How to design effective community and participatory projects

We hope you will utilize the VFP curriculum as a foundation for offering workshops or seminars to military members, but also encourage you to consider additional opportunities for collaboration with veterans. Many studies explore the use of community and participatory projects in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (and we will provide links to several in the resources at the end of this module). As Benoit and Roeschley note, participatory projects include a range of institutional meditation. Some projects are heavily institutionally driven, whereby community participation remains the focus, but an institution provides a majority or some of the archival or museum work. Such projects can be thematically based or event-driven, such as the Mass. Memories Road Show. On the other hand, there are less- and non-mediated spaces. These are projects that develop outside of traditional cultural heritage spaces—often those considered community archives or community museums.

Within the range of possibilities, it is more likely that you would consider creating a more mediated project in the future—but there are many things to consider when designing a community or participatory project. First, identify your project’s goals. Will you work with veterans to actively create collections for your institution? Are you more focused on providing preservation-related skills to the veterans? Is it something else?

Secondly, who is your participatory audience, and how will you reach them? We recommend involving community organizations as early as possible in any project. You may consider reaching out to local or regional veteran service organizations (VSOs) such as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars. You can find an online directory of VSOs from the VA at https://www.va.gov/vso/. If you are interested in working with active-duty personnel, consider reaching out to local base libraries or community centers. Additionally, do not entirely focus just on the military personnel—be sure also to include military spouses and families—as they may wish to participate as well.

Next, think about the event itself. Will this be a one-time event or an ongoing project over time? What will you need to coordinate the event? How will you obtain permissions? Will you copy or digitize items at an event to add to a collection or focus more on training? How will you document your event? If you are collecting items, what will you do with them after the event? Will they be put online? How will they be shared?

As you can see, there are many variables to consider. Luckily, staff from the University Archives and Special Collections (UASC) in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston created a comprehensive guide to planning and hosting a participatory event called the Roadmap for Participatory Archiving (ROPA).

According to the ROPA website:

Whether you’re a librarian with years of experience, or a community member just starting out, RoPA can guide you through the process of planning inclusive, engaging participatory archiving events and creating digital collections in collaboration with community members.

RoPA is organized into stand-alone modules that are linked together to cover the whole participatory archiving process. The beauty of the Roadmap is that you can follow the RoPA modules in order to host an event and create a collection or you can choose the “on-ramps” and “exits” based on the goals of your project and the skills of your Project Team members. 

After the Getting Started section, each module in the Community, Event, and Collection sections of the Roadmap features an introductory video and a list of Roles and Responsibilities. Steps to Success are the detailed instructions for what to do before, during, and after the event, and they include printable handouts and instructional videos. A Quick Checklist summarizes these steps. Best Practice Examples highlight successful case studies from other participatory archiving events, while the Glossary and Resources sections allow for in-depth understanding and further exploration.

The RoPA Developers recommend reading through the entire site before hitting the road. It is important to get a big picture sense of the many elements of work involved in planning and producing an event and creating an online collection. Throughout the site, there are connecting links where modules overlap or intersect. In addition, a search feature is located at the top right of each page of each module if you are seeking specific information. 

The Roadmap is organized into four overarching sections of modules: Getting Started, Community, Event, and Collection. To see a full list of the modules, visit the Roadmap page.

The Getting Started section provides an overview of who is needed on the Project Team and how long it will take to plan and produce the event as well as process the new collection.

The Community modules outline how to implement an inclusive, community-engaged planning process, choose a theme for your event, and spread the word to participants.

The Event modules explain how to organize a successful event using multiple stations: the Welcome Station to record permissions; the Information Station to gather information about Items; and the Copying Station to create archival quality copies of Items. These modules provide details about documentation, copyright, equipment, and the general logistics you’ll need to address.

The Collection modules explain how to establish an accessible home for the digital collection and safeguard it for the future. These modules also cover approaches to publicizing the new collection and interpreting it to the general public.

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