Diaries from the Dungeon

Above: Me? Just another cartoon character caught up in another d@mn cliche.

This afternoon I was the guest speaker at the Midland/Permian Basin Chapter of ARMA's monthly meeting. ARMA is the international organization of record managers. Check out their website here.

On Thursday, April 28th, I received a call from Lyn Miller. She was looking for the record manager at the Museum and she was very surprised to find me at the other end of the telephone. It just so happens that we know each other from volunteering at Midland Community Theater!

Lyn needed a speaker on Wednesday, May 11th, and wondered if I could talk about what I do at the Museum. I looked at my calendar: I was on vacation from April 30th until May 8th, which just left a mere 4 days to pull something together. Despite the limited time, I agreed!

So I quickly pulled together a presentation (based on a previous one), entitled "Diaries from the Dungeon," which also incorporated little cartoons of dungeons. (One needs a little humor when talking about records and record management, right?) As you may know, the Museum's Library & Archives Center is located in the basement with no natural light. The other employees downstairs are only part-time, so I often find myself the only one down in the dungeon.

Above: It's cold, damp & dark, but I can't complain -- It's perfect for my clarets.

After I returned from vacation, I revised and reviewed the presentation. While I was nervous (I am not the best public speaker), I felt confident about the material -- I knew what I was talking about.

The meeting was on the 6th floor Conference Room of ClayDesta, a rather large office building on the north side of town. I'd never been inside and was not sure where to go. Luckily, I did find it relatively easily, although I ended up walking around the entire floor! The ARMA Midland/Permian Basin meeting consisted of about dozen members, all down to earth; they quickly put me at ease. We first ate a hearty lunch and they conducted a short business meeting. Then it was my turn --- yikes!

The presentation introduced the Museum, touched on what we collect (and what sort of documentation is kept), and talked about the various projects I've implemented and completed: creating a comprehensive accession register & cataloguing all accessions, scanning & cataloguing photographs, and digitizing photos via UNT's Portal to Texas History and the Train to Share project. And it happened how I imagined it: I easily expanded on what I had written and I did not stumble (too much) over my words. It seemed to flow fairly well. The ARMA members also asked questions at the end!

Overall, I am proud of myself. I made a presentation about material near and dear to me and it went really well. And the ARMA members seemed impressed with what I had accomplished and what I was doing at the Museum. I just hope I didn't bore them too much!

Above: Before you're released, would you mind taking our exit survey?