monterey bay

Last week this time, I was down in Monterey, probably watching Myth Busters in the hotel room. The conference didn’t begin until Thursday afternoon, and the originally scheduled tours for that day had been canceled due to lack of interest (not by me, though). So I volunteered to help set up the registration table that morning instead. We then had a couple of hours free for lunch, etc. and Elia and I decided to go to Carmel and see the Mission founded in the 16th century by Fray Junipero Serra. One of the collections I’m working on contains a lot of materials about Serra and the Cause to canonize him, so that gave the trip some context. But I think I’ll try to get to other missions while I’m out here, simply for the history and because they remind me of Zorro.

There was an opening reception that night at the Maritime History Museum, and I met up with several people from work. Afterwards we went out to a pub near Cannery Row – if I go back I’ll have to investigate that strip, although I hear it’s mostly a tourist trap.

After a disastrous breakfast Friday morning (painfully slow service), I went to hear the keynote speaker, Dr. Timothy Naftali, who is the director of the Nixon Library and Museum. So cool! They will be releasing the Nixon tapes in sections, for free online, with the first group available in December (I think). He spoke a lot about the challenges of telling the complete story of Nixon’s presidency, and used examples of how misleading the current museum exhibits are.

The other highlight on Friday was going bowling! The last time I bowled may have been way back in 2001, I can’t remember. It was just Amy and me, but we had fun and played 3 games. I think my best score was an 85; she beat me each time, with a high of 124.

Saturday morning the group of us new Bancroft archivists went out for breakfast at a place called Tillie Gorts (and we skipped the first session to do so). Made it back for the next session, and then it was on to lunch (as you can tell, conferences revolve around food). This was the awards luncheon and featured a speaker team, husband and wife Bob Senkewicz and Rose Marie Beebe. Once again, a work connection. They lauded the Bancroft Library’s collections and staff, and gave a wonderful presentation about the research they’ve conducted in Mexico and Spain.

Then, saving the best for last, I went to the final session, which was on the Archivists’ Toolkit. I’d heard a presentation on this collection management system about a year ago and hated it (or maybe it was the presenter). In any case, this time around it made a lot more sense to me. I think both the toolkit and my knowledge of databases have improved in the last year, and it helped that some of the presenters had real-world experience applying it (and they were frank about what they liked and didn’t like).

We left shortly thereafter, and were back in Berkeley by 6pm (it was a 2 hr.+ drive). And there, on my doorstep, a package from Lancaster with lots of Easter goodies.