Twin Cities Archives Round Table

The Minnesota Archives Symposium Work Group and your TCART Officers are pleased to release our call for participation in the 2025 Minnesota Archives Symposium, which will be held on Monday November 3, 9am-4pm in the historic Landmark Center in downtown Saint Paul.

The Work Group and TCART officers are seeking proposals for participation in several formats this year, including:

• long-form presentation (15+ minutes)
• “Brag Box” lightning talks (5-7 minutes)
• “Birds of a Feather” discussion facilitators

Participating in TCART programming is an excellent way to support the profession, share your expertise, and connect with other archivists!  To learn more about each participation opportunity or to sign up, visit our Call for Participation Form.  Proposals are due October 1.  If you have questions, concerns, or have problems using the form you are very welcome to email us at tcartmn@gmail.com

If you or your organization would like to sponsor the TCART Symposium, reach out to us at tcartmn@gmail.com.

• A new survey of member preferences and ideas was performed. The survey gathered input on communication preferences, solicited ideas on programming, and gathered opinions on funding the TCART symposium. The survey is now closed, and results will be shared soon!

• Minnesota Media Arts (MNMA) and St. Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN) are launching a survey ahead of a new series of Community Media Archiving Workshops and would love to get TCART Members’ input! The survey can be filled out at this link before September 12.

• The date and venue for the 2025 Minnesota Archives Symposium has been released! Mark your calendars for Monday November 3 for a full day of presentations, networking, lightning talks, birds-of-a-feather discussions, lunch, and site tours — we look forward to seeing you at the historic Landmark Center in downtown Saint Paul!

• Autumn is here and that means it is time once again for TCART membership renewal.  All memberships, regardless of when you first joined, come due in the fall. Please renew your membership using our Membership Form, individual memberships are once again $10 for the year.  If you would like to join, but dues are a hardship, please reach out to me or any other current TCART officer.  Further instructions for membership renewal can be found at https://tcartmn.org/membership/or by emailing us at tcartmn@gmail.com.  

Our Spring Meeting will be Friday, May 9th, from 9am to noon via Zoom. If you plan to attend, please register using this form: https://tinyurl.com/TCARTSpring25 

Things to look forward to at the spring meeting:

• Participate in the biannual business meeting, where we’ll hold elections for Communications Officer and Membership Officer/Secretary.
• Hear a special presentation from Tom Steman, archivist at St. Cloud University, on his repository’s migration to Access to Memory.
• Break out into small discussion groups to chat more about finding aids and migration projects.
• Share your work! We’ll close with an invitation for members to share recent projects, accomplishments, announcements, etc. If you’d like to speak during this portion of the program, please let us know in your registration form. We’ll follow up with you!

We look forward to seeing you at the spring meeting!

Monday, November 4
Heritage Room in the C. Charles Jackson Campus Center
Gustavus Adolphus College
St. Peter, MN

Map: https://gustavus.edu/about/files/gustavus_adolphus_map.pdf

Free visitor parking in the Norelius Lot (Lot “B” on the map).

Registration required. Register here: https://forms.gle/qKMjkXrgvsDsyUWH7

Please register by October 29. Registrations received after October 29 will not include lunch.

Schedule

9:00am – TCART Member Business Meeting (non-members welcome to attend)

10:00am – Coffee Break

10:30am – Welcome

10:45am – The Brag Box
Recent accomplishments and announcements from across the membership. 

• Recent Digital Processing Projects – Leif Kopietz, Minnesota Historical Society
• Court of Appeals 40^th Anniversary Project – Erica Nutzman, Minnesota State Law Library
• NEH Grant to Expand Access to Collections – Kristina Warner, Norwegian American Historical Association
• Book Project and Product Launch – Clare Pavelka, Red Wing Shoe Company

11:45am  – Lunch

1:00pm – Tours 
Tours of the Gustavus Adolphus archives led by Jeff Jenson and Adrianna Darden (pre-registration required).

2:00pm – Panel 1: New Technology
Speakers share new tools, software, and other tips and tricks that they find useful in their work.

• Teaching Yourself Python (for free!) – Sarah Barsness, University of Minnesota
• Intro to Canva and Related Graphic Design Tools – Hannah King, Minnesota Historical Society
• Introducing Zippy: Digitizing Our Collections One Clip at a Time – Heidi Southworth and Leah Zacate,  Minnesota State University, Mankato
• Developing a 3D Photography Program – Tom Steman, St Cloud State University

3:00pm – Panel 2: Small Budget Solutions
Speakers share projects completed, innovations developed, or new workflows implemented when working with a small team and/or small budgets.

• Space Consolidation Project – Grant Wilson, Stearns History Museum
• Small-budget Solutions for Obsolete Media – Dan Sustacek, COMPAS
• Omeka/Reclaim Hosting – Kristina Warner, Norwegian American Historical Association

4:00pm – End

We look forward to seeing you in beautiful St. Peter!