Tag Archives: Stearns History Museum

Stearns History Center CMLE Extended Mini Grant Report

This is a guest post from Steve Penick, archivist at the Stearns History Museum.

The Stearns History Museum’s (SHM) $4,000 storage project was partially funded through CMLE’s Extended Mini Grant Program, enabling staff to purchase shelves and archival storage boxes for collection materials.  Thanks in part to community partners, local Stearns County Lion Clubs, and a generous anonymous donor, the project’s goal of improving storage capacity and reorganizing our photographic collection has been achieved.  

Photo reorganization was the first component to be addressed.  SHM’s collection, around 25,000 images, had been stored on shelves in several different locations within the archives.  Staff assembled two 10’ storage units, bringing the entire collection into one space.  The remaining three shelves, have room for approximately 2,700 images, will be available for future growth.

Three units containing 30 shelves, space for 90 large archival boxes, are planned for new collections that previously did not have a permanent location.   A few examples include:  Eden Valley’s Marge Gruenes political correspondence and photographs (1980’s-1990’s), the Siefermann Family Papers (1890’s-1920’s) documenting their Richmond farm, and Senator Dave Durenberger collection, highlighting his formative Collegeville education years from St. John’s Preparatory and University.  Combined, some two dozen collections are prepared for data entry into our catalog and ready to be assigned a permanent location.

With the photograph reorganization, two empty units became available for incoming collections as they are received from donors.  Staff will have the opportunity to better organize and prepare these materials for collection storage. The space allows for 24 large archival boxes and up to a dozen mid-size ones.

The benefits of this shelving project are both immediate and long-term.  Patron and staff access to our resources has been improved, especially our photographic collection.  

Thanks CMLE for helping us make this happen!

Join CMLE at our Upcoming Event!

CMLE is so excited to be hosting an in-person event at the Stearns History Museum!

Join us on Saturday, Oct. 9th anytime between 9:30am and 1:30pm. We’ve reserved the meeting room at the History Museum for this event. You can explore museum exhibits, get VR training, reserve VR kits for your school, chat with other library folks, and more!

Feel free to bring your family and stay as long as you are able. This is a relaxed event; we’re just looking forward to getting together again!

Please RSVP below. If you’d like to reserve ClassVR kits for your school library, let us know the number you’d like to pickup and we will bring them to the event for you.

Attending?(required)

Coming Next Month: CMLE’s Fall Member Event!

We are SO excited to be hosting a real in-person event for our members! Join us at the Stearns History Museum on Saturday, Oct. 9th from 9:30am – 1:30pm. We’ll have our ClassVR kits available for checkout and training, have information on our Extended Mini Grant Program, plus light refreshments and of course, the History Center to explore!

We’ve reserved the meeting room at Stearns (definitely explore their website too for some fascinating local history!) and invite you to bring your family as well! This event is relaxed, so please join us and depart as your schedule permits.

It’s been SO long since CMLE has been able to safely provide in-person member events for our library community and we are SO looking forward to this!

Please RSVP below. If you’d like to reserve ClassVR kits for your school library, let us know the number you’d like to pickup and we will bring them to the event for you.

Attending?(required)

We can’t wait to see you!
Questions?
Ask Angie at ajordan (at) cmle.org or admin (at) cmle.org.

See you on October 9th!

Stearns History Museum
235 33rd Avenue South
St. Cloud, MN 56301

Jessie Storlien Extended Mini Grant Report

This is a guest post from Jessie Storlien, Archivist at the Stearns History Museum. Read more about our Extended Mini Grant Program or fill out one of our applications. This program is only available during the FY21 school year.

Stearns History Museum Buys Archival Supplies!

The Stearns History Museum Research Center had a backlog of items waiting to be processed. Space and supply constraints kept us from boxing and shelving new large collections. However, after receiving the CMLE minigrant, we were able to order the boxes and folders necessary to organize and process the large collections waiting in our overflow storage room. This, coupled with the construction of 75 more shelves in the archives will clear much of the unprocessed collections backlog.

Materials cover a breadth of topics from business and politics to women and children. Specific collections include: writers, Marilyn Salzl Brinkman and Jeannette Blonigen Clancy’s, interviews, research, and photos; World War I veteran Wesley Danneker’s photo albums, pilot log, and accompanying documents; materials from Electrolux upon its closing last year; United Cerebral Palsy of Central MN collection detailing their organization’s work in the area. Most of the materials are images, ephemera, documents, audio-visual materials, and other archival items.

To process the collections, materials will be filed, boxed, and cataloged. Each box will receive a unique number and a shelf location. The metadata for the collections will be recorded at the file level into our new library catalog when it goes live before the end of this year. This processing project will allow us to create more retrievability to the collections than is currently available, both physically and through recorded data. 

The focus of this project was accessibility for staff and patrons. This includes the ability to search for and find items that are in processing. Preparing collections to be entered into the new library catalog, and creating metadata that enhances searches in that system is also a priority. The broadest goal is to allow researchers to discover and obtain information from the collections at SHM. 

We want to honor our commitment to donors by keeping materials as preserved as possible, while also creating accessible information for researchers. The boxes and folders purchased through this minigrant will help us meet our strategic plan goals to preserve, process, and create accessible collections. Thank you!

CMLE Mini Grant: Stearns History Museum Family History Conference

CMLE mini grant logo

Note from CMLE: We are currently in the process of updating our mini grant policies and procedures. We will make an announcement on our site and newsletter when we are ready to begin reviewing applications again!

This is a guest post from Steve Penick, archivist at Stearns History Museum.

Family History Conference Mini Grant; Stearns History Museum, St. Cloud, Minnesota

The Family History Conference:  Growing for Generations was held on September 19, 2020 cohosted by the Stearns History Museum and the St. Cloud Area Genealogists.  Originally scheduled for last April, the arrival of Covid-19 postponed our program that lead to the decision in holding a virtual conference.

Thanks to the Central Minnesota Library Exchange, the $300 Mini Grant paid for our keynote presenter Kim Ashford and one breakout speaker.  Fifty-seven attendees enjoyed 12 different sessions on various topics.  They included:  ethnic topics, research road trips, online sources, using social media for genealogy, newspaper research, digitizing, and strategies in writing your family story.  Afterward, attendees communicated their experiences about the quality programming, and for the most part, limited technical issues throughout the day.  Yea!

An online format provided some advantages for those attending the conference.  Most sessions were recorded, offering the flexibility for attendees to view them for a limited time afterward. While an in-person conference offers opportunities for socializing and networking, participants had chances to meet and greet before sessions began or during lunchtime.  Speaking of lunch, several online exhibits rotated through the noon hour slideshow highlighting our two organizations and the work that they do.  

We look forward to our next conference whether it be virtual or in-person.  Until then, keep researching!