SAA15 Service Project: Shoes and Clothes for Kids (SC4K)

By Nicole Laflamme, Host Committee member

Sign-up extended to Aug 15th!

Are you organized? Do you have experience sorting through boxes of valuable items? Do you enjoy helping people? Do you like free food?

If you’ve answered “yes” to these questions, then I have an opportunity for you!

This year, the SAA is participating in a charitable service project with Shoes and Clothes for Kids (SC4K).

When: Tuesday, August 18, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm
Where: Woodland Data Center, 4966 Woodland Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44104 (offsite)
Register: http://bit.ly/saa-service

SC4K buys pallets of clothes that need to be counted, sorted, and packed into smaller boxes for its distribution partners. Packing days are a fun opportunity that involves some physical labor, including:

• Making boxes.
• Opening and unpacking boxes.
• Breaking down boxes.
• Packing boxes.
• And then starting the process all over again!

Register: Please fill out this very short form by August 15 at http://bit.ly/saa-service

A minimum of 10 volunteers is needed.

FREE lunch will be provided to volunteers after the shift.

More info about SC4K:
https://www.sc4k.org/

More info about the Service Projects:
http://archivists.org/am2015/attend/service-project-SC4K#.Vb9rmvn_lng

More Service Project info on the HC blog

Time to Vote for your Favorite Dogs & Cats from the Archives!

By Kate Theimer, posted to the Archives & Archivists Listserv, July 29, 2015 (reproduced with permission)

Thanks to many, many people who submitted images of cats and and dogs from their collections, last night we launched the first round of the Dogs and Cats from the Archives competition. There is a complete review of the rules posted on the Archives Next blog, but in brief, it’s a “March Madness” style competition between 16 cats and 16 dogs from various archival collections. Right now you can vote in 8 brackets of dogs and eight brackets of cats. Between now and the start of the SAA annual meeting, we will gradually work our way through follow up rounds to crown top dog and top cat, who will then fight it out  for supremacy during the SAA meeting.

Since this is a fundraising effort, we ask that you donate $1 to the Cleveland Animal Protective League (CAPL) for each time you vote. As described in the Rules, there are many ways to donate, and how and when you chose to do that is up to you. It’s all on the honor system. (And as outlined, please also let us know what you donated. We’d like to keep track of how much this is raising for the League.)

Right now there are a host of amazing animals to look to and vote for, and we hope you’ll all stick with it and continue to vote (and donate) for your favorites as they gently claw their way to the finish line. We have competitors from Canada, New Zealand, and Germany in addition to an outstanding line-up of American animals.

Since we received such a generous response to our request for images, the many beautiful dogs and cats who were not selected will be featured over the next few weeks on the Dogs From the Archives Tumblr and the Cats From the Archives Tumblr. If you have an image you’d like me to post there too, please send me a message, and I’ll put it in the queue. Please spread the word to your co-workers, friends, and patrons. This is a great selection of images from collections around the world and also, we hope, a great way to raise money for animals in need.

If you have any questions, let me know, and happy voting!

Kate

Please note: Voting for Round 1 ends at 5 p.m. EST, August 2. Voting in Round 2 begins August 3.

Your Archival Pet Photos can Help Cleveland Animals

Margaret Shaffhauser with bull terrier dog at the Canine Association Show, 3 Nov 1934 / by Ted Hood (courtesy of State Library of New South Wales via Flickr Commons)

By Nicole Laflamme

Vote for your favorite archival cat or dog! 

In an effort to support the Cleveland Animal Protective League (CAPL), Kate Theimer is hosting a web contest encouraging archivists to “vote” for their favorite archival photos of cats and dogs.  A selection of sixteen archival photographs featuring pets will be narrowed down each week in a bracket-style tournament…with the ultimate dog or cat winner being selected during 2015 SAA Conference! The contest will support the work of the CAPL.

Two ways to participate:

#1. SUBMIT ENTRIES!
Entries should be submitted to kate.theimer@gmail.com by July 22.
For more details about the contest and how to submit entries, please visit Kate’s blog, Archives Next.

• Submit archival photos (unlicensed, sourced from your archives or repository) of a dog OR cat.
• Submissions from outside the U.S. are welcomed.
• Please provide an appropriate credit line for your image.

Cat in a silk shoe. Raivola / by Edith Södergran (courtesy of The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland via Flickr Commons)

#2. VOTE!
Voting will begin on or about July 24th at Archives Next.

(Note: We deliberately chose photos of cats and dogs from international archives to illustrate this post, so as not to give an unfair advantage to any American photos we came across — though there were plenty of good ones on Flickr Commons! And we look forward to seeing yours!)