Searching for President Jimmy Carter Thursday, March 9th (2-6pm)

The Austin History Center was closed to the public for graffiti removal. We were given the option of working from home, but I came in so that I could access the archives to answer reference emails. We had our two full staff-meeting today and got updates about our new city manager, APL’s new vision and mission statement, and about the AHC construction plans over the next two months and planned closure in April. We also discussed Chapter 4 “Courageous Cultures”—a book about creating a healthy working environment where people are free to speak up and share ideas. I especially enjoy the “Round Robin” portion of the meeting where everyone takes turns talking about what they’ve been up to.

Jennifer was out today so I handled the reference emails for the day. One came from a patron who had been doing research in the reading room who had a few questions about materials from our Allandale neighborhood vertical files. Another came from a news reporter who wanted to know whether the Austin History Center has materials on the historic Goodwill Baptist Church that burned down; I researched our vertical files and archival materials and determined that we do have that material. And the final reference email came from a journalist who is preparing a story about President Jimmy Carter in anticipation of his passing; he wanted to know whether we have any photos of President Carter from his 1981 visit to Austin. I looked to see whether we had any digitized photos in the Portal to Texas History but didn’t find any; however, I did find one photo in our vertical files on “Visiting Men and Women, “which I scanned and emailed to the reporter with instructions on submitting Reproduction Requests.

Maria-Elena Cigarroa

Supervisor: Jennifer Hecker

General Schedule: Sundays (11-6); Thursdays (2:00-6:00); Fridays (12:30-5:30)