Organizing Our Communities’ Records: Connecting a Community to Its History

By Yesenia Lopez

NJHRIC

The Puerto Rican Community Archives’ Mission

To identify, collect, process, preserve, and make available for research, materials that will document the history and legacy of the Puerto Rican communities in New Jersey

Over 2,000 cu. ft. of material statewide

Resulted in a MapIndicating

• Location• Subject matter• Size• Condition• Type of material

St. Columba Neighborhood Club –History of Inactive Records

Numerous executive directors Flood damage Move High school students –

Youth Employment Summer (YES) program No inventory of current holdings

NJHRIC & St. Columba Neighborhood Club Collaborative Project (2006)

Project Archivist trained NJHRIC’s summer intern to serve as project leader

Project leader trained and guided HS students in record keeping and identifying historical records

Students attended a Career Day at the Newark Public Library

Collaborative Project Issues Lack of work space

Boxes were removed from the room to make space

Lack of storage suppliesYES Program coordinator managed to find

other boxes, supplies, and extra filing cabinet Lack of computers to input inventory data

Only the Project Leader input all the inventory data

Collaborative Project Outcomes

HS Students and project leader learned valuable work, life, and technology skills

A complete inventory was created Historical records were identified Project leader and students were

introduced to college, career and employment information resources at the Library

OOCR: a Workforce Development Project

2007

ASPIRA, Inc. of NJ At-Risk Youth

Mentoring Program Funded by

Verizon Foundation CHPRD NPL

Curriculum H.S. Jrs & Srs

2008

FOCUS, Inc. Project Shadow

Funded by HSBC CHPRD NPL

Curriculum 13 – 16 yr olds

Curriculum

Weeks 1 – 2: Project Leader Training

Weeks 3 - 4: Record Assessment and Youth Training (Workforce Development Workshops Begin)

Weeks 5 – 8: Organization of Records

 Weeks 9-10: Wrap-up/ Evaluations

Workforce Development Workshops(High School Juniors & Seniors)

Career Goals and Interests: What do I Want to be When I Grow up?

How to Write a Killer Resume Getting to College: Information on Colleges and

Scholarships Using Microsoft Excel Power Point: How to Create Multimedia

Presentations

Homework Helpers Tutor.com, QandANJ Email reference Webguides for homework help for preteens and

teens Remotely available databases for biography,

history, magazines, and general information College & Careers

Resources for finding higher education according to degrees offered, location, and cost

How to find career information

BEFORE

AFTER

PRCA RESULTS

ASPIRA, Inc. of NJ – 38cu ft of historical records were identified and donated

FOCUS, Inc. – 10 cu ft of historical records were identified and are pending donation

Raised awareness of need to preserve history

OOCR: a Workforce Development Project (2009)

HISPA, Inc. – RecordsDonated 20 cu ft. of historical records

Processing project Academic year Field trips to local history sites (museum,

library, historical society)

The Connection Students & community organizations

learned:About archives and the value of history

How to identify historical recordsThe proper care and storage of

historical recordsThe practice and importance of

recordkeeping

Yesenia LopezYesenia LopezProject ArchivistProject Archivist

Puerto Rican Community Archives Puerto Rican Community Archives The NJ Hispanic Research & Info Center The NJ Hispanic Research & Info Center

at The Newark Public Libraryat The Newark Public Libraryylopez@npl.orgylopez@npl.org(973)733-4791(973)733-4791