The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts a $173,833 grant to digitize, preserve and share its archive of photographs, negatives and other materials from Richmond-born photographer Louis Draper (1935–2002). In the 1960s and 1970s, Draper played an influential role in capturing the vantage point of African Americans during … Read More
Galleries
Bringing History to Life
While attending the LYRASIS Leadership Forum in Tampa, FL, I had the amazing privilege to meet Renelda Sells, the Chief Librarian at the Manager of Technology & Collections. During the forum, Sells spoke passionately about a project she was working ; an interactive oral display which captures the African-American history of the Tampa community, located at … Read More
LYRASIS Leaders Forums
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded LYRASIS a grant to support a series of at least 12 “Leaders Forums” to expand our new CEO’s engagement with members and gain deeper insight into their issues and interests. These forums will take across the United States between now-June 2016. Here you can find notes, images and who … Read More
The Gulf Coast Recovery Project: A Retrospective
This past weekend marked the 10 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and its destructive aftermath. Many of us were there, helping from the minutes before the storm hit to months later when people from all over pitched in however possible to rebuild and restore communities. In 2006, LYRASIS received a $12 million grant from the … Read More
Digitization or Bust!
For many of us, it was Panama City Beach or bust as nearly 100 information professionals convened at the Digitization Conference, hosted by the Panhandle Library Access Network (PLAN) at Florida State University. The conference was packed with invigorating speakers from LYRASIS, DPLA, the State Library of Florida, George Blood Audio LP, Penn State, ResCarta, … Read More
ALA Redux, Part 1
Greetings Library, Archives and Museum Land! We’re fresh off the heels of yet another exhilarating ALA Annual and while we’re all still processing the long list of incredible insights and ideas we brought home with us, we’d love to hear your feedback about the conference. What did you learn? What did you love? What needs … Read More
LYRASIS Supports Photographic and Audio-Visual Preservation
In early April, LYRASIS issued grant checks to five Historically Black Colleges and University (HBCU) institutions to support the preservation of photographic and audio-visual materials. The five HBCUs are participants in the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded HBCU Preservation Project. This project is the third in a series that addresses the needs of HBCU collections that … Read More
Hacking Hemingway: Cracking the Code to the Vault
A collection for the world courtesy of the Illinois Secretary of State and Oak Park Public Library Oak Park Public Library in Oak Park, Illinois, the hometown of Ernest Hemingway, will soon offer the world unprecedented access to rare archives from both the library’s collections and the Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park, thanks to a … Read More
In Focus: The HBCU Library Alliance
Here at LYRASIS Now, we’d like to introduce our In Focus series, where we’ll take a little time to share the interesting projects, associations and collaborations in which our members are engaged. To kick off the series, we’d like to start close to home with the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Library Alliance. It’s … Read More
Tom Clareson Leads Disaster Preparedness Training Project in New Jersey
In times of natural disasters, many people look toward the Red Cross to assist them with devastation to their homes while libraries look toward LYRASIS Disaster Resources to provide them disaster assistance information, prevention and planning resources, and response and recovery resources. Read more about how Tom Clareson, Senior Digital & Preservation Services Consultant at LYRASIS, led … Read More
LYRASIS and RAILS Partner for Digitization Consulting & Training
LYRASIS staff members, Laurie Gemmill Arp and Leigh Grinstead, are working with the Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS) Consortium to provide its libraries with expert digitization assistance, including collection assessment, grant writing, digitization training, both in-person and online, and other related consulting. Through the various activities (face to face workshops, online classes and collections assessments) with this RAILS initiative, we … Read More