evidence make the history” --Jill Lepore
- 16. ARCHIVES FOR WOMEN IN MEDICINE: OUTREACH
- 17. ARCHIVES FOR WOMEN IN MEDICINE– BUILDING A COMMUNITY
- 18. ARCHIVES FOR WOMEN IN MEDICINE COMMITTEE: FUNDRAISING
- 19. ARCHIVES FOR WOMEN IN MEDICINE: RAISING ARCHIVAL AWARENESS
- 20. ARCHIVES FOR WOMEN IN MEDICINE: EVENTS
- 22. CENTER FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE: SCALING AND SCOPING
- 24. CENTER FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE: SCALING AND SCOPING
- 26. CENTER FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE: OUTREACH INFRASTRUCTURE
- 27. CENTER FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE: OUTREACH INFRASTRUCTURE
- 28. CENTER FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE: CONTENT MANAGEMENT
- 30. CENTER FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE: CONTACTS MANAGEMENT
- 31. CENTER FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE: OUTREACH INFRASTRUCTURE
- 32. CENTER FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE: CONTENT MANAGEMENT
- 33. CENTER FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE: CONTENT MANAGEMENT Countway Library Center for the History of Medicine Annual Report 2010
- 34. CENTER FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE: EVALUATION
- 35. CENTER FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE: EVALUATION
- 37. CENTER FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE: FUNDRAISING
- 38. CENTER FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE: FUNDRAISING
- 40. MANY HAPPY RETURNS: ADVOCACY AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARCHIVES
- 42. MANY HAPPY RETURNS: ADVOCACY AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARCHIVES Advocacy is part of the core work of an archives; it is not an add-on, or in reality, an option.
- 44. MANY HAPPY RETURNS: THE SEQUEL
Notas del editor
- My name is giordana mecagni, and I’m the acquisitions archivist in the center for the history of medicine, Harvard Medical School. I come to archival work with a background in nonprofit management and philanthropy, relationship building and fundraising. When I started working in archives, I became increasingly surprised at how little time many archives, especially ones embedded in in larger organizational or university structures, spent communicating their value. The year before last, I wrote a case study for a book on Archival Advocacy, describing my work with the Archives for Women in Medicine. The editor, Larry Hackman, has been a leader and a thinker in the advocacy arena for many years. The book consists of case studies and analysis, including his own “principals to consider” which I will recap here briefly.
- The main goal of archival program advocacy should be a strong overall institutional infrastructure for archives.: financial leadership, financial resources, staff, facilities Creating a strong archival infrastructure is not a one-time task, and neither is advocacy Most decisions are made on their merits by well-intentioned decision makers. However…: Archives supplements sound arguments and pertinent information with actions that will make it easier for decision makers to approve decisions that will benefit the archives The very best tool for effective advocacy is an effective archives, especially a competent and hard-working professional staff that produces demonstrable positive results Acquiring influence is required to build a strong archival infrastructure Influence is capital: it needs to be invested wisely– and the dividends can be reinvested for still greater future returns. Effective advocacy is a team sport Effective communication is the heart and soul of effective advocacy Opportunities for advocacy always exist for every archives Love is not the (whole) answer. Work on respect. Archivists need to risk pleasant relationships by asking for help
- This one is my favorite. Advocacy is part of the core work of an archives; it is not an add-on, or in reality, an option. In my presentation, I will summarize my work with the Archives for Women in Medicine, and move on to talk about the steps we have taken thus far to bring these outreach efforts to scale.
- Advocacy has been one of the key elements of the growth and development of the Archives for Women in Medicine (which I’ll call AWM) from an idea to a program in the past 10 years. The successes of the program are largely due to finding a committed group of supporters, and through them identifying what was important to them in their careers and lives and learning about networks of influence in the medical community. We then have fostered, nurtured, and grown this community through tailoring messages to constituents, hosting special events, and reaching out regularly with information about the project’s successes. But AWM is also nested in a larger organizational structure, which is in-flux at the moment, but basically it is:
- Harvard University’s library system is the largest academic library in existence, and the second largest in the United States, behind Library of Congress. The collections are spread over 80 distinct libraries and number over 15 million volumes. There is a saying “every tub on its own bottom” used regularly to describe the decentralized organization and financial arrangement of Harvard’s divisions; this is no different for its libraries and archives. The library and archives community is connected by a loose-knit network of interest groups and participation in shared resources, such as online catalogs, finding aid databases, and electronic resource management.
- Unlike many other medical schools, Harvard does not have a teaching hospital. Many of Harvard Medical School’s 11,000 faculty members are based at Harvard Medical School’s 17 affiliated institutions. These faculty members have a dual responsibility—to teach and train the new generation of medical doctors and researchers, as well as to conduct their own research and provide patient care.
- The Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, one of the largest medical libraries in the world, holds more than 630,000 volumes, subscribes to 3,500 current journal titles and houses over 10,000 non-current biomedical journal titles. Formed as a coalition between the Boston Medical Library (formed in 1875), and the Harvard Medical Library (formed in 1782), the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine in 1965 brought together faculty and subject book collections into one central Boston location to serve the entire Massachusetts medical community.
- In addition to current medical literature, both the Boston Medical Library and the Harvard Medical Library both collected rare and antiquarian books, manuscripts, and ephemera. Combining the two collections formed the nucleus of the Center for the History of Medicine, now one of the world’s leading collections in the history of health care and medicine. The Center for the History of Medicine’s archives and manuscripts number between 15-20 million items. It holds the personal and professional records of physicians from the medieval and Renaissance periods through the twentieth century, including the professional papers of many renowned Harvard faculty members as well as physicians and scientists from New England and around the country.
- A little background on the Archives for Women in Medicine
- In response to a call by Harvard Medical School’s dean for projects and events to commemorate the new millennium, the Joint Committee on the Status of Women at Harvard Medical School initiated a partnership with the Countway Library to create an Archives for Women in Medicine.
- The Joint Committee’s study of the faculty collections of personal and professional papers in the Countway Library’s Center for the History of Medicine revealed that of the 900 or so faculty collections, fewer than 20 were created by women, and only one of these was processed and accessible for research. Despite the strength of the Center’s collections, the evidence of women’s contributions to Harvard medicine in the 20 th century was largely missing. Women’s recent entry into prominence at Harvard Medical School also created a window of opportunity to collect this evidence-- some of the school‘s ‘first women‘ were still at work in the hospitals and other affiliates. Others were starting to retire and pass away, leaving the records, the evidence of their struggles and successes uncollected and unexplored. The Joint Committee undertook a vigorous fundraising effort that obtained gifts from 120 faculty and community members. These donations were matched by Dr. Martin, creating sufficient funding to hire a project archivist for three years. Included in this was the desire for, but no plan for the long-term sustainability of the project. The Joint Committee provided funding for staffing, and in return, the Center for the History of Medicine agreed to host and manage the project, provide office space and archival processing supplies, web space and website hosting. Legal title would be held by and permanent collection stewardship pledged by the Center for the acquired collections. Essentially, the collections in The Archives would be part of the Center for the History of Medicine, but would have a separate funding stream to fast-track their collecting and processing
- We knew that in order to build a community of supporters, both donors and funders that would sustain and nurture the project over the long term, we needed to think broadly and holistically, but our message for each group needed to be very different. For protégées, we promoted the women who helped them along the career or research ladder. For mentors we explained that we were saving their stories and their breakthroughs for future researchers who would build upon their legacy. At every opportunity, we reinforced the idea that the inspirational stories of faculty and their mentors would be told through the books and articles historians would write, using material found in collections they donated to The Archives. In other words, the project became intimately tied to their own identities.
- Our initial challenge was to educate the scientists, researchers, clinicians-- donors of money and donors of collections of the importance of archival collections, and the reasons why we need their consistent support. Inspired by corporate public relations departments, we started a branding and education campaign.
- We chose a quote by historian Jill Lepore, “Those who hold the evidence make the history,” and put it on all of our correspondence and our promotional material. The quote, although simple, emphasizes the direct link between the files in our scientists’ offices and the medical history books on their shelves. We knew that these volumes represented something that all academic physicians strive for—legacy.
- We put together a brochure that describes what kinds of material people should keep in order to ‘document their career.’ This serves a dual purpose of (hopefully) spreading the word about what we would like to see in an archival collection that we are soliciting, as well (hopefully) influencing our younger faculty members into saving important legacy documentation.
- The community for solicitation and support is a large mix of individuals-- staff and faculty at Harvard Medical School, Medical School alums, historical and sociological scholars, medical students, and feminists. All get fundraising letters, all get invited to all of our events, but for the most part our funders are MDs and PhDs, either Medical School alums or faculty. Through our branding, archival education program, and targeted outreach, we began to build and foster a community of committed individuals interested in the ‘stuff’ of history, and interested in preserving the legacy of these women. We collected contact information at every event, and occasionally we found and added lists of other influential people to our communications database. Over the course of 3 years, this list grew to a 1200-member mailing list that we use for targeted communication, invitations to events, and biannual fundraising appeals.
- At the center of this community has been the Archives for Women in Medicine Committee, a group of impassioned men and women interested in supporting The Archives. The first seven years of the Committee was focused entirely on fundraising. Members worked hard to increase our base of gifts from individuals, helped to identify corporations interested in helping the project, and helped create a tiered fundraising levels used regularly by fundraisers. Although fund raising from individuals was going well, the committee decided that individual support would not sustain the Archives over the long term, as the base of soft money was too small to support the entire program. In 2007, the AWM committee chair went to the 5 hospitals with the largest number of senior women whose papers will be solicited. Armed with lists of potential donors we could target, collections we could process, and events we could co-host at their institution, she offered them all the opportunity to help fund the work of the Archives. All 5 CEO’s recognized that The Archives was a worthy cause, and together they funded The Archives’ infrastructure for an additional 3 three years. Each CEO nominated hospital representatives to join the Committee.
- Our second challenge was to inform this group of what we were doing with their donations and collections. Because our constituency came with an imperfect understanding of what an archive is, we realized that if we added an element of archival education in our outreach, we could reinforce their understanding of what it is we do, drawing individuals closer to the project. We believe that making a public celebration out of each step in the process has helped us create a self-sustaining cycle of collection development and project funding. With each acquisition, we put an article in our online newsletter about the person/organization, along with biographical highlights. We emphasize the need for this collection to be processed and available. We simultaneously highlight donors who have given to AWM to fund the processing of collections. We want donors and funders to know that collections get used. We partnered with the Foundation for the History of Women in Medicine to provide two fellowships for scholars to conduct research on women's history using our collections. When fellowships were finished, we wrote an article in our newsletter about each researcher and described how The Arcvhives helped them in their area of study.
- For every processed collection, we hosted an event or an exhibit. We advertised widely and solicited press. Event speakers were carefully chosen to emphasize all aspects of the archival process, and to emphasize the link between what faculty call their office files (and we call professional papers) and history. After the event is over, a reception allows for discussion of the person being honored, as well as to emphasize existing mentoring networks.
- This, in a nutshell, is the archival outreach program of the AWM. In 2008, I was promoted to Acquisitions Archivist at the Center for the History of Medicine, and was tasked with taking the Communications and Fundraising Plans, Documentation Strategy Collecting Policy, and overall outreach materials I had worked on in the Archives for Women in Medicine and apply it to the Center for the History of Medicine. We hired a replacement AWM archivist and got to work.
- Scaling quickly began to be the largest challenge. This is a picture of 5 of the six women full professors in 1981. In 2000, there were still under 60. In 2010, there were 11,000 total Harvard Medical School faculty, 1100 of which are full professors or emeritus. In addition, I was adding the Harvard School of Public Health (95 full professors). In order to replicate the success of AWM to all of Harvard Medical, Dental, and School of Public Health schools, and 17 affiliated institutions, we needed to figure out a way of creating a committed core of supporters, a community, out of a multi-institutional, multi-disciplined mess. But first, we also needed to formalize many of the processes and procedures that had been adequate for a small project.
- My first task was to create a communications plan; identifying our scope, audiences, messages, outcome measurements, as well as methods and tasks. This serves as the basis and grounding document of all of our outreach work. Here are some of our messages, but I can give you a copy of our plan, if you are interested.
- I also realized that I couldn’t do this work alone. As part of an organizational shift, our directors determined that all of our colleagues were going to have at least a minor role in our advocacy efforts.
- We also determined that the technical infrastrucutre behind AWM, which consisted of a measly knowledge of HTML and an access database, was inadequate to handle the sheer volume of potential collections, potential users, potential funders.
- Our first task was to change the way we communicated to our constituents online. We completely re-structured our website. We created standards for integrating pictures and text, workflows for how articles make it to the main page, upgraded our navigation system. We looked at our content holistically, and organized it based on a combination of what our users want to immediately see, and what we want people to click on. We also incorporated an integrated blog (our platform is Apache Lenya, and we incorporated a self-hosted wordpress blog). A few of pages are static content (hours, researcher rules, etc.), but many of our other pages, including this homepage, are dynamically created via our blog.
- We tried to give our blog a similar look-and-feel to our website, and allow for the smooth transition between the two. We regularly evaluate the blog to make sure that All of our messages are being communicated There is a balance in posts about acquisitions, processing, and use.
- And we deterimined that all staff had a responsibility to be content creators. Initially I had been concerned that staff would be uninterested in blogging, but as it turns out, our processing staff in particular love sharing the interesting finds in collections with our users, rather than just amongst themselves. They suggested “Staff Finds” as a category, and post regularly.
- For the Archives for Women in Medicine we kept contacts in an access database. After three years of use, it was unweildy, messy, and could only be used by one person at a time. This solution, obviously, wouldn’t be adequate. We scoped the project, and decided on a solution that would: Management of audience member contact information Event RSVPs Tracking of funders of speical projects such as AWM Nominations of and information about prospective donors of manuscript collections Interactions with prospects Tracking of information about funds donated to CHoM Communications with audience members addresses for newsletters/outreach for events based on interests tracking of mailings
- We searched for and chose an open-source program called CIVICrm and expanded it to include all contacts in the Center, and created categories that apply to non-AWM activities. There is still functionality that still needs to be worked through, but so far, it has been very successful. We formed a data dictionary, rules of use and upgrading, etc.
- We decided that because users like to receive information in different ways, rss feeds, emails, print publications, etc., it was important for us to continually repurpose and distill our content for re-use.
- The digested form of our blog becomes the basis for our newsletter, which thus far has been twice-yearly.
- The content from the newsletter is then distilled again for our Annual Report.
- We are also trying to analyze what is successful in driving users toward content in our blog. To do so, we installed Google Analytics to see when we have the most hits.
- Apparently our blog hits quadruple when we send out a newsletter, and so one of my goals for next year is to do a quarterly newsletter rather than biannually.
- In addition to revamping our technical infrastructure, in 2010 we also revived the Center’s fundraising program. The program had been moderately successful in the early 2000s, but when leadership changed, the fundraising program was dropped.
- The returns on our individual support appeal were a little bit disappointing. Some of our most generous donors had passed away, and others may have moved on to other organizations or projects.
- However, we believe that our outreach efforts may have led to two donors offering to help defray the costs of processing the collections they donated– $300,000 in total, over a period of 4 years. One donor even said “I understand that your work costs money, and I would like to help you with this.”
- And for some lessons learned
- I’d like to close by going back to Larry Hackman’s book and see how we’ve done so far.
- So when I first got a copy of Larry Hackman’s book, I was worried about how my little one person project would fit in with some of my more esteemed colleagues with much more experience and finesse. So, let’s see how we did. The main goal of archival program advocacy should be a strong overall institutional infrastructure for archives.: financial leadership, financial resources, staff, facilities We seem to be headed in that direction Creating a strong archival infrastructure is not a one-time task, and neither is advocacy Our organization has committed to this. Most decisions are made on their merits by well-intentioned decision makers. However…: Archives supplements sound arguments and pertinent information with actions that will make it easier for decision makers to approve decisions that will benefit the archives We are working on being relevant to our decision makers The very best tool for effective advocacy is an effective archives, especially a competent and hard-working professional staff that produces demonstrable positive results Our staff is wonderful, passionate, creative Acquiring influence is required to build a strong archival infrastructure We’re still learning where the influence is among the 17 affiliated institutions. Influence is capital We still need more influence Effective advocacy is a team sport Yes! Effective communication is the heart and soul of effective advocacy We’re getting there, but need to work on reaching more people Opportunities for advocacy always exist for every archives Wholehearted agreement Love is not the (whole) answer. Work on respect. We are learing that it is never easy to ask for money, but we’re getting better at it.
- And of course, we have this.
- However, there is still a lot of work to be done. In the book, Larry spells out strategies for applying advocacy in archives. Some of the ideas listed here are ones we’d like to try in the next several years. Create an opportunity agenda as a framework and prompt for advocacy on high priorities Build a case for the archives Identify the prime subjects of internal advocacy and best to influence them Treat the decision maker above the archives as a prime subject of advocacy and as an important advocate for the archives Build support networks Find external advocates, especially to influence internal decisions Organize a campaign, but only infrequently Bring influence to bear on the case: obtain endorsements Direct advocacy toward external parties; grants, obtaining important collections, etc. Participate in campaigns that raise the status of the archives profession generally.
- Lessons-learned. The Archives for Women in Medicine has been a successful project. IN the three years that I was working on the Center's techincal infrastrucutre, our Women's archivist continued to open collections, work on in-hospital events, organize an oral history project, rework our fellowship program to make it more attractive to scholars. The committee is in the process of going back to the 5 main hospitals, and asking for an additional three years of funding. Individual contributions continue to come in, and some larger donations have given us the ability to hire processing assistants on occasion. I believe that all of this success rests on a recognition and deep understanding of the way in which women became prominent at the Medical School—this network of influence and support that already existed-- we just took advantage of it, and created a project that they would have created if they knew what an archives was in the first place. It is harder to come up with a deep understanding of the spheres of influence at a giant institution. Do we start with hospital infrastructure. With department heads. With Nobel prize winners. With top educators. With discipline founders or even just with the elderly. What percentage of the 1100 full faculty members-- each of whom got to that status for a reason, will we strive for? And that's just Harvard Medical School, what about our national collecting focus? IN analyzing use patterns of our collections, we realized that if we collected a discipline holistically, all of the collections would get used. Human reproduction and the pill was one of these fields. My plan, for the next several years, is to start with Angiogenesis and the science behind AIDS. Angiogenesis is a field of study created by one inspired individual who determined that tumors wouldn't grow if they didn't have a blood supply. Cut off that blood supply, and the tumor would shrink. We are starting here, frankly, because that is where the money is. The two large multi-year donors came from these arenas.. We intend to capitalize on their support by looking at their own spheres of influence, looking at their protegees and mentors, and try and track how, in fact, the science happened . I suppose that means I'm starting with the beginning of the alphabet. Thank you.