Stacie Williams, Candidate for Nominating Committee

Professional Experience: Digital Learning and Scholarship Team Lead, Case Western Reserve University, 2017–present. Trainer (contractor), LYRASIS/ArchivesSpace, 2016–2017. Editorial Coordinator, The Nation, 2014–2016. Learning Lab Manager, Special Collections Research Center, University of Kentucky, 2013–2016. Research and Access Assistant, Countway Medical Library, Harvard University, 2011–2012. Archives Assistant, Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University, 2010–2011.

Education: BA, Journalism, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2001. MS, Library and Information Science, Archives Management concentration, Simmons College, 2011.

Professional Activities: Society of American Archivists: Member, Mosaic Program Advisory Group, 2016–2019; Women Archivists Section, 2016–2018 (Co-chair); SAA/ARL Mosaic Selection Committee, Member and Chair, 2013–2017; Archivists and Archives of Color Roundtable, Newsletter Editor, 2012–2013. Midwest Archives Conference: Programming Committee, 2016–2017; Local Arrangements Committee, 2014–2015. Special Libraries Association–New England: Archivist (Board of Directors), 2010–2012. Archives Leadership Institute: Faculty, 2017; Participant, 2015. Institute for Museum and Library Services: Peer Grant Reviewer, 2016.

Awards: Spectrum Scholar, American Library Association, 2010.

Selected Publications: Co-author (with Jarrett Drake), "Power to the People: Documenting Police Violence in Cleveland," Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies, forthcoming in 2017. Co-author (with Rebecca Martin, Heather McCann, and Myrna Morales), "White Screen/White Noise: Racism and the Internet," Urban Library Journal, 2013.

Selected Presentations: “All Labor is Local” (opening keynote), Digital Library Federation Forum, 2016. “Ethics of Social Media Collection and Use,” Documenting the Now Advisory Board Meeting, 2016. “Leading Together: Archivists and Historians Shaping the Digital Archive,” Organization of American Historians, 2016. “The Secret Life of Records,” Society of American Archivists, 2015. “Black Twitter Activism: Bigger Than Hip Hop,” South by Southwest Interactive, 2013. “With a Little Help From My Friends: Building Community Archives with Volunteers,” New England Archivists Spring Conference, 2012.

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Question posed by Nominating Committee:

An essential component of the nomination and election process is identification of new leaders within SAA who embody the diversity of the archives profession. Describe what you believe to be the core responsibility of the members of the Nominating Committee, and outline your ideas for identifying the next generation of SAA leaders to ensure that new or distinctive voices and perspectives contribute to the future of the profession.

Candidate's Response:

Diversity is the sum of many parts and perspectives. While I believe that the core responsibility for members of the Nominating Committee is to identify individuals who reflect the institution’s highest values, I feel strongly that finding those individuals means searching outside of our established frameworks and groups. Diversity is more than applying an intersectional approach to archival labor and theory, though it is also that. Diversity is more than people of different economic, religious, gender, racial, ethnic, and sexual identity backgrounds being represented in the organization on a physical level, though it is also that as well. It is more than various roundtables of professional interest and ability, though those areas of expertise are a critical part of our organization. So how can we unlock what it truly means to engage a mixture of people, ideas, and practices and mobilize them toward SAA’s values of identifying, preserving, and making accessible valuable records? I believe we can only do that by increasing communication—listening more to each other and to the communities we aim to serve. SAA leaders and members would benefit from continued engagement with user communities who can help us find creative solutions to diversifying this profession, this organization, and our collections. As a Nominating Committee member, I would seek to identify diverse leadership by looking to individuals who are strong advocates for their communities and their users. Amplifying members or projects involved in or related to community-based archiving is likely to engage leaders who understand how our work is applied in real-world scenarios across a wide spectrum of stakeholders and who can continue to make our work relevant and sustainable for years to come.   

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