Spring 2012 Workshop Series
From eBlackCU Manual
In Spring 2012 free, public workshops on digital local and family history will be held in five Illinois cities: Kankakee, Danville, Chicago, Charleston and Carbondale.
Click here to register for a workshop near you!.
Any and all are welcome to attend these workshops.
Our next workshop will be in Carbondale, Illinois on May 19. Click here to download a print-able workshop flyer with more information on the event.
Please direct questions on this workshop series to nlenstr2@illinois.edu.
Spring 2012 Workshop Series Press Release
University of Illinois holds Free Community History Digitization Workshops in Kankakee, Danville, Chicago, Charleston and Carbondale : Everyone welcome to learn how to use new digital technologies to represent local and family histories online
Everyone can use digital technology to share and produce local and family history. These workshops will go from basics to advanced in using digital technologies in community history. Everyone is invited to attend, and the workshop is open to any individual or group, with any skill-level, seeking guidance and support.
Free community history digitization workshops will be held in Spring 2012 throughout Illinois. The first workshop will be held at Kankakee Community College on February 25. The second workshop will be at Danville Community College on March 10. The third workshop will be held in Charleston, Illinois as part of Eastern Illinois University's Historical Administration Program Association Spring Symposium "Universal Design in Museums, Archives and Historic Sites" on April 14. The fourth workshop will be held at the University of Illinois in Chicago as part of the annual eChicago conference 21, to be held 12:45 - 2 p.m. (details at eChicago website). The final workshop will be held at Carbondale Public Library on May 19.
The last workshop of the season will be held at Carbondale (Illinois) Public Library on Saturday, May 19. The public library is located at 405 West Main Street, Carbondale, IL. Registration spots are still available.
Each workshop is open to anyone interested in using digital technologies to share, build and represent local and family histories online. For each workshop, the morning session will be from 9:30 a.m. to Noon; afternoon session from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.; open advising from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., and free lunch from Noon to 1 p.m. Workshop participants are welcome to come to all, or just a portion, of this jam-packed day! The morning sessions will focus on "Simple Steps to Create Digital Local and Family History," including digitization. The afternoon sessions will focus on "Building a Digital Local and Family History Website." The workshop at Eastern Illinois University on April 14 will have an abbreviated schedule. More details will be posted as they are made available.
There are many audiences who will find these workshops useful. Some possible applications include: a family historian seeking to make a website for an upcoming family reunion, a church member seeking to represent a church’s history online, a local historian with stories to share, a committee-member for a school reunion, a museum or library with histories to share, a social worker seeking to use local history to build community, a genealogical society with transcriptions from local cemeteries, a media outlet planning a special feature on local history, a government employee planning for a city anniversary, a school teacher planning a local or family history module, a sports coach wishing to represent the triumphs of their team, a business-owner seeking to celebrate the history of their store, a historic preservationist interested in documenting online the stories of local architecture, a technology wiz interested in giving back to the local community by helping to represent local stories online, or simply a concerned citizen interested in improving the image of the city through local history. This workshop will have something for everyone.
“Digital representation is fast becoming the norm as the information society continues to develop. This workshop will enable us to share our work with others who want to launch a digital memory project,” said workshop Primary Investigator Abdul Alkalimat, professor of African-American Studies and Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
No prior experience in using digital technologies for local and family history is required. Those with all skill-levels will benefit from this workshop. The theme of the workshop is: Everyone has history, and everyone can do something to share local and family history online. Everyone has stories to tell and information to share, and digital technology can be used to share and celebrate these stories both within your local community and around the world.
The morning session of the workshop will include an introductory survey on the use of digital technologies to share, preserve and represent local and family history. Hands-on exercises will focus on digitization of print material and photographs, as well as on how to add historical content to the Internet using simple, free online tools. The afternoon session with be an advanced session on creating a digital website for local and family history. A free lunch will be served for workshop participants. Workshop participants are encouraged to bring materials and memories they would like to digitize and share online.
With funding from the Illinois Humanities Council, this workshop builds on two-years of experience in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, digitizing local African-American history and culture. This project's website can be accessed at http://eBlackCU.net. A manual is being developed, out of this work, to assist individuals and institutions represent the histories of their families and communities online.
“Working with local groups in Champaign-Urbana, I realized that although there are many online resources and tools that can be used to develop digital community history projects, direct personal assistance is still needed to help people feel comfortable using digital tools to represent community stories online," said project director Noah Lenstra.
For more information on this workshop, and to register, visit: http://manual.eblackcu.net/wiki/spring2012. If you would like more information, or to co-sponsor this event, please contact project director Noah Lenstra at nlenstr2@illinois.edu or 217-244-8203.
This project is funded by the Illinois Humanities Council. The project is administered by the Community Informatics Research Lab, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Local partners include Kankakee Public Library and Kankakee Community College, Danville Community College, Danville Public Library, Eastern Illinois University, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Carbondale Public Library.
