Brown Bag Series
The Archives and Special Collections designed a small brown bag series to fulfill a request by the University administration for academic programming related to the debate. Additionally, these three events attracted audience members to special collections and the "Hail to the Chief!" exhibit; allowed curators to highlight politically related material in the special collections; and assisted in the acquisition of itmes for the Presidential Debate Collection.
All Brown Bags occurred at noon in the Faulkner Room of Special Collections. Advance publicity included posting the event on numerous online calendars, sending out a campus listserv reminder a day before the event, announcing the event on the library’s homepage and the Presidential Debate Subject Guide, creating a library debate activities flyer posted across the campus and the community and mailed to a broad selection of faculty and staff, and submitting a press release to various media outlets. In addition, the Brown Bag series received official endorsement from the university’s Debate Academic Committee which meant that programs appeared in all official debate calendars and the debate website.
The University’s Center for Documentary Projects filmed each Brown Bag, and the library posted the programs on YouTube with links to the “Events” page of the Presidential Debate Subject Guide. A photographer also documented each event.
On 13 August 2008, the University of Mississippi Institutional Review Board approved the archives’ application to conduct a survey of audience members at the Brown Bags. Results were compiled for each program.
- “Women in Politics: The Archival Record in Special Collections”(4 September 2008)
- "Tell Every President to Listen to the Blues: Presidents, Politics, and the Blues" (11 September 2008)
- "History Lives in Mississippi: Creating the Presidential Debate Collection" (23 October 2008)
Brown Bag Promotional Materials
A variety of promotional materials announced the Presidential Debate related Brown Bag Series.