Vita of J. Todd Ellison

Objective: To make progressively influential contributions to the information resource management field at a vibrant and growing work setting by providing increasingly sophisticated integrated access to documentary resources and by continually educating records users and myself.  

Highlight of Qualifications:

• Trained at one of the top-rated archival educational programs in the country.
• More than 20 years of experience as a pioneer and leader in a broad range of archival work.
• Established a state-of-the art archival program at Fort Lewis College where none existed before.
• Successful in writing grant applications and in using them to jump-start special projects at libraries.
• Prolific in the production of electronic databases, online collection inventories and digital images of special collections.
• A track record of mentoring, teaching, and offering library orientations in various aspects of archival work.
• Professionally involved in the archives/special library fields.
• The only Certified Archivist in the Four Corners region of the United States.

For an interesting read about the career of an archivist (mine in particular),
see Vocational Biographies, Series D, Volume 5, No. 7 (Sauk Centre, MN., 2000).

• Established the archival program for the Center and the College (the institution's first archivist). 
• Appraised, acquired, arranged, described, created metadata for, managed, preserved, and provided access to 550 collections of all types (10,000 linear shelf feet, including 3,000 artifacts cataloged online using professional cataloging standards).
• Produced 100 web-based collection inventories, along with 17 online pathfinders to lead researchers to the Center's primary sources in high-use topical areas including water, the environment, archaeology, genealogy, mines and mining, and Navajo Studies.
• Designed, built, and maintained the database for managing each of the center's accessions (none of this was automated before).
• More than doubled the volume of special collections at the Center, while simultaneously weeding hundreds of linear shelf feet of inappropriate records from the holdings.
• Inaugurated a practice of obtaining cash donations from large collections donors, to assist with the arrangement and description of those records.
• Wrote and managed dozens of grant proposals.  Obtained $240,598 in grant funds -- $151,510 since coming to Fort Lewis College.  Completed every project successfully.
• Created 100 professional forms and policies to manage special collections.
• Organized, established standards for, obtained funding for, and implemented programs in digitization (5,500+ images), micrographics, oral history (900+ interviews), records management, and disaster recovery.  Secured funding to create the Archives' in-house fully equipped scan center. Click to read the transcription of Ellison's interview with Professor Smith pertaining to the production of oral histories.  (Requires Adobe Reader free downloadable software, version 6.0 or more recent.)  Also, click here to listen to that interview online: Side A  ~  Side B.
• Initiated and supervised the records management program that serves the whole campus, and securely disposed of 2,500 cubic feet of unneeded college records, freeing space for newer records of the college.
• Taught courses in archival management, public history, and oral history. 
• Supervised and evaluated archival employees, students, interns, and volunteers (up to 20 at a time).
• Taught and supervised scores of student workers who learned skills of archival work and historical research.
• Taught specialized instruction sessions for History, Philosophy, Political Science, Southwest Studies, English, and other classes.
• Planned, created, and maintained the Center's web site (58,000+ web pages).  This website contains more data than any other Fort Lewis College site, including an historical markers walking tour of the campus, thousands of digitized postcards, and a comprehensive guide to the College Archives.
• Drafted the Program Plan for the new $7.6 million 50,000 square feet Center of Southwest Studies building that opened in 2001, and served as the primary user representative for its design, which established the functionality and efficiency of the building that was constructed.  Saved the college thousands by superintending the move of two miles of collections plus related furnishings, etc.
• Chaired the Southwest Accession/ Deaccessions Committee since its inception in 2000.
• Participated in Library Faculty Management Council, peer review (both on campus and for another institution) and other collegial planning meetings.
• Set the agenda and produced the minutes for all staff meetings of the Center of Southwest Studies, 1999-2005.

• Developed and maintained physical and intellectual controls for 222 Boulder Historical Society collections (400 linear feet of manuscripts and 111,000 photos) using the MARC:AMC format and Library of Congress and AACR2 descriptive standards to create over 7,000 records in CARL.
• Oversaw software developments for archival description in Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (CARL) system, including nationwide pioneering work in providing digital access to images on the same CARL terminal.  The Carnegie became the first library in the U.S. to have its historic photos viewable on a public access catalog.
• Supervised staff and 350 volunteers who contributed over 10,000 hours.
• Wrote an archival procedure manual, sold to colleagues in 39 states and several foreign countries in the first six months.
• Gave training in archival procedures.
• Obtained and administered grants amounting to $89,087 (total project costs: $308,592).

$5,000 from the Collaborative Digitization Program (May 2005) to convert seventy hours of analog sound recordings into digital format and for the Center of Southwest Studies to digitize 100 photographs and/or manuscripts for access on the Web as part of the IMLS-funded Sound Model pilot project to provide a collaborative infrastructure for digital audio.

$2,282 from the Colorado Digitization Program (January 2005) for the Center of Southwest Studies to convert eleven finding aids into Encoded Archival Description for access on the Web as part of the Rocky Mountain Online Archive.

$9,770 from various individual private donors (2002-2004), to pay for the archival arrangement and description of collection materials they donated to the Center of Southwest Studies.  Included several cash gifts ($7,066) in honor of Ellison and one of the Center's archival volunteers.

$636 from the Fort Lewis College Committee for Faculty Development (December 2003) to build the Center’s collection of primary source documentation of the Fort Lewis Indian School (1891-1910).

$1.6 million Congressional Earmark for training Native American students of Archives, Libraries, Museums and Historical Preservation, which Ellison and the three other professional staff of the Center of Southwest Studies are jointly directing.  Ellison's responsibilities include supervising professional archival interns and student interns (the Earmark's archival training component) and also the archival half of a $300,000 collections storage enhancement (completed December 2004) that includes moving the collections onto compact shelving.

$3,500 from a family's charitable trust, to purchase a scanning system for the archival work of the Center of Southwest Studies (November 2002).

$4,000 from the Colorado Digitization Project (October 2002) for the Center of Southwest Studies to scan an additional 750  images for access on the Web.

$870 from the Fort Lewis College Committee for Faculty Development (January 2002) to develop a new course in public history and to improve web-based access to Center of Southwest Studies local history records.

$7,000 from the Colorado Digitization Project (December 2001) for the Center of Southwest Studies to scan an additional 1,700 to 2,000 images for access on the Web.

$1,333 from the Colorado Digitization Project  (October 2000) for the Center of Southwest Studies to scan an additional 333 images for access on the Web.

$10,000 from the Colorado Digitization Project (December 1999) for the Center of Southwest Studies to provide Web-based access to 3,000 digitized images linked to online bibliographic records.  The Center was selected to participate as a Primary Partner in the two-year $499,999 grant that the Colorado Digitization Project (CDP) received from the Institute of Museum and Library Service (IMLS).

$2,372 from the Colorado State Historical Fund (October 1999) to fund a Historic Structure Assessment of the College's Fiesta Omnibus.

$7,742 from the Colorado State University Virtual Library Connections grant (January 1999) for computer equipment for the Fort Lewis College Center of Southwest Studies as part of a project to equip participating Colorado information access repositories for maintaining an efficient document delivery loop through inter-library loan.

$43,500 from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (November 1998) to host a Fellowship in Archival Administration to provide advanced administrative training in archives at the Center of Southwest Studies, 1999-2000.

$1,200 gift-in-kind from Fort Lewis College Academic Information Technology Fee (June 1997) for a student-use pc at the Center of Southwest Studies.

• Windows XP
• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Access (16 hours of intermediate training, April 2001)
• Microsoft Outlook (8 hours of training, February 2001)
• Microsoft FrontPage
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Adobe Photoshop CS
• Abbyy Fine Reader 6.0 Professional
• Omni Page Pro
• WS_FTP LE
• Link Checker Pro
• Windows Explorer
• OCLC Connexion (original cataloging) (2 hours of training, March 2005)
• Innopac (Innovative Interfaces Inc.) (original cataloging and online catalog maintenance)
• Simplex NT 3400 Security System (16 hours of training, April 2001)
• Finale (music notation software by Coda Music Technology)

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Page last modified:  June 22, 2008