Remember When?

A patron visit this afternoon turned out to be quite serendipitous!

Clay Barbee of Amarillo, TX, came into the Museum's Library & Archives Center to find a print of a certain panoramic photograph of Texon, his home town.  (Texon was a town built in West Texas around the Santa Rita No. 1 and No. 2.  The town offered a movie theater, a golf course, and even a baseball field with semi-professional team!)

While reviewing the database for the particular photo, he saw some images of kids he knew while growing up in Texon.  He easily identified 15 young men and women from his past!  One of them was Mr. Barbee himself as a young lad.  It's amazing what the mind remembers after time.

Above: Clay Barbee as a young boy.  His shirt was red with horses on it.

While Mr. Barbee left without his photograph, his memory certainly helped the Library & Archives Center!  I've updated the catalogue information on those individual photographs with names that were not included before.  I promised Mr. Barbee I would do some investigating to find the photograph he wants!

Time Travel

I am not sure where July and August went.  Here we are, August 29th, and I haven't posted anything in two months!  While I have been busy with various projects and tasks, I felt that nothing really deserved it's own blog post. 

In July, I was busy with webinars on digital tools and social media as well as changing out an exhibit.  Mery Codigna Collet's exhibition EXTRA VIRGIN PETRUS OIL closed July 11th.  Some of the pieces moved onto Austin where they will be on display at a contemporary gallery there.  Other pieces continued onto Italy (where Mery spends some time).  Luckily, the Museum was given one piece, BRENT BLEND, by the artist.  The six-piece artwork continues to hang in the Davidson gallery, but we're hoping to move it to its permanent home soon.

BRENT BLEND

Mery Codigna Collet

Oil & natural fibers on plastic and canvas

2010

Soon after, Kathy and I installed the new exhibit TAKING STOCK, an exhibition showcasing the beauty and value of stock certificates.  The exhibit is on loan from the Western Heritage Museum Complex at New Mexico Junior College.  Come check it out!  Be sure to pick up one of the activity brochures in the gallery.

I was also busy with potential rentals of the Museum.  Many oil & gas companies like to use our large Auditorium for day-time events, like professional development, and for night-time receptions and celebrations.  We've instituted an online calendar system to minimize double-booking the Museum's spaces.  We can literally see who is using our facilities when on the new system.

August has turned out to be even busier!  Kathy, Hal and I traveled to Irving at the beginning of the month for the annual meeting of Texas Association of Museums.  While it was a more condensed conference than normal, I still learned quite a bit and got to network like never before.  There were sessions on deaccessioning, museum ethics and collection conundrums.

Above: Logo for TAM 2011 Annual Meeting

The past several weeks, I've been focused on the upcoming Permian Basin Petroleum Pioneers' Biennial Reunion.  We sent out several pieces of mail to potential sponsors, trustees, and the general membership.  The event, scheduled for Friday, September 16th, consists of a full-day of speakers and an awards luncheon.  Hopefully, all my hard work will pay off!  Keep your fingers crossed!

High Tech & Outreach

Even though today is the official first day of Summer, the season arrived several weeks ago. Yesterday we set a record for 14 days of triple-digit weather. Today is a "cold" front with a high of 98 degrees! Ha!

In the last few weeks, however, I have stayed busy trying to update the Museum's website. I updated all of the Archives pages, from the Archival Collections to the Photographic Prints and Negatives.  I even updated the Links page; take a look!  What do you think?

One of my goals this summer is to reach out to similar institutions in the area.  To that end, I had a "Tour Swap" with Jenni Opalinski, the Collections & Exhibits Manager at the Museum of the Southwest.  I showed her around The Petroleum Museum, and she showed me around the Museum of the Southwest.  It was quite fun and interesting to find out what they have and how we might help each other out.  This Thursday, I plan on meeting with Pat McDaniel at the Haley Library.  I'll let you know how that goes!

Similarly, I also want to reach out to educational institutions, like UTPB, Midland College and Odessa College, to find out how the Library & Archives Center can better serve that audience.  While visitorship is up at the Center, I know it is HUGELY underutilized.  Why?  Do they know we exist?  If so, what do the area students want and need from us?  These are questions I hope to answer during my discussions with the various professors I've contacted.  And I hope to come up with some solutions too!

Change is Good

As you probably noticed, I've made a few changes to this blog. What's that saying? The only constant is change. Change is inevitable. Not all change is bad, and I hope these changes will be for the better.

After I attended SSA in Little Rock, I headed to Houston for the American Association of Museum's 2011 Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo. The four days of this international conference were packed full of sessions about collection management, registration and technology.

One of the sessions I attended was Blogging Basics 201: How to Keep Your Blog Working for You. I want to do some good with this blog; I want this blog to be a conversation with the Museum's visitors. And I hoped that the session would provide me with tidbits to meet those wants.

I was not disappointed!

The first tidbit was "Focus on the Visitor." In a blog, one should focus on what is useful or enjoyable for the visitor. This blog is meant to be a conversation between Museum staff and visitor. I hope that I've provided valuable content and insight on "behind-the-scenes" of The Petroleum Museum. Please do not be afraid to ask questions or comment on something! We can only improve from that feedback.

The other tidbit I took away was "Network Your Networks." While the Facebook page and the Twitter feed are linked, this blog was left out. So, now, the Facebook page and the blog are linked; whenever I update the blog, those posts are fed into the Facebook page. And today, I added Facebook and Twitter widgits to the blog. If someone finds the blog via a web search, they can directly like The Petroleum Museum on Facebook or follow it on Twitter. Try it!

Networking also works off-line. The Museum will soon establish The Filling Station in our Cafe Area. A physical space, The Filling Station will remind visitors of our social media networks, to like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Of course, the most noticeable change is the background of the blog. After attending the AAM session, I found the old background and layout to be too formulaic and stiff. I wanted something more open and inviting you, the visitor, to stay a while.

What do you think of these changes?

Nothing to Quack About!

Last week, I attended the Society of Southwest Archivists' 2011 Annual Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas. The theme this year was "Opportunity and Promises: Advocating Archives."

Above: The cake!

Before I even mention what I learned (lots!), I want to tell you about Little Rock and the Peabody Hotel. Downtown Little Rock is completely charming, lying adjacent to the Arkansas River, lined with gardens, restaurants and shops.

Above: Arkansas capitol in downtown Little Rock.

Above: A gazebo near the hotel, by the river.

Above: View of the Peabody Hotel from a sculpture garden.

What's unusual for the hotel is that they have real-life ducks living in the lobby. The ducks (about 5 of them) spend the majority of the day, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in a dedicated fountain in the hotel's lobby. At 5:00 p.m., the Duck Master leads the ducks to their own Duck Palace where they spend the night. Check out the legend here.

Above: The male Mallard duck in the hotel's lobby.

Above: The Duck Master leads the ducks to their palace.

The conference offered several sessions relevant to my duties at the Petroleum Museum. In fact, I was even a presenter during one session, "Filling Our Niche: Opportunity and Promise in Subject Repositories," with Mary McLain Saffell from the Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University and Melissa Gottwald from the Aviation Safety and Security Archives at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. We each talked about our respected subject-based repositories, or archives, and about some of the opportunities and challenges we've faced. I found it interesting to learn about archives and what they acquire and do with their holdings.

Other sessions I attended included:
* Keynote -- Listen Up: Voices from the Archives, Elliot West
Dr. West was a very engaging speaker; he spoke about finding "lost" voices within archival holdings and gave many examples of his personal finds.

* If You Love Your Collections, Set Them Free: Using the Web to Facilitate AccessThe Lyndon B. Johnson Presidental Library & Museum, the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the Texas Archive of Moving Images, and Frazar Memorial Library, McNeese State University in Lousiana, are all doing fabulous and intriguing work using their collections online in a variety of ways. Main nugget: can't just sit there, find ways to be relevant!

* Grant Funding for Library, Archive and Museum Projects
Experts in the field of grantwriting and funding presented this resourceful session. Federal and foundational support is out there. You just have to ask and, if that does not succeed, ask again and again.

* Doing More with DSpace
DSpace is software intended to be a preservation warehouse for digital objects. (We use it for our Train to Share project.) However, there are other software out there, like Omeka and Pacyderm, to provide an interactive interface for users like you! Preservation is one side of the coin, with access the other.

One last thing ... we had a reception at the William Clinton Presidental Library, just a mile away from the hotel. We were able to visit the exhibits and even had the opportunity for a behind-the-scenes tour! Below are some photos from that event.

The museum storage door has a knocker on it!

Do you know ...

what this is?


I received a telephone call from Sean yesterday. He was in the Colorado City, Texas, area helping with a search and came across the above item. Sean called it a snake catching stick, but I'm at a loss as to what it is and how it is used.

Any ideas or suggestions?

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?