Workshops
Workshops On Demand Set up a workshop tailored to your local history group.
Upcoming Workshops Local History Services offers workshops just for local groups. Here’s a partial list.

Workshops

For local history organizations to move forward, the board, volunteers and staff need to continually learn new skills. Local History Services has crafted workshops to help you succeed by developing new expertise and learning best practices. We offer workshops on various topics around the state and workshops on demand at your site.

Register online or download INvolved - our biannual workshop listing - for a registration form you can print and mail.

2013 Workshops (Registration for August - November workshops opens June 1)

Polish Your Image: Using Design Principles to Improve Your Marketing Materials - June 17
Learning from Your Audience - June 17
Before and After Preservation - Aug. 6
Getting Money: Fundraising Planning - Aug. 27
Cemetery Preservation (Advanced) - Sept. 6 or 7
History for the Asking: Oral History Basics - Nov. 20

Polish Your Image: Using Design Principles to Improve Your Marketing Materials

Monday, June 17, 9 a.m. to noon
Canal Center, Delphi
Instructor: Jeannette Rooney, coordinator, Local History Services, IHS
Cost: $20, $15 IHS members, $10 Local History Partners (or add Learning from Your Audience for just $5 more)
Register by June 10
Librarians can earn 3 LEU credits for this workshop.
Addresses AASLH StEPs Standard AUD 4.

Your marketing materials – your website, newsletters, flyers, brochures, etc. – play an integral part in how the public views your organization. This workshop is designed to help you make the most of this aspect of your public image by giving you the tools you need to apply the basic principles of design to achieve an appealing visual impact. We look at real life examples of the good, the bad and the ugly, and do some hands-on exercises that will help you to think about how to design your own materials.

The workshop will cover:

The dos and don’ts of basic design principles
Why some designs are effective and others are not (and how to tell the difference)
How to create a balanced and clean composition
How to successfully apply color and graphics
How to use fonts effectively

Who should attend? Paid or unpaid staff tasked with developing marketing materials for your organization.

Learning from Your Audience

Monday, June 17, 1 to 4 p.m.
Canal Center, Delphi
Instructor: Stacy Klingler, assistant director, Local History Services, IHS
$20, $15 IHS members, $10 Local History Partners (or add Polish Your Image for just $5 more)
Register by June 10
Librarians can earn 3 LEU credits for this workshop.
Meets AASLH StEPs Standard AUD 1 and 5.

Would you like to do a better job of serving your audience? Would you like access to information about your visitors that will really help you make tough decisions?

Learn about basic visitor studies and evaluation methods that will help you identify who you serve, find out what they want from your organization and what new audiences find compelling.

We look at a variety of ways to collect information from your visitors, including simple questions your docents can ask and visitor registration. We even share a sample special event survey. Additionally, we talk about at low-budget ways small museums have gathered information from potential new audiences about interest and prior knowledge of exhibits topics and elements before they are completed.

We conclude with a discussion about how to determine what visitor and audience information will really make a difference in your decision-making processes.

Who should attend? Paid and unpaid staff with responsibility for interaction with visitors and development of programs and exhibits.

Before and After Preservation

Tuesday, Aug. 6, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Indiana History Center, Indianapolis
Instructor: Ramona Duncan-Huse, senior director, Conservation
Cost: $105 per person, $200 for two from the same organization, $295 for three (lunch on your own)
Register by July 30
Librarians can earn 6 LEU credits for this workshop.
Addresses AASLH StEPs Standards COLL 2 and 5

Learn how to preserve your historical collections and avoid harm in a collection environment. Discussion will focus on issues of preservation: examination, identification of condition issues, storage and collection environmental issues, undertaking preservation efforts and exploring conservation techniques. Registration fee covers the cost of tools, which participants will keep.

Understand essential issues in preserving historical collections
Recognize different types of material and how the techniques to preserve them vary
Learn how to humidify, surface clean and provide housings for paper materials
Obtain answers to the most perplexing problems about your institution’s collections based on a pre-workshop survey

Who should attend? People who deal with the hands-on care and handling of the collection.

Register online starting June 1 or download INvolved (available June 1) - our biannual workshop listing - for a registration form you can print and mail.

Getting Money: Fundraising Planning

Tuesday, Aug. 27, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Dubois County Museum, Jasper
Instructors: Elise Kordis, Curator/Director, and Vicki Draper, Development Chairperson, Miami County Museum
Cost: $20, $15 IHS members, $10 Local History Partners (lunch on your own)
Register by Aug. 20
Librarians can earn 6 LEU credits for this workshop.
Addresses AASLH StEPs Standards MVG 3 and MGMT 1 and 2

Ensuring your historical organization has adequate financial resources to educate, preserve collections, create exhibits, keep your doors open and respond to your community is one of the primary responsibilities of leading a museum, historical society or preservation group. Yet few of us join local history organizations (as board or staff members) because we love to raise money.

When you leave the workshop, you’ll know the basic components of a development (fundraising) plan:

Membership
Major Gifts
Grants
Corporate Support

And you’ll know what you need to do to create a development plan that works for your organization, including recruiting board members and other fundraising volunteers and budgeting for fundraising activities.

Who should attend? Board presidents, fundraising committee chairs, and paid or unpaid directors.

Register online starting June 1 or download INvolved (available June 1) - our biannual workshop listing - for a registration form you can print and mail.

Cemetery Preservation (Advanced)

Friday, Sept. 6, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Or
Saturday, Sept. 7, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Spring Valley Cemetery, Lawrence (Indianapolis)
Instructor: John “Walt” Walters
Cost: $30, $25 IHS members, $22.50 Local History Partners (includes lunch)
Register by Sept. 1
Addresses AASLH StEPs Standard HSL 5

Choose either Friday or Saturday for a one-day, hands-on workshop to learn the essential components of advanced cemetery restoration.

John Walters, professional cemetery restorer, will explain the techniques of cemetery restoration, including the kinds of mortar mixes and adhesives to use when reassembling broken stones and fallen obelisks. Then participants will spend the majority of the workshop restoring stones in the cemetery. Work with broken, leaning and misplaced stones, and disassembled obelisks under the supervision of instructors.

Participants will learn the following skills:

Stone Repair – repairing stones using several kinds of adhesives.
Stone Relocation – how to determine the original locations of gravestones that have been moved and how to replace them to maintain the cemetery’s integrity.
Resetting Obelisks – using tripods to reset large obelisk stones that have been knocked over.
Filling the Cracks – mixing stone dust to fill cracks for a finished look.

Only those who have attended a basic cemetery preservation workshop or have prior experience cleaning and straightening stones can enroll in the advanced workshop (as experience in cleaning and resetting stones is essential to understanding more complicated repairs). Participants will be able to ask for advice regarding specific preservation and restoration tasks throughout the day. The workshop will be held regardless of weather, and all participants will be involved in the hands-on session.

Register online starting June 1 or download INvolved (available June 1) - our biannual workshop listing - for a registration form you can print and mail.

This project has been funded in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service Historic Preservation Fund, administered by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology. However, the contents and opinions do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of the Interior or the Department of Natural Resources.

_{This program receives federal financial assistance for the identification and protection of historic properties. Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, the U.S. Department of the Interior prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability or age in its federally assisted programs. If you believe that you have been discriminated against in any program, activity or facility as described above, or if you desire further information, please write to: Office of Equal Opportunity, National Park Service, 1849 C St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20240.}

History for the Asking: Oral History Basics

Wednesday, Nov. 20, 9 a.m. to noon
Indiana History Center, Indianapolis
Instructor: Kendra Clauser, oral history project archivist, IHS
Cost: $20, $15 IHS members, $10 Local History Partners (lunch on your own)
Register by Nov. 13
Librarians can earn 3 LEU credits for this workshop.
Addresses AASLH StEPs Standards MVG 3 and MGMT 1 and 2

Have you ever wanted to ask, “What was it like for you?” of someone in your historic photo collection or of a person who used items in your collection? The field of oral history encourages you to ask that question right now, as life becomes history.

An oral history program can become an active way to engage your local community in preserving history.

Whether you are completely new to oral history or if you've worked with small projects in the past, this workshop will offer hands-on opportunities to learn new techniques and strengthen current skills. In this workshop, we will help you answer the following questions:

Why should you do oral history?
Who might you want to interview?
What research might you want to do before your interviews?
What kind of equipment is best for recording oral histories on a small budget?
Where do you keep oral histories after you collect them?

With practice, a recording device, and willing interviewees, you will be ready to ask “What was it like for you?”

Who should attend? Paid or unpaid staff with responsibility for collections, exhibits, education or program development.

Register online starting June 1 or download INvolved (available June 1) - our biannual workshop listing - for a registration form you can print and mail.