Greetings from the staff of this newly integrated group! Did you miss this news? The special collections team in Moody (Frank, Andrea, and Beth) have now joined forces officially with the group in Crouch (Alison, Jamie, and sometimes Sha). I thought it would be helpful to send out this update, feel free to contact me or the rest of the team if you have questions.
There are a lot of synergies between these two groups including the highly specialized nature of music and art materials. Research in these disciplines can be different than other disciplines, even compared to other humanities areas. The creation and performance aspects are interesting in considering what research looks like. Special collections follow many of these same specialized features.
In the next several months, this team will be considering common ground, services, and integration. We don’t have final decisions on much of anything right now – we want to be thoughtful and inclusive in our actions. We’ve started with a SWOT analysis – with everyone contributing their ideas. Here is a word cloud of our Strengths.
Meet our team! With a variety of responsibilities, most of us are cross trained to step in and help in any capacity, but here are our main responsibilities.
Alison Larson – Manager of students and daily operations. With her art background, she is the point person for art questions. Kudos for her working through Ignite changes to get our students hired!
Andrea Turner – Special Collections manager. Andrea is responsible for daily operations with donations, pulling materials, and special projects. Many thanks to her for her work on our new Baylor Biblical Art database and helping to get classes online.
Beth Farwell – Director of this new group. I’ve spent a lot of time this fall working with faculty, instruction, special projects. and planning.
Frank Jasek – Preservation manager. Frank is responsible for collections care and assists with building custom storage for rare collections for all the special libraries. So thankful for his careful stewardship of these unique resources.
Jamie Duerksen – Music reserves manager and more. Jamie’s music background is invaluable in his work with the School of Music faculty. He is the ‘go to’ person for all music questions and I am so thankful for his patience with all the work he did to help curbside services and moving testing & courses online.
Sha Towers – Art/Theatre liaison and artist book collection curator. We are all thankful for his leadership and really glad he knows how to open the new artist books when they come in. 😊
We will keep you all updated as we come up with new ideas. Thanks to everyone for supporting each other!
Beth