1. 2012 SNCA Annual Meeting Kristen Merryman SPECIAL COLLECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER Tractor Building and Tobacco Curing: Exposing Agricultural Collections

2. BACKGROUND Cultivating a Revolution Digital Project 2 year LSTA funded project Digitizing agricultural innovation research at NCSU materials from 1950s-1970s Outputs: o 20,000-25,000 individual page scans from 15 archival collections o 114 16mm films (14.5 hours) reformatted o K-12 Teacher Resources (Related Topic Essays and Lesson Plans) Online access at the folder level Materials are accessible at http://go.ncsu.edu/cultivatingarevolutionhttp://go.ncsu.edu/cultivatingarevolution

3. BACKGROUND Cultivating a Revolution Digital Project

4. BACKGROUND Cultivating a Revolution Digital Project

5. BACKGROUND Cultivating a Revolution Digital Project

6. BACKGROUND Goals of Outreach Efforts Outreach not a primary grant goal – BUT! promote knowledge and use of project materials if people don't know the project and accessible materials exist - what's the point of digitizing them? Conversations with potential users influence how we provide access and what is included in the grant - flexible plan for material inclusion Strong effort to get word out in Year 1, so materials are already being used by Year 2 and before the end of the project

7. Challenges Materials being digitized aren't easily understood - scientific/research data heavy o We need to think differently about our resources and how they can be used - how can students use them beyond paper writing Appealing to "non-traditional" users o Non-traditional = not a historian (esp. not a social/political/economic historian) o tend to be less invested because it is harder for them to see use cases - more effort on our part to get them to talk to us, nevermind discuss uses

8. OPPORTUNITY NCSU is an Ag School, First and Foremost Despite Challenges - Big Opportunities

9. METHOD Potential Users Sociologists Agriculture people (faculty, students, Alpha Zeta, student groups) Horticulturists Weed Scientists Scientific Organization Historians History of science and technology Environmental Scientists and Students

10. METHOD Internal and External Outreach Department colleagues Library/Institution colleagues Student employees Academic departments/faculty we have a relationship with already Special academic programs (Jefferson Scholars, Honors Program) Student Groups

11. METHOD Capturing Interest

12. METHOD drop-ins are your friend! casual conversations work better than formal presentations have ready examples for how students and faculty can use your materials - either through projects or as research topics be able to bring up specific examples of materials to grab their interest bring along technology to show it off!

13. THE END Conclusions Utilize people you already know (both internally at your institution and externally) Take advantage of programs that combine humanities and sciences Have casual conversations to create working relationships that will last Kristen Merryman Digital Project Librarian for Cultivating a Revolution (919) 513-3359 kristen_merryman@ncsu.edu