CARA Fall Meeting 2010


Entrance to the Catholic Archive Collaborative
 On Thursday, December 2, 2010, Malachy McCarthy, archivist at the Claretian Missionaries Archives USA, hosted CARA's Fall meeting at his Chicago location.  Also, known as the Catholic Archive Collaborative, the space is shared by Mary Hennessey, archivist of the Cenancle Sisters, North American Province Archives.

Thanks to the 3 presenters and the 25 attendees for making  our workshop, "Surfing the Computer: Applying Popular Programs to Archival Practice," a practical learning experience and overall good time!

Benn Joseph, from the Northwestern University Special Collections and Archives spoke on Facebook and Twitter as tools for archival outreach, giving us many tips and showing us the Universtiy Archives' social networking pages as examples.  Great job! 

Jerice Barrios, Image Specialist and former Rights and Reproduction Coordinator ant the Field Museum showed us a way to share and identify visual images using Flickr.  Jerice demonstated The Commons for cultural and historical institutions that share their photographs in a non-restricted copyright free zone.  Great photographs for blogging and websites!
 
Gwyn Stupar, former CARA member, and now Web Services and Reference Librarian at the Northbrook Public Library gave us a look at Picasa to organize, edit and share photographs.  A fun feature was the face recognition and tagging capability.  Gwyn has found her niche teaching web classes, but we sure miss her in CARA!

Following the workshop, Malachy gave attendees a tour of the Catholic Archives Collaborative located on the 2nd floor of the building.  They have a great amount of space and are looking for another archives to share it with!

The afternoon was filled with fun, learning, social-networking, snacking and more!  Thanks again to everyone who presented, hosted and attended - you made it the success it was! 

Please note:  I apologize for not taking photos of the afternoon activities - I didn't remember until walking out of the building, hence the above photo.  Joan

CARA's Possible Loss

Charter CARA member, Kenneth O'Malley, C.P., is finishing up his work as archivist at Catholic Theological Union (CTU) in Chicago the end of this month.  He will be on sabbatical in Ireland from January - June 2011.

Kenneth plans to study Celtic Spirituality at All Hallows College (Dublin), Glendalough (Dublin) and Glenstal Abbey (Limerick).  All these places have a scholar and library resources on Celtic Spirituality.  When he returns, he hopes to give talks or workshops on this topic.

Also, upon his return Kenneth will be receiving a new assignment.   He doesn't know where he'll end up yet, but we sure hope it's in Chicago!!

Good luck, Kenneth!!  Enjoy Ireland and let us know your where- abouts upon your return!  CARA will miss you!!