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Books by Jason Speck
On March 6, 1856, the State of Maryland granted a charter for the creation of Maryland Agricultur... more On March 6, 1856, the State of Maryland granted a charter for the creation of Maryland Agricultural College. Opening its doors to 34 eager young men in 1859, the college survived a disastrous fire in 1912 to become the University of Maryland in 1920. Today the school is a top-ranked, public research land-grant university with over 100 undergraduate majors, 120 graduate programs, and 35,000 students. Campus History Series: University of Maryland honors the history of the university and all who have contributed to its progress: faculty, staff, students, and alumni. From its earliest years, their labors and love for the institution have led to the creation of an intellectually vibrant and culturally diverse university that serves proudly as the flagship campus of the University System of Maryland. Images from the University of Maryland Archives and other campus sources, many never before published, illustrate the University of Maryland's rise from a "cow college" to an internationally recognized academic, artistic, and athletic powerhouse in the 21st century.
Papers by Jason Speck
Documentation of the planning, preparation, and implementation of moving image preservation and d... more Documentation of the planning, preparation, and implementation of moving image
preservation and digitization projects is difficult to find in scholarly sources, despite the large
numbers of deteriorating films housed in archival repositories and the increasing demand
to access and utilize audio-visual materials. “Throwing a Hail Mary!” chronicles one such
project, undertaken over the last seven years at the University of Maryland (UMD). Since
2008, the University of Maryland Archives has raised over $100,000 to preserve and make
accessible its collection of historical football film footage. This project faced long odds,
representing the Archives’ first venture into serious preservation work on its athletics-related
holdings and its first major digitization project with funds raised privately, rather than
through grant allocations. In this case study, the UMD Archives staff traces the progress of
the entire digitization project from start to finish, recounts challenges faced along the way,
celebrates successes, and outlines plans for the future, to serve as a guidepost for libraries and
archives interested in starting similar projects at their own institutions
College and university archives use outreach to showcase the history represented by their materia... more College and university archives use outreach to showcase the history represented by their materials. When it comes to making history-based connections with students, alumni, and others, a major area of focus is the telling and re-telling of favorite campus tales and legends. Yet beyond their use for outreach, these stories are also a major area of responsibility for the college or university archives. Campus tales and legends can be a source of tremendous positive attention and good will for the college or university archivist, but they can also be a source of embarrassment, factual error, or conflict. In extreme cases, a college or university archives can even find their existence as a repository for university history being challenged or undermined in ways that are very painful and public. Using the University of Maryland Archives as an example, this article will illustrate the positives and negatives of working with these extremely popular stories and offer an approach for handling these tales in order to provide maximum benefit for other college and university archives.
When a donor demanded that one of its treasures be returned, the University of Maryland Archives ... more When a donor demanded that one of its treasures be returned, the University of Maryland Archives could have become territorial or defensive. Instead, the Archives used the request as an opportunity to work more closely with that donor, recognizing that what the donor really wanted was enhanced access. Out of this potentially difficult situation came the creation of a new student internship program, one which has received widespread positive publicity for its work in creating biographies of alumni veterans who perished in service to their country. These biographies will eventually serve as the foundation for a website that will provide the access that the donor desires. This new form of outreach has also benefitted the Archives by raising its profile on campus.
Journal of Archival Organization, Jan 1, 2010
While archivists and their repositories depend a great deal on public trust, they do little to cu... more While archivists and their repositories depend a great deal on public trust, they do little to cultivate or protect it. All too often, the archival community is only a passive actor in an area where it should be fiercely pro-active. This article aims to show archivists how they can build on the trust they have and avoid many of the problems that have plagued the archival community in recent years, problems that run the risk of irrevocably damaging the profession’s reputation.
Book Reviews by Jason Speck
On March 6, 1856, the State of Maryland granted a charter for the creation of Maryland Agricultur... more On March 6, 1856, the State of Maryland granted a charter for the creation of Maryland Agricultural College. Opening its doors to 34 eager young men in 1859, the college survived a disastrous fire in 1912 to become the University of Maryland in 1920. Today the school is a top-ranked, public research land-grant university with over 100 undergraduate majors, 120 graduate programs, and 35,000 students. Campus History Series: University of Maryland honors the history of the university and all who have contributed to its progress: faculty, staff, students, and alumni. From its earliest years, their labors and love for the institution have led to the creation of an intellectually vibrant and culturally diverse university that serves proudly as the flagship campus of the University System of Maryland. Images from the University of Maryland Archives and other campus sources, many never before published, illustrate the University of Maryland's rise from a "cow college" to an internationally recognized academic, artistic, and athletic powerhouse in the 21st century.
Documentation of the planning, preparation, and implementation of moving image preservation and d... more Documentation of the planning, preparation, and implementation of moving image
preservation and digitization projects is difficult to find in scholarly sources, despite the large
numbers of deteriorating films housed in archival repositories and the increasing demand
to access and utilize audio-visual materials. “Throwing a Hail Mary!” chronicles one such
project, undertaken over the last seven years at the University of Maryland (UMD). Since
2008, the University of Maryland Archives has raised over $100,000 to preserve and make
accessible its collection of historical football film footage. This project faced long odds,
representing the Archives’ first venture into serious preservation work on its athletics-related
holdings and its first major digitization project with funds raised privately, rather than
through grant allocations. In this case study, the UMD Archives staff traces the progress of
the entire digitization project from start to finish, recounts challenges faced along the way,
celebrates successes, and outlines plans for the future, to serve as a guidepost for libraries and
archives interested in starting similar projects at their own institutions
College and university archives use outreach to showcase the history represented by their materia... more College and university archives use outreach to showcase the history represented by their materials. When it comes to making history-based connections with students, alumni, and others, a major area of focus is the telling and re-telling of favorite campus tales and legends. Yet beyond their use for outreach, these stories are also a major area of responsibility for the college or university archives. Campus tales and legends can be a source of tremendous positive attention and good will for the college or university archivist, but they can also be a source of embarrassment, factual error, or conflict. In extreme cases, a college or university archives can even find their existence as a repository for university history being challenged or undermined in ways that are very painful and public. Using the University of Maryland Archives as an example, this article will illustrate the positives and negatives of working with these extremely popular stories and offer an approach for handling these tales in order to provide maximum benefit for other college and university archives.
When a donor demanded that one of its treasures be returned, the University of Maryland Archives ... more When a donor demanded that one of its treasures be returned, the University of Maryland Archives could have become territorial or defensive. Instead, the Archives used the request as an opportunity to work more closely with that donor, recognizing that what the donor really wanted was enhanced access. Out of this potentially difficult situation came the creation of a new student internship program, one which has received widespread positive publicity for its work in creating biographies of alumni veterans who perished in service to their country. These biographies will eventually serve as the foundation for a website that will provide the access that the donor desires. This new form of outreach has also benefitted the Archives by raising its profile on campus.
Journal of Archival Organization, Jan 1, 2010
While archivists and their repositories depend a great deal on public trust, they do little to cu... more While archivists and their repositories depend a great deal on public trust, they do little to cultivate or protect it. All too often, the archival community is only a passive actor in an area where it should be fiercely pro-active. This article aims to show archivists how they can build on the trust they have and avoid many of the problems that have plagued the archival community in recent years, problems that run the risk of irrevocably damaging the profession’s reputation.