By Professor Elizabeth H. Dow School of Library and Information Science, Louisiana State University edow1@lsu.edu In 2008 we created the Archival Training Collaborative to provide high-quality, inexpensive, and locally accessible archival workshops for staff and volunteers in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana historical repositories. In a little over three years, we trained 34 archivists to be trainers who have conducted workshops on 30 topics, reaching 438 attendees. In each workshop a professional, "The Mentor in the Room," organizes the learning, answers questions, clarifies concepts, and generally offers guidance and support as the participants work through professionally designed workshops – frequently from the Web. Despite our success, we agreed that making more people aware of the organization and the workshops was the hardest part of the project. In November 2011, we encouraged Casey E. Davis, the project’s graduate assistant, to go ahead with her idea to create a promotional YouTube video. The result is an informative and entertaining promotional video reminiscent of similar promotional pieces done in the 1950s.  Several other graduate students at LSU (most of them studying to become archivists) and student and film director Travis Hedges Williams helped make the idea a reality.  The video has been posted on the ATC website and shared directly through various social networks.   Enjoy! For more information about the ATC please visit: www.archivaltraining.org.
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Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program