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Hello, and welcome to the International Archival Affairs Roundtable (IAART) Elections page.
Below you will find a list of the candidates who are running for office to serve on the steering committee of the IAART. The vacant offices are as follows:
• Junior co-chair: Two-year term (one year as junior co-chair, one year as senior co-chair)
• Member-at-large: Three-year term
Please read the candidate biographical statements, and then vote for one candidate for each position.
You can cast your vote beginning on Tuesday, July 1. The voting site will be open for two weeks, and the deadline for casting your ballot is Tuesday, July 15, 2014.
Thank you for voting!
IAART Steering Committee (Brad Bauer, Polina Ilieva, Christian Kelleher, Christopher Laico, Ryder Kouba, Danielle Scott)
Bio:
Christiana Dobrzynski Grippe is a Certified Archivist and currently is the Project Manager for the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries' CLIR Hidden Collections Processing Project, as well as Consulting Archivist for the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s NEH-funded “Building a Marcel Duchamp Research Portal” project. She previously held positions at Bryn Mawr College, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art, all of which entailed managing archival collections with an international emphasis. She also works with and advises multilingual artists and gallery owners concerning their records. She holds an MA in English Literature from the University of Delaware and an MSLIS with a concentration in archival studies from Drexel University and currently serves as Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect for the Delaware Valley Archivists Group.
Statement:
In happy alignment with the several large-scale collaborative projects that have employed me, I have a particular fondness for grassroots community building and fostering cross-pollination of ideas and outreach across professions and borders that would lend well to serving as Co-Chair on the IAART Steering Committee. I have worked with institutions and individuals on multilingual collections housed in or originating from Europe, South America, and the Middle East; some of my work has involved trips to conduct on-site collection surveys and appraisal in France and Belgium. I am especially interested in postcustodial management of international archives, collaborative and consortial approaches to metadata and access, and proactive documentation of underrepresented groups and contemporary social movements. I see the IAART as providing the ideal groundswell for fostering dialogue within SAA’s numerous mechanisms, as well serving as a liaison with our international colleagues, in order to better advocate for a more holistic perspective of records and their creators and users. I am excited to have seen the momentum gained by the IAART with increased membership and the adoption of official by-laws and would be delighted to assist the Steering Committee as Co-Chair in furthering the foundational work already established by the IAART by increasing our engagement, leadership, and communication regarding the challenges and opportunities that arise from working with archives across borders.
Bio:
I am currently the Collections Manager and Curator for the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University. Previously, I held positions with the US Department of State and the National Archives and Records Administration, working primarily on issues pertaining to the long-term preservation of born-digital historical materials. I received my MA in history from the University of New Mexico in 2007, and my MLS from the University of Maryland in 2009. For the past year, I have had the honor of serving as the Steering Committee member-at-large for the International Archival Affairs Roundtable (IAART).
Statement:
I enthusiastically submit my nomination for the open Junior Co-Chair position for the IAART. My work with the Hoover Institution Library and Archives--a repository with an explicitly international collecting mission--introduced me to the many challenges and opportunities inherent in working with international collections. I believe the IAART is uniquely positioned to provide much-needed leadership on international issues affecting the work of archivists. As Junior Co-Chair, I will work to develop IAART’s new communication strategy, with the short-term goal of launching a new blog to foster discourse on international archival projects, events, and opportunities.
Bio:
I'm currently employed as both Processing Archivist and the Curator of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Research Collection at Texas A&M University. Before that, I've also worked at the Wisconsin Historical Society, the National Archives and Records Administration-Pacific Region, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the University of Iowa. I'm an M.A./M.L.S. graduate of the University of Maryland-College Park. In addition, I'm the co-chair of the ongoing Displaced Archives Project, a cooperative effort by several archivists to develop a database that will identify all archival collections worldwide that have been removed from their countries of origin, for whatever reason.
Statement:
It is of crucial importance to archivists in North America to be aware of and understand the work of our colleagues and sister institutions all over the world. After all, we are all one profession, united behind broadly shared ethics, goals and a commitment to the preservation of the archival record. I believe that the IAA Roundtable can be a powerful, effective tool for promoting the sharing of information between ourselves and our international colleagues, and for disseminating news and information about any number of issues that come to affect us all, both as archivists and as citizens of the world concerned with a full documentary record of human history. As someone interested in how archives operate and are perceived worldwide, I welcome the opportunity to serve on the IAA Steering Committee and to help direct it towards practical and important initiatives that will help forge tighter links between the SAA membership and our colleagues across the globe.
Bio:
Stacy was an archivist in the US for 15 years or so before she moved out to Hong Kong in 2006 to start the University Archives for the University of Hong Kong. Before this she was the University Archivist and State Records Officer for the College of William and Mary in Virginia for 9 years and before that she was the University Records Archivist at Michigan State University, in East Lansing. She did her M.A in Public History at Wright State University, her B.A. in Anthropology at Indiana University and did post graduate work at University of Michigan and at the Rare Book School hosted at the University of Virginia. She is a member of SAA, as well as of the ICA, and the Hong Kong Archives Society.
Statement:
I would like to be of service to the greater community of archivists and since I am an archivist abroad I can bring my international experience to the IAART and be of some use. I hope my service will also foster a closer relationship between SAA and archives in Hong Kong as well as others in East Asia.
Bio/Statement:
I have been working as the Project Archivist for the National Equal Justice Library, which is part of Georgetown Law Library, since 2012. The NEJL holds a range of international materials, including collections documenting legal aid for refugees and immigrants. Related to these collections, and to the roundtable, I am especially interested in discussions about the ethics of access to private, privileged, and confidential information – including refugee information -- from an international perspective.
I have been a member of the IAART since it was launched last year. I would love to serve as one of the members-at-large on the steering committee, and support its development in collaboration with the other committee members, and the IAART membership. The IAART (which according to SAA website has 487 members/participants) provides a great opportunity for discussion, exchange, and inspiration, and I believe we should take advantage of it and work together to develop it as a dynamic year-long forum. Archivists, who are working with international collections, are often confronted with specific and complex challenges, and the roundtable offers a good structure to find collegial support and advice.
So, I think the roundtable has a lot of potential, and we could do a lot, with more or less effort. As other roundtables have done, we could develop the website as a resource, and compile resource pages that can assist archivists working with international collections, or researchers working with these collections. In conjunction with the panel discussion on the ethics of access to refugee records and archives at this year’s SAA annual meeting, which is sponsored by the IAART, I specifically suggest developing a resource page on managing access to refugee records and archives. We could also build on to the very useful page on HIPAA that the Science, Technology, and Health Care Roundtable and the Archivists in the History of the Health Sciences have developed http://www.alhhs.org/hipaa_sthc_alhhs.html and compile resources on HIPAA from an international archival perspective. For those members, who are interested in teaching and archival pedagogy, I’d also be interested in developing a resource page with teaching materials related to international archival affairs. These are just a few ideas, and there are many more possibilities.
More generally, we should work on developing a manageable and sustainable platform to share announcements, reports, and reflections, whether it is a newsletter, a blog, or something else. Such a platform could also be a way to facilitate collaboration with the ICA, and other roundtables with overlapping interests, such as Human Rights Archives Roundtable, as Christopher Laico and other steering committee members have suggested. More ambitiously, but not entirely out of reach, the roundtable could consider supporting international professional exchanges and study tours, help international colleagues attend the SAA meeting, and help U.S. archivists attend international conferences. (Among my more ambitious goals for the roundtable is to organize regular international archival adventure tours!) On the down-to-earth side of things, here is a specific suggestion related to the SAA meeting: There will be a number of interesting sessions related to international archives this year, and maybe we figure out a way to record or summarize them for those people who won’t be able to attend?
Background and education: Before receiving my MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh, I worked at Special Collections & Archives and at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, where I also got a PhD in history. For shorter periods, I also worked (did internships) at the IBT Labor History Research Center, and the Rauh Jewish Archives. Before moving to the U.S. over 14 years ago, I lived in Berlin and Hamburg, studied history and political science, and developed my passion for archival work while visiting many archives as a freelance researcher and writer, mostly working on research related to the history of National Socialism and the Holocaust.
With no particular connection to this statement or international archives, my favorite archives are the DC Community Archives at the Washingtoniana Division of the DC Public Library, and maybe those of you who will be here for the annual meeting will get the chance to participate in the repository tour of the Division.
I look forward to meeting some of you at the annual meeting!
Bio:
Amalia S. Levi is a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies. She holds a Master’s in Library Sciences, and an M.A. in History, concentration in Jewish History, both from the University of Maryland, College Park, and an M.A. in Museum Studies from Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, Turkey; she completed her B.A. in Archaeology and History of Art in Athens, Greece. She has worked in museums, developing exhibits, and conducting archival research. She has presented extensively on the intellectual underpinnings of augmenting historical scholarship on diasporas and minorities through linking and enriching dispersed collections, both in institutions and in the hands (and memory) of individuals. Her current research focuses on the affordances of Linked Open Data for dispersed collections, and the extraction of entities for the construction of historical networks.
Statement:
I am interested in running for a position on the IAART steering committee because I would like to contribute to the mission of the roundtable: I would like to be part of the dialogue regarding international archival affairs and initiatives; shape the discussion about emerging issues in the archival profession; and support the collaboration among archivists worldwide.
I see cultural heritage as a world value that transcends national borders. Many US archival collections cannot be understood without taking into consideration a place of reference and of origin (for example, the records of immigrants to the US). At the same time, the history of many countries cannot be understood without taking into consideration archival material in US archives (for example NARA records about the relations and activities of the US government with other countries). In short, all archival records are interlinked.
I would also like to contribute to the discussion about the education of archival students in a manner that promotes collaboration with colleagues abroad, and a better understanding of archival issues worldwide.