At Your Fingertips

As we near the conclusion of this fundraising campaign to meet the challenges of archiving in the digital age,  some significant steps have been taken to achieve our goals.

ABHS invited Dr. Jenny Manasco, CA, to join their professional team;  Her training and experience best fit the needs of the Historical Society.  She worked for fifteen years as librarian and archivist at Union University in Jackson, TN. During that time she became a Certified Archivist and received a Digital Archives Specialist certificate.  As Digital Collections Specialist Manasco will be primarily responsible for digital archives at ABHS.

The digital program has two main foci: the digitization of portions of current collections and the archiving of born-digital documents. Manasco has begun by increasing accessibility to the catalog of books in the American Baptist Samuel Colgate Library. ABHS has begun prioritizing its hundreds of reel-to-reel and cassette tape recordings of American Baptist gatherings for digital preservation. ABHS recently digitized the Karen Nationalist newspaper, the only full set worldwide of this newspaper published in Burma during the 1890s. A few collections of photos from missionaries of a century ago have been digitized. Plans are underway to have our collection of African-American association records digitized.

With a digital collections specialist on staff ABHS will be well-equipped to address the challenge of archiving digital records. Many contemporary records and communications exist primarily—or solely—in electronic form. Without preserving these digital records, documentation of significant programs and  events will be lacking; the born-digital documents of today will be the history of tomorrow.

The ABHS digital project, including Manasco’s hiring, is funded by the At Your Fingertips campaign. Thank you for your support of At Your Fingertips!       

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Please join us today and seriously
consider becoming a valuable partner
in the preservation and sharing of
YOUR Baptist roots.

Questions? Please call 678-547-6680.

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