Austin Is for Archivists

On behalf of the Host Committee I’d like to thank the contributors, the commenters and especially the readers of our little experiment.

I would also like to thank the Ischool of the University of Texas at Austin for hosting this blog.

Thanks for reading and I’ll leave you with one final sentiment:

For those who have a car and want to check out repositories in the San Marcos and San Antonio area, the kind folks at the University of Texas at San Antonio Library have created a handy brochure. the PDF is available at their website: http://lib.utsa.edu/Archives/localrepositories.html

It’s Thursday the 13th, the first day of sessions at SAA. You arrived a day or two before, settled into your hotel room, maybe did a little walking downtown or hit one or two spots you heard you shouldn’t miss if you’re in Austin. You’ll be seeing friends and colleagues in the halls of the Hilton and making plans for drinks and dinner, catching up. This first morning of sessions will also reacquaint you with the universal hotel conference room - same chairs, same walls. But your mind is fresh, and these first sessions really hold your attention, until noon approaches and you imagine yourself outdoors in the sunshine, on your way to lunch.

With just a little forethought and planning, however, you can have lunch and learn about Austin’s music from an archival perspective, including efforts to make our historic African American jazz and blues culture vibrant and visible. Take your midday repast to the Hilton’s Salon G, where from 12:00-1:30pm you can sit in on Austin Music Matters: Documenting the Music of a Community. You’ll be treated to an audiovisual presentation by local music archivists/documentarians deeply involved in the city’s musical past and present. Get a head start by visiting the Austin Blues Family Tree Project founded by presenter Harold McMillan (who is also the Founder/Executive Producer of the Clarksville Jazz and Arts Festival and Austin Jazz and Arts Festival), to learn about the East Austin music scene in its heyday and the work being done to document, celebrate, and support it. Local music archivists Tim Hamblin (Austin History Center) and John Wheat (UT’s Briscoe Center for American History) will share their own knowledge and experiences with documenting and following Austin’s diverse and active music community - it’s even more eclectic and influential than most out-of-towners, and some natives, realize.

Rhapsody, by John Yancey, mosaic at E. 11th St., courtesy of texastripper.com

It would be understandable if folks didn’t know that the Hilton rooms come with complimentary wireless, but if you aren’t staying at the Hilton or just want to get on the internet some place else, there is a nice google map of hot spots around downtown.

UPDATE: In response to the comment below, I called the Hilton and found out that the complimentary wireless is available to persons checked in at the Hilton and is only available in guests’ rooms. However, the main floor lobby and coffee shop offers free wireless to anyone. If you are a guest, you can pick up the “how to” sheet at the front desk.

The fine print is that the wireless in the meeting and session rooms is not free. They seem to always get you somehow don’t they?

The Humanities and Technology Camp is an “unconference” that will be held in Austin during SAA the evening of Tuesday, August 11th.  For more information about the Camp, see their About page.

For further details:

• http://www.thatcampaustin.org/
• http://www.spellboundblog.com/2009/07/25/thatcamp-austin-2009-accepting-applications/
• http://twitter.com/thatcampaustin
• http://www.archivesnext.com/?p=307

This is a fun episode of the Downtown television series depicting Austin visitors wheeling around downtown Austin on Segways. You can find out more about these tours by visiting the Gliding Revolution website: http://www.glidingrevolution.com/segwaytours.html. Enjoy!

Austin has a few sports teams that operate in the summer - the Round Rock Express baseball team (see separate post about that) and a new minor league soccer team, the Austin Aztexs.  Both teams have home games during SAA - Round Rock Express - http://www.roundrockexpress.com/; Austin Aztexs - http://www.austinaztex.com/home/ (one game, on Sunday, August 16, see the website for more details).  One thing Austin has lots of are golf courses.  Here is a website that lists public and private courses, with maps, reviews, directions, etc.  Another blog entry discusses various walking trails in Austin, if you are so inclined.  Unfortunately, yall have just missed the indoor football season, it ends this coming weekend.  If you just want to get out a take an early morning walk that’s not on concrete, I suggest you head over to Lady Bird Lake and walk the trails.  Or, you can canoe and kayak if you prefer - http://www.austinparks.org/apfweb/park.php?&parkId=350.  Be sure and see the bats at dusk while you are there (there is a separate blog about the bats, it is an impressive site that you should see before you head back).

Daniel posted some information recently about the Round Rock Express game that several SAA folks will be attending on Wed., August. 12 - “Game start time is 7:05pm and buses will be leaving the Hilton at about 5:30pm.  A ticket to the game and a seat on the bus will cost $27.  For details, including where to send payment, contact John LeGloahec johnleg@verizon.net.”  Yall should have fun, the Express stadium is a nice one!

I thought I would take this opportunity to mention there is another minor league team with a cool new stadium, the Hooks in Corpus Christi - http://www.cchooks.com/.  The team is playing home dates August 12th-17th.  If you are driving and are also considering a trip to the beach before you return home, you might check out Corpus Christi - which is about 3 hours from downtown Austin.  The Hooks stadium is pretty new and faces the bay.  I am taking brief trip to Corpus on Friday-Sat., August 7-8, before SAA rolls into town and will get a night baseball game in and  will go to my favorite beach in Texas, Malaquite Beach, part of the Padre Island National Seashore - http://www.nps.gov/pais.  It is still the Kemp Ridley’s sea turtles nesting season and is fun to help the Parks Service staff look for sea turtles (haven’t found any yet, maybe I will get lucky this year!).  The beach is a bit wild, not your typical tourist swimming beach.

Not too far from the hotel is a good Mexican restaurant - Serrano’s.  It is located in an old house at 1111 Red River St.   They have good mix and match lunches.  There are a couple of good barbeque places in the area - the closest is the Iron Works, on 1st and Red River, by the Convention Center.  I like Stubbs, which is several blocks away, at 801 Red River.  They feature local and some bigger music acts, such as Flogging Molly, who I saw last February!  Check out their music schedule several weeks before you come, some shows will sell out fast.