Beverly Archive Project  Minutes

February 4, 2010

The Beverly Archives Project (BAP) held its regular meeting at 7 PM at the Beverly Historical Society,  chaired by Charlie Wainwright. 

Present were:           

1. Welcome  and Check in:  Charlie asked everyone around the table to give a brief update of anything new going on with themselves or their organization.  Judy Kent, who read about BAP in the paper and is interested the working with the archives of the Centerville Church joined the meeting.  

2. Minutes:   The minutes to the January meeting were approved.

3. Treasurers Report: The Treasurers Report was reviewed and approved; the report reflected no change from the previous month however John had received a dues check earlier in the day.

4. Library Presentation – Final Preparations:  Cristina confirmed the details with the library and provided a synopsis of the presentation to include in the paper. The slide presentation was reviewed one more time.  Carol contacted four suppliers to get free samples as give aways at the talk. They have committed to send things but she hasn’t seen any yet.   Charlie asked about doing a follow up or ‘clinic’.  Sue was asked if the Historical society would be willing to sponsor something like that and she said we could talk about it.  Sue was asked if the historical society had ever done a road show type event. Sue said one had been done previously and that there may be one in the Historical Society’s future.   Charlie will put the presentation on the web site after it has been presented at the library.  Carol suggested doing and after the fact video and putting it on You Tube.

5. Collaboration with the Historical Society -  Sue said that they are just beginning a long term planning process. The house museum model is no longer sustainable for the long term. She would like to see the 3 properties as resource centers for Beverly history. The roles of the Balch and Hale houses won’t change but the Cabot street building will be transformed, repurposed – friendlier and better equipped for research including on-line access. The Historical Society is asking itself how does it survive and thrive and give the community what they want. Going forward they will have less emphasis on narrative exhibits and more on objects. The Society will do a better job on being clear about the mission of the society.    Sue believes there are synergies between our two organizations and the Historical Society supports BAP’s mission.  The Historical society is the collection agency of the city. The North Shore Music Theater’s organizational history is coming to the society as well as Beverly National Bank’s.    The Society is also going through a formal de-accession process. Sue was asked if there was a formal accession policy document, Sue said there was. Basically the Society will accept any documents relating to Beverly history.  They are starting a five year project to inventory the collection and make it accessible.  As part of their long term process they are looking at climate control, fire prevention and better space and access for the transportation collection. The Society estimates they have space available for accessions for the next 10 – 15 years.   Charlie asked if we thought we should come up with a standard format for finding aids for the various collections and have the Historical Society act as an intermediary for access to collections held at other organizations in the city.  Not everyone wants their finding aids put on-line as some of these items have restricted access.  In six or seven months the Historical Society will be inviting BAP and others in the community for a meeting to discuss their long term plans.

6. Essex Heritage Partnership Grant Program- The grant will help raise money for the City Hall project. John wondered if the Historical Society was also going after the same grant and would that not look good/be a problem. As long as we keep the Library as our fiscal agent there shouldn’t be a problem.  John should have the application filled out by next week, after he fills it out he will send it to Cristina and she will look it over.

7. Elevator Speech  -  Margaret, Barbara and John  prepared speeches, we will work on combining them into a single document at next month’s meeting and then put it on the BAP web site ( text of speeches at end of minutes)  

8. Reports of Committees/Activities

a.      City Hall project -    We are working on the logistics of where to put things. Fran, the city clerk, is open to moving stuff out of the safe; however there isn’t any immediate space to put them.  We haven’t heard anything from Wes Slate, John will follow up with him.

b.      BAP writing project – Barbara submitted an article on Fay Taylour. Cristina will write something up about the library presentation.

c.       Web site. Charlie put some links out on the web site to the suppliers who have committed to send things for the library presentation. Charlie generally updates the web site once a month as part of his prep for the meeting. He has moved the location of some of the old minutes. In the April meeting we will talk about the web site.  Barbara suggested putting a virtual exhibit on the web site.

d.      Darren was asked about the unidentified pictures the Historical Society is putting in the Citizen. He said that 3 of the 15 have been identified. Carol suggested the Historical Society publish updates on the photos, she also suggested we (BAP) could put then on our web site.

9. Our next meeting will be held Thursday March 4trh   at 7:00 p.m. at the First Parish Church, 225 Cabot St. (use rear entrance)

Respectfully submitted:        Margaret Alfonso

Elevator Speeches

Barbara’s -   What is BAP? BAP helps public, private and religious organizations preserve their rich history through assistance and education

Margaret’s -  The Beverly Archives Project, or as we like to call ourselves, BAP, is a diverse group of individuals with the common interest of preserving the history of the cities various public, private, religious and educational organizations. BAP members have different backgrounds, interests and expertise that allows us to provide education, support and sometimes resources to groups or individuals with archival interests, questions or needs.

John’s -  So you want to know what BAP is?  Well, do you want the long or the short version? OK here’s the short version – Beverly Archives Project’s goal is to preserve Beverly’s history before it “gets thrown away.”  We meet monthly to discuss ways we can help the people and institutions of Beverly figure out how to save those old documents, photos and records that might otherwise end up in the trash bin. Some are in basements, attics or old files, and some are in file cabinets or storage boxes where no one knows how to get at them

So far we have helped a dozen or so churches, the temple, library and Endicott College in focusing on their records – including how best to preserve them, and to make the accessible to their own members, but also potentially to historians and scholars.

Right now we’re involved in a big project with the Clerk’s records at City Hall – helping to organize and preserve documents that go back into the 1600’s!

While we don’t “collect” documents ourselves we want to help others find ways to preserve their “stuff” (or help them decide whether it needs to be saved), and if they aren’t able to save it themselves, to help them find a place, such as the Beverly Historical Society, that might be able take it.

We were initiated as a project by the Beverly Historical Society in 2002, and have been going strong ever since. 

Site Updated Monday, March 01, 2010 07:00 PM