"Do What You Can, With What You've Got, Where You Are" : Coping with Circumstances inside the BDC Research Room, Part One

Following the "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are" dictum has forced me to seriously revisit all the services and activities that the BDC has provided and to focus in on the few that have the most impact and/or are the most important for a cultural heritage professional to put the BDC in the best shape I can before I turn the responsibility over to the next BDC manager/staff person when I retire within the next 6 to 31 months.   

Bottom line: Good stewardship of the community's records entrusted to the Beaufort County Library is now and has always been my #1 priority. 

The enduring loss of staff  has made delivery of the special collections and local history assets much more difficult. Thus you will see some diminution of services that is a direct consequence of relying solely on one person to manage and deliver an array of special collections and local history services over an extended period of time as the BDC enters yet another Fiscal Year with a ravaged department staff. Therefore from this point forward until my retirement - whenever it may come -  this is how I plan to manage delivery of local history materials and services as long as there is only one employee working fulltime inside the Research Room: 

MATERIALS-FOCUSED

• I will focus on getting already prepared Finding Aids to the Archives written by former BDC support staff edited and posted for the BDC's WordPress blog. 
• Technical Services staff is already working on getting a baseline BDC collection inventory and replacing all the faded BDC spine and barcode labels before I exit the building for the last time. 

 PEOPLE-FOCUSED 

• I shall emphasize delivery of materials and services to In-room Researchers.
• I will acknowledge all incoming requests for assistance within 72 hours of receipt.
• I will only undertake those tasks that can be successfully completed within 1 hour of research time per off-site customer request. 
• Deliverables will be processed within 15 working days of receipt of request.

PROGRAMS-FOCUSED

• BDC local history programs and outreach efforts will be reduced to 10 - 18 outings per performance evaluation period. 

SOCIAL-MEDIA FOCUSED

• Social media posts will be reduced by 66% to free up time for preservation and archival projects. 
  

LOWCOUNTRY DIGITAL LIBRARY

• Digital projects will be reduced by 33%. 

I will be out on the office on FMLA beginning at 5 pm on 8 July 2022. Contact Library Administrative Assistant, Ileana Herrick, iherrick@bcgov.net; 843-255-6452 in my absence.