Awards and Scholarships

Outstanding Contributions

Distinguished Service Award

The NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDS COMMISSION (NHPRC) is the recipient of the 2009 Distinguished Service Award. The award recognizes an archival institution, education program, nonprofit organization, or governmental organization that has given outstanding service to its public and has made an exemplary contribution to the archives profession.

Executive Director Kathleen Williams accepted the award on behalf of the NHPRC. The selection committee said “the NHPRC Records Grant Program has arguably done more to advance our nation's archives and records programs, and the archival profession, than any other program or organization. SAA is especially pleased to acknowledge the service of the NHPRC to the archives profession this year, as 2009 marks the Commission's 75th anniversary.”

The NHPRC is the grant-making affiliate of the National Archives and Records Administration and supports a wide range of activities to preserve, publish, and encourage the use of documentary sources. The commission was established by the U.S. Congress in 1934 as the National Historical Publications Commission (NHPC). Its initial focus was documentary editing until 1974, when the commission began to include the collection and preservation of historical records held by state and local governments, as well as private organizations throughout the United States. The NHPC was then renamed the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.  

Sister M. Claude Lane, O.P., Memorial Award

ROBERT JOHNSON-LALLY, an archivist and records manager for the Archdiocese of Boston is the recipient of the 2009 Sister M. Claude Lane, O.P., Memorial Award. Johnson-Lally is being recognized for his leadership in safeguarding and advancing the Archdiocese of Boston’s archival program and collections during a “tumultuous period of institutional stress,” said the award selection committee. “His remarkable ability for advancing the leadership of others within the professional mantle is also noteworthy.”

Johnson-Lally served as president of the New England Archivists from 1990 to 1991 and is active in the Association of Catholic Diocesan Archivists, as well as SAA. He was part of a team that produced the Thesaurus of Catholic Diocesan Terms, and has written articles for the Encyclopedia of American Catholic History and the Catholic Social Science Review.  

Created in 1974, the award honors Sister M. Claude Lane, O.P., the first professionally trained archivist at the Catholic Archives of Texas in Austin, who served there from 1960 until her death in 1974. It is sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, in conjunction with the Society of Southwest Archivists. Nominees for this award must demonstrate involvement in SAA’s Religious Archives Section, contribute to archival literature relating to religious archives, show leadership in religious archives organizations, and/or leadership in a specific religious archive.  

Council Exemplary Service Award

The Council Exemplary Service Award honors individuals or groups for their outstanding service to SAA and the archives profession. This year’s recipients are DAVID B. GRACY II, of the University of Texas, Austin, and SAA’s INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY WORKING GROUP (IPWG). 

Gracy is the Governor Bill Daniel Professor in Archival Enterprise at UT-Austin, where he has worked since in 1986. He is being recognized for a 50-year career in the archives profession and his work as a teacher, administrator, researcher, historian, editor, and “as an advocate and ambassador for archives.”

Gracy played a role in the creation of the William and Margaret Kilgarlin Center for Preservation of the Cultural Record at UT’s School of Information. His early career included positions at the Texas State Archives and Georgia State University. He has taught archives education courses at the Modern Archives Institute, the Georgia Archives Institute, and the Western Archives Institute. Gracy was SAA president in 1983-1984, and served as president of the Academy of Certified Archivists. He is the author of Archives and Manuscripts: Arrangement and Description, published by SAA, and the editor of the Libraries & the Cultural Record journal.

The Intellectual Property Working Group was recognized by its peers for providing SAA and the Council with information and advice on intellectual property issues. The IPWG was established in 2001 and includes: Heather Briston (chair, University of Oregon), Jean Dryden (University of Maryland), Mark Allen Greene (University of Wyoming), Peter Hirtle (Cornell University), William Maher (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Aprille Cooke McKay (University of Michigan), Richard Pearce-Moses (Arizona State Library), and Margery Sly (Presbyterian Church USA).

The group tracks current legislation on the subject and testifies on SAA’s behalf when necessary. It also makes recommendations when SAA is asked to support litigation, and prepares position papers as well. “The IPWG has more than fulfilled its charge, evidenced by the confidence that the Council places in it as a source of expert advice on one of the most important topics addressed by the profession today,” said the selection committee.

In 2008 the IPWG acquired funding from the Research Libraries Group for an orphan works investigation best practices retreat. Several members of the IPWG helped produce a 15-page report titled “Orphan Works:Statement of Best Practices,” which provides the best methods to use when attempting to identify and locate copyright holders.


Public Awareness

J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award

ROSS KING, chair of the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Board, is the 2009 recipient of the J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award. The Jameson award honors an individual, institution, or organization that promotes greater public awareness, appreciation, or support of archives.

King is being recognized for his dedication to the cause of records preservation, including his effort to obtain stable sources of funding and leading the board in developing a policy on private donations. As deputy director of the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia, King coordinated a project in 2007 to survey Georgia’s recordkeeping practices and then produced a “Best Practices Guide” for statewide distribution.

He has been a member of the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Board since 2001 and became its chair in 2007. In naming his selection the award committee said, “King’s advocacy on behalf of archives has raised the understanding of the value of archives among local, state and federal officials who will be important future supporters of archival initiatives.”

Established in 1989, the award is named for the noted American historian J. Franklin Jameson, who was a long-time advocate for the establishment of a National Archives in the United States.  

Philip M. Hamer and Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Award

The WARD M. CANADAY CENTER FOR SPECIAL COLLECTIONS at the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio, is the 2009 recipient of the Philip M. Hamer and Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Award. The center was recognized for its exhibit and publication titled "From Institutions to Independence: A History of People with Disabilities in Northwest Ohio.” Director Barbara Floyd accepted the award on behalf of the center during a ceremony at ARCHIVES 2009.

The Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections is being recognized for its outstanding efforts to promote the collections of its Regional Disability History Archive. In making its selection, the award committee noted the exhibit and catalog “sought to highlight a segment of society that has too often been omitted from the historical record. While the exhibit largely focused on institutions and groups from northwest Ohio, it sought to place the local experience within a national context to provide viewers with the larger picture of disability history.” A virtual exhibit is available at: http://homepages.utoledo.edu/ASabhar/DVX/index.html.

The Hamer Kegan Award was established in 1973 and is named for two SAA Fellows and former presidents. The award recognizes individuals or institutions that have increased public awareness of archival documents.


Writing/Publishing Excellence

C.F.W. Coker Award

A two-volume guide describing archival materials about the U.S. military’s  participation in World War II has been awarded the C.F.W. Coker Award this year.  World War II: Guide to Records Relating to U.S. Military Participation was published in 2008 by the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C. It was compiled by TIMOTHY MULLIGAN and edited by REBECCA L. COLLIER, JUDITH KOUCKY, and PATRICK R. OSBORN, all of the National Archives.

The C.F.W. Coker Award recognizes finding aids, finding aid systems, innovative development in archival description, or descriptive tools that enable archivists to produce more effective finding aids. To merit consideration for the award, nominees must set national standards, represent a model for archival description, or otherwise have a substantial impact on national descriptive practice.

“This guide has the potential to make a tremendous impact on national and international scholarly research and will serve as a seminal reference tool for archivists and librarians in describing records and assisting researchers for years to come,” noted the selection committee.

Established in 1984, the award honors the memory of SAA Fellow C.F.W. Coker.

Waldo Gifford Leland Award

The 2009 Waldo Gifford Leland Award goes to PHILIP C. BANTIN for his book, Understanding Data and Information Systems for Recordkeeping. The award is given for writing of superior excellence and usefulness in the fields of archival history, theory, or practice. 

Bantin is the director of Archives Specialization and an adjunct associate professor in the School of Library and Information Sciences at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. His award-winning book was published by Neal-Schuman Publishers. It outlines changes in electronic records management, provides definitions of key terms, describes different kinds of recordkeeping systems, and looks at the need for good e-mail management and laws relating to electronic records management.

“The narrative makes these complex territories understandable to all levels of the profession, from those beginning in the field to those who are senior in the profession,” the award selection committee remarked. “This work is at once useful and ultimately readable.

Established in 1959, the Waldo Gifford Leland Award is named for one of North America’s archival pioneers and SAA’s second president.

Preservation Publication Award

The AIC GUIDE TO DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY AND CONSERVATION DOCUMENTATION, produced by the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) of Historic and Artistic Works, is the 2009 winner of the Preservation Publication Award. The award recognizes authors or editors of an outstanding published work related to archives preservation.

The AIC is a national membership organization of conservation professionals who work to preserve art and historic artifacts of cultural value for future generations. The guide was developed and written by AIC’s Digital Photographic Documentation Task Force and edited by Jeffrey Warda. It gives recommendations on the best way to use digital photographic equipment when working on document conservation, and addresses concerns about long-term accessibility and preservation of the electronic records created during the process.

“The AIC Guide is a collaborative venture drawing on the expertise of conservators, faculty, researchers, and photographers,” the award selection committee said. “It is particularly useful in terms of having all the knowledge you need for camera-ready and digitization projects, essentially at your fingertips.”

Fellows’ Ernst Posner Award

The 2009 Fellows’ Ernst Posner Award has been awarded to GEOFFREY YEO of University College London for his article “Concepts of Record (2): Prototypes and Boundary Objects” (American Archivist vol. 71, no. 1). Yeo is a lecturer in records management and archives at University College London.

Established in 1982, this award recognizes an outstanding essay dealing with some facet of archival administration, history, theory, and/or methodology that was published during the preceding year in SAA’s semi-annual journal, the American Archivist.

“This work displays an unusual blend of innovative thinking, cross-disciplinary research, graceful writing, and practical applicability to the profession.The result is clearly innovative and thought provoking, pushing the boundaries of the definition of “record”—our most central defining concept as a profession,” the selection committee said.

“Yeo’s insights, especially when coupled with suggestions for their practical application, are timely given the realities of record making and recordkeeping in our digital era and the increasing mergers (or at least greater convergence) of archives, libraries, and museums in many jurisdictions,” they added.   

An Honorable Mention was given to Adrian Cunningham of the National Archives of Australia for his essay, “Digital Curation/Digital Archiving: A View from the National Archives of Australia” (American Archivist vol. 71, no. 2).

The Posner award is named for Ernst Posner, an SAA Fellow and former president, as well as a distinguished author.

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Theodore Calvin Pease Award

KATHLEEN FEAR has been named the winner of SAA’s 2009 Theodore Calvin Pease Award for her graduate student paper “User Understanding of Metadata in Digital Image Collections.”  

Fear recently earned a master’s of science degree with a specialization in preservation of information from the University of Michigan School of Information. She plans to continue her studies in the school’s doctoral program this fall. The Pease award recognizes superior writing achievement by a student enrolled in archival administration classes or engaged in formal archival internship programs, and includes forthcoming publication in SAA’s semi-annual journal, the American Archivist. Fear’s paper will be published in the spring/summer 2010 issue.

Fear’s paper explores the usefulness of Dublin Core metadata for non-expert users searching in digitized image collections. It will be published in the Spring 2010 issue of the American Archivist. “It is relevant to many repositories mounting digital collections in a more-product-less-process environment and has implications for metadata application, one of the more costly aspects of publishing digital materials online,” the selection committee noted.

“The findings clearly point to problematic elements in Dublin Core that affect how images are viewed as evidence (or not), but, in an age of archivists looking for ways to be more economical, this study does show the utility of the minimal Dublin Core,” they added. 

Established in 1987, the award is named for the first editor of the American Archivist.

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Scholarships

Mosaic Scholarship

This year the SAA Mosaic Scholarship made its debut and was awarded to two minority students pursuing graduate education in archival science: JANET CEJA of the University of Pittsburgh and HARRISON W. INEFUKU of the University of British Columbia.

The Mosaic Scholarship provides $5,000 in financial aid and offers mentoring support to encourage students to pursue a career as an archivist. The scholarship was established in 2008 to promote diversification of the American archives profession. It is given to applicants who demonstrate potential for scholastic and personal achievement and who manifest a commitment both to the archives profession and to advancing diversity concerns within it.

Ceja is enrolled as a second-year Ph.D candidate in the Library and Information Science Program at the University of Pittsburgh. She entered Pitt’s archival studies program in 2007 after working as a film archivist in Los Angeles. Ceja said she will focus her dissertation research on “archival methodologies used by Latinos as a tool of social practice and resistance. My work raises questions about the development of archives by this group but at the same time, seeks to help attract underrepresented populations to archival work.”

Inefuku is a graduate student in the joint Master of Archival Studies and Master of Library and Information Studies Program at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He earned undergraduate degrees in graphic design and visual culture from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. “My primary research interest lies in the position of the National Archives of South Africa (and its predecessor) within the apartheid government and in post-apartheid South Africa,” said Inefuku.

In addition to the scholarship, each recipient was given a one-year membership in SAA and complimentary registration to ARCHIVES 2009.

 F. Gerald Ham Scholarship

ANDY (JONATHAN) UHRICH won the F. Gerald Ham Scholarship in 2009, which recognizes an individual’s past performance in a graduate archival studies program and his or her potential in the field. The award gives Uhrich $7,500 in tuition assistance toward his second year of graduate study in the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.  

“It makes going to school in New York possible,” Uhrich said. “This scholarship is integral to me being able to continue my studies and expand my skills and understanding of the archival field.” He plans to graduate with a master’s degree in 2010.

Uhrich earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of South Carolina-Columbia in 1994. He has been involved in the field of film in a number of positions in Chicago—as assistant technical director for the Gene Siskel Film Center, manager of film and media operations at the University of Chicago’s Film Studies Center, and director of collections and programming for the Chicago Film Archives. He is currently an intern at the Anthology Film Archives in New York, working on a preservation project of Sidney Peterson films.

The F. Gerald Ham Scholarship Fund was established in 1998 by SAA Fellow and past president F. Gerald Ham and his wife Elsie. The endowed fund was awarded for the first time in 2008. Uhrich is the third recipient of this scholarship.

 Colonial Dames Scholarship Scholarship Awards

MARIA DAY and AMANDA KLAUS each won a Colonial Dames of America Scholarship in 2009, which provides archivists entering the profession an opportunity to attend the Modern Archives Institute at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.

Day is the assistant director of Special Collections at the Maryland State Archives in Annapolis, Maryland. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D in Art History from the University of Maryland. Day previously worked as public programs manager for the Historic Annapolis Foundation. She attended the Winter 2009 Modern Archives Institute in January.

Klaus attended the institute’s summer session in June. Klaus is a student in the Museum Studies Department at the University of Missouri, St. Louis and works as a graduate assistant archivist for the university’s Western Historical Manuscripts Collection. She is pursuing a master’s degree in museum studies and earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri.

Established in 1974, the scholarship provides $1,200 toward tuition, travel, and housing expenses associated with attending the institute. To be eligible for this scholarship, an individual must be employed less than two years as an archivist and work in an archives or manuscripts collection where a fair percentage of the repository’s holdings predate 1825.

The Colonial Dames of America (CDA) is an international society of women whose direct ancestors held positions of leadership in the Colonies and was founded in 1890. The award is funded by CDA’s Chapter III in Washington, D.C.


Travel Awards

Oliver Wendell Holmes Travel Award

RICARDO L. PUNZALAN, a professor in archival studies at the University of the Phillipines in Manila, is the recipient of the 2009 Oliver Wendell Holmes Travel Award. The award enables overseas archivists who are already in the United States or Canada for training to build upon their experience by traveling to SAA’s annual meeting.

Punzalan is currently a PhD candidate studying at the University of Michigan’s School of Information. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degree in library science at the University of the Philippines, where he taught Archival Studies before taking a leave of absence to undertake his doctoral work. Punzalan’s research interests include collective memory, and how minority and marginalized communities are documented by archives.

“In addition to giving colleagues from around the world the opportunity to learn about the work of SAA and meet a wide array of archivists from North America, the members of SAA also benefit from the insights and experience that our international colleagues can bring to us,” members of the selection committee said. 

Established in 1979, this award honors SAA Fellow and former President Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Harold T. Pinkett Minority Student Award

KRYSTAL APPIAH and I-TING EMILY CHU are the joint recipients of the 2009 Harold T. Pinkett Minority Student Award. The award recognizes minority graduate students of African, Asian, Latino, or Native American descent who, through scholastic achievement, manifest an interest in becoming professional archivists and active members of SAA.

Appiah earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Brown University. She is currently enrolled in the Master of Library and Information Sciences Program at the University of California, Los Angeles. Appiah has expressed an interest in developing archival programs that reach out to African-American communities, and plans to graduate with a degree in public history to meet her goal of expanding archival programming and outreach to minority communities. 

Chu is a graduate student in the archival management program at New York University (NYU). She is a recipient of the Asian/Pacific/American (A/P/A) Institute graduate assistantship and works with the institute’s archival materials in the Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Chu also works on materials produced by Asian CineVision, which has placed its archives at NYU. She recently presented a poster at the National Council on Public History’s 2009 Annual Meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, and organized a session on Asian-American collecting efforts for the Archivists Roundtable of Metropolitan New York, Inc. 

The minority student award was established in 1993 and honors the late Dr. Harold T. Pinkett, an SAA Fellow who worked for the National Archives and Records Administration.

Donald Peterson Student Scholarship

JESSICA SEDGWICK is the recipient of the Society of American Archivists’ 2009 Donald Peterson Student Scholarship, which recognizes a graduate student or recent graduate for exceptional leadership and the desire to become actively involved in the archives profession.

Sedgwick earned a master’s degree in library science from the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC) in August, 2008. She worked as a student processor for the university’s Southern Historical Collection as a graduate student, and was hired as a manuscripts processor by UNC after graduation. Sedgwick now works as the Archivist for Women in Medicine at the Center for the History of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

“Her solid education and growing experience, when combined with a thoughtful and creative approach to archival practices, have her at the cusp of what is certain to be a long career in archives in which she contributes not just to the institutions where she works, but the profession as a whole,” one of her nominators noted.

Sedgwick participated in a session titled “The Real Archives 2.0: Studies of Use, Views, and Potential for Web 2.0” at ARCHIVES 2009.   

The Donald Peterson Student Scholarship was established in 2005 and honors the memory of Donald Peterson (1908–1999), a New York lawyer and philatelist. Sedgwick is the fourth recipient of the award.