Stewarding A Community-Based Collection Katrina O’Brien, Archivist & Collection Manager World of Speed Motorsports Museum
Our Collection Donors Community • At opening in April 2015 (3yrs), mostly founders’ loans and exhibit-specific purchases • Over the years, created opportunities for “community buy-in” to see themselves as part of or reflected in the Museum • Now, with over 300 donors, roughly 97% of the Collection is from donors • Fans, tinkers, hobbiests, family members, professionals, museum volunteers • Oregon, Washington, PNW, West Coast… regional motorsports pockets (IN, MI)
Yes, Your Story is Important • Spectrum from “You’ll love this from when me and my buddies were…” to “Oh, it was just me and my buddies, its not worth anything” • “Oh, that wouldn’t interesting, I didn’t race professionally” or “I got rid of that stuff a long time ago” • Your story offers a wealth of knowledge – validating the importance of their experience • Personal/cultural and monetary equally valued –not just an eBay price tag • Educating as to why we do it, what we do, and how we do it • Transparency and clarity of accession process, preservation care and future use
What is the Community Donating? Motorsports swag and fan items Local motorsports history collectors “I’m gonna clean out my garage” “I have something like what I saw in your exhibit” • “I’ve got a complete collection of (common popular title) magazine” • “My friend has a _____ that should be in your museum” • • • •
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Exhibition ideas with donation
• Connected to events went to • Connected to events were part of
Loan-to-Digitize Program • Items are hard to part with now (may donate in the future) • Lenders want to keep but able to share • Allows us to keep the digitized files as donations and return the loaned originals • Mostly scrapbooks and photographs • Have the content in the closest form to the original as possible • Aligns with our scanning and digitization programs and able to reproduce and share • Lets the Archive amass and centralize community materials that might not otherwise be available
“Inside the WOS Archive” Blog • Collection Highlights with text, images, and videos • Nearly all items highlighted are donations and/or worked on by volunteers • Scanned scrapbooks and photos formatted into e-flipbooks • Artifact groupings sources from multiple donors that can tell a educational and entertaining story • Place to present community stories not covered in the five mostly longterm collection-based exhibits
worldofspeed.org/archive-blog
Open Archive Days • Pull and layout items from the Collection that may not be exhibited – share back • One of many ways to connect back to the community that has helped us amass our collection • •
Over 5000 cataloged items and groups including digital and micro collections Less that 5% of the collection is on exhibit
• Often put out groups of photos with paper and pencils to help • •
“Hey, that’s my uncle Frank at Deer Park” Crowdsourcing their knowledge
• Helping us build the knowledge surrounding these items •
also in our online catalog comments section
Racing Story Vault • Community-sourced video series • Tap collection donors as holders of motorsports history and culture • Commonly relate story to an item donated or loaned to the museum • Recording days, 30min slots • Short for social media use and easier digital collections incorporation • Future plans: Oral Histories Kiosk & Viewing Area • Open to all visitors without appointment
PNW Community Racing Timeline • Designed to build up the community voice in the Collection • Crowdsource material, giving participants an opportunity to include their story • Embedded free platform time.graphics • During 2017 Archive Month, had write-in whiteboards in the Museum gallery • Created online submission form with image upload; continuously active • Relating to their firsthand racing or motorsports experiences • Format allows us to share parts of the Collection that highlights local history
World of Speed Archive Katrina O’Brien Archivist & Collection Manager Wilsonville, OR Katrina@worldofspeed.org 503.563.6448