Volume 2, Issue 1
Fall 2004
North Carolina
ECHO
Exploring Cultural Heritage Online
NC ECHO
State Library of North Carolina
4640 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4640
Phone: (919) 807-7418
Newsletter
NC ECHO expands collaborative opportunities for partners and teachers
Editor: Kim Cumber
Jackie Dean
NC ECHO Project Librarian
Inside this issue:
From the Project Coordinator 1
2004 has been an exciting year
for the NC ECHO Project. The sur¬
vey of cultural institutions is nearing
completion (see article on page 2).
Relationships and partnerships we
have fostered with other cultural heri¬
tage organizations in the state such
as the State Historic Records Advi¬
sory Board (SHRAB), the Society of
North Carolina Archivists (SNCA), the
North Carolina Museums Council
(NCMC), the state’s Cultural Heritage
Tourism officers, LearnNC, and the
North Carolina Center for the Ad¬
vancement of Teaching (NCCAT) are
thriving and productive. Initiatives
long envisioned are being realized.
Among these initiatives is the
establishment of a unique educa¬
tional experience for museums pro¬
fessionals, stemming from what we
have learned over the course of the
survey so far— museums and mu¬
seum-type institutions comprise more
than half our NC ECHO partner insti¬
tutions and their needs, while some¬
what similar to those of libraries and
archives, are markedly different in
many ways as well. To help serve
these museum partners, NC ECHO
and NCCAT are hosting a weeklong
Museums Digitization Institute and
Teacher Seminar April 25-29, 2005,
in Cullowhee.
During this week, museums pro¬
fessionals will learn hands-on digiti¬
zation skills as well as metadata
creation and theory using Western
Carolina University's Mountain Heri¬
tage Center and Special Collections
Horace Kephart artifacts and docu¬
ments as real-life examples. At the
same time, NCCAT will host a
teacher seminar exploring the life and
work of Horace Kephart. Built into
this week are a number of structured
and casual opportunities for the
teacher and museum groups to come
together for discussion of mutual
goals and issues such as mu¬
seum education for the K-12
audience, the use of online pri¬
mary sources in the classroom,
teachers’ needs in the way of mu¬
seum online resources, and muse¬
ums' efforts providing resources in
these areas. A highlight of this week
will be a joint field trip in which the
teachers and the museums folks will
take a train excursion through the
mountains experiencing some of
Kephart's wilderness while George
Frizzell, WCU Kephart scholar and
archivist, shares his insights on
Kephart and the history of the region.
Both groups of learners will be given
Kephart's seminal work Our Southern
Highlanders and this, too, will provide
a common theme for discussion.
NC ECHO hopes that this class
will be the first of many such work¬
shops combining teachers and cul¬
tural heritage professionals around a
topic of mutual interest for the pur¬
pose of each group and individuals
learning from
one other and
collabora-
tively solving
problems for
the greater
good.
Collabora¬
tion is at the
heart of NC
Horace Kephart, "Cooking Supper”
ECHO and our vision that “All of
North Carolina's cultural institutions
work together to make the state's
unique cultural and historical re¬
sources accessible for the education
and enjoyment of people of all ages
in the state, the nation, and the
world." This vision depends upon the
staffs of disparate partner institutions
collaborating with each other and
with user groups and all learning to
understand each other so that digital
cultural heritage products can com¬
municate in cyber-space and will be
products that can be used by the
public— in this case by teachers.
Communicating cultural heritage
is key to the success and progress of
(Continued on p.3)
Metadata Matters
Spotlight
Mark Your Calendars
ASCWG
2
3
3
4
New NC ECHO Project Librarian
NC ECHO is happy to announce
the hiring of a new project librar¬
ian— Jackie Dean! Jackie comes
to NC ECHO from NC State Uni¬
versity Special Collections where
she was the Visual Resources
Cataloger.
Jackie brings vast experience to
NC ECHO, having prior to arrival
in North Carolina worked at Har¬
vard University cataloging
manuscripts and working with
graduate students in their
Houghton Library.
With NC ECHO Jackie will con¬
duct survey site visits and con¬
tribute her many skills and tal¬
ents to NC ECHO'S ongoing
initiatives including but not lim¬
ited to survey data analysis,
website development, and
community outreach.
We are thrilled to have her on
board and encourage all NC
ECHO partners to join us in wel¬
coming her to our project.
Kim Cumber
