Virtual Volunteering: Volunteer opportunity regarding scholarly texts from nonprofit organizations

Virtual Volunteering: Content Development regarding scholarly texts from nonprofit organizations

Volunteer opportunity regarding scholarly texts from nonprofit organizations

Identifying and processing paper-published scholarly texts on American representational art for inclusion in Resource Library within TFAO's topics of interest, not otherwise published online with open access. Volunteers may assist in any or all of the following:

(a) conducting online searches and reviewing other sources including indexes, bibliographies and other listings of essays and articles within paper-printed books and journals in order to identify potential scholarly material and the publishers of the texts. For tips on searching the Web see the indexes and information retrieval page in Resource Library. TFAO's highest level of cooperation for obtaining permissions to digitize texts and publish them online is with art associations and smaller art museums. The largest museums are least likely to extend their cooperation. Out of print exhibition catalogues yield a marginally higher success rate than in-print catalogues. Journals published by art associations and smaller art museums are another source of acceptable texts. Some potential sources are listed within Resource Library's art museums, galleries and art centers and academies, associations, ateliers and societies indexes.

(b) reviewing Resource Library's previously published texts using keyword searches within the contents of Resource Library and by reviewing the author and art museums, galleries and art centers and academies, associations, ateliers and societies indexes to prevent duplication. Searches within Resource Library are available through its home page.

(c) obtaining texts through the US Postal Service.and reviewing them to see if the texts meet Resource Library's submitting materials guidelines.

(d) reviewing with TFAO names of publishers, authors and titles of identified texts.

(e) identifying copyright holders and obtaining written approvals for republishing.

(f) OCR scanning, proofreading and reformatting of approved texts, using Resource Library's content presentation guidelines. If scanning equipment is unavailable volunteers may send documents to TFAO for scanning and proofreading.

(g) forwarding to TFAO completed packages through the US Postal Service including paper-printed copies of original texts, discs containing .doc files of digitized texts and approval letters from copyright holders.

Note: TFAO's experience is that success in this particular volunteer opportunity requires use of the phone for parts (c) and (e). Phone conversations in some instances are followed by volunteer email letters confirming the conversations and providing additional information. Click here for examples of email letter templates used by volunteers.

Chapters of lengthy books can be distributed among several volunteers to lighten the work of each person.

Credits

Resource Library's chronological index refers to thousands of articles and essays made possible in part through the help of volunteers who have provided research assistance. Acknowledgements of their efforts are included in the credits for published texts.

Volunteer requirements

1. Experience including

five years service as an art museum docent, or
two years full-time employment in an art museum's education, media relations or curatorial department

2. BA or BS degree from an accredited college or univesity

3. Access to a computer and email

4. Willingness to devote an average of 10 hours per month.

References and recommendations

TFAO requires that applicants for this position provide confirmation of their qualifying experience. This is accomplished by applicants contacting persons who supervise or previously supervised them in their place of employment or service and asking them to send experience confirmation by email from their institutional email addresses. Recommendations from persons of authority are also welcome.

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rev. 1/27/06