Please join Kalyn Loewer, NYG&B's Digital Collections Manager, Anna Gardner, NYG&B's Digitize New York Coordinator, and Kelly Grimaldi, Director of Education and Program Development at Albany Diocesan Cemeteries for a look at the new Albany Diocesan Cemeteries partnership. The speakers will discuss the local partnership with the Albany Diocesan Cemeteries that was integral to this Digitize New York preservation effort, share how the materials were digitized using two NYG&B Digitization Kits, and go in-depth on how to locate and view the digital images on the NYG&B’s Online Collections Catalog.
About the Presenters
Old cemeteries are becoming increasingly appreciated for their historical and cultural significance. Kelly Grimaldi, Director of Education and Program Development, Albany Diocesan Cemeteries, has been advocating for the preservation of cemeteries and cemetery records since the late 1980s. She confesses she has had a fascination with old cemeteries since she was ten years old and living in Maine next to burial grounds for Revolutionary War veterans and their families. Her interest grew into a hobby and then into a rewarding career. She has been actively involved in restoration efforts on the grounds of old cemeteries and in records archives to ensure that both documents in stone (as she refers to gravestones) and written documents are preserved, cataloged and later, with the emergence of the digital age, recorded electronically. Her goal has always been to make valuable, historic burial records available to researchers at no cost. Kelly holds a masters degree in history from the University at Albany.
Kalyn Loewer, the NYG&B’s Manager of Digital Collections, uses digital preservation and archival techniques to support the NYG&B’s mission to preserve, document, and share family history. She works to digitize documents from all over New York State and makes materials available to researchers via the online collections. She also educates communities about how to access and maximize the NYG&B’s online collections.
Anna Gardner, the NYG&B’s Coordinator, Digitize New York, supports the statewide growth and operations of the NYG&B’s Digitize New York initiative through project development and community outreach from her base at the Central New York Digitization Center in Syracuse. Prior to joining NYG&B, she was the senior manager of marketing and communications at Henry Street Settlement, where she played a key role in driving grassroots and digital outreach efforts to connect New Yorkers to social service, health care, arts, and history programs.