About Archival Education
The project will focus on offering archival training opportunities in all three states in the form of workshops and mentoring. The goal of these training sessions will be to reach the staff members of historical repositories of all sizes.
During the second half of the grant period, the project will continue to offer archival training opportunities, but will focus on developing the organizational and financial structures of an organization that will continue to offer the archival training opportunities after grant funding has ended.
The project's educational opportunities will take advantage of the growing number of free Web-based educational materials available. Each training session will bring local practitioners together with an experienced professional to work through the Web-based materials in groups. The professional, "The Mentor in the Room," will answer questions, clarify concepts, and generally offer support as the participants work through online units. Ideally, no participant will need to travel more than an hour from home, so the mentor and classmates can become a supportive local network.
This project is funded with $280,000 in federal grant funds from the Institute of Museums and Libraries. ATC is under the direction of Elizabeth H. Dow, who heads the archives track in the School of Library and Information Science at Louisiana State University.