Learning Objectives
- Students will evaluate a situation and develop a proposal for archival outreach for a fictional archival organization.
Scenario
You work at a smaller archives within an academic library at mid-sized regional university. The rest of the library regularly reaches out to the students of your institution, the community, and outside researchers through various types of activities. This includes regular social media posts, lectures, fun events around finals, workshops, and the occasional traveling exhibit.
Your archive has never regularly or systematically conducted outreach activities. You have a face book page, but post infrequently. You have hosted a few workshops that were not well attended by the public. You’ve always felt that your staff of three was too small to do much outreach.
The library administration thinks differently. Because of your lack of outreach, the administration sees your group as not being a team player and siloing your department away from the rest of the library. It has been decided for you that you will increase your outreach activities substantainally.
Questions and Application
- Think about the current outreach situation and make decisions on how to improve it. Do the following:
- Create a proposal for this organization’s outreach program.
- Create a budget and an initial proposal for two types of programs, a lecture and an exhibit. Describe the audiences for these programs.
- How will you ask for help from the rest of the library staff if you feel that your staff doesn’t have the appropriate skills, resources and time to accomplish this directive.