The Society of American Archivists (SAA) will honor the accomplishments and innovations of twenty-five outstanding individuals and organizations at the Joint Annual Meeting of the Council of State Archivists, the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators, and SAA in Washington, DC, August 10–16, 2014. Award categories include outstanding contributions to the archives profession, advocacy and public awareness, writing and publishing excellence, and scholarships and travel awards.
Below is a list of the 2014 recipients. (Please note that the Distinguished Service Award, Fellows' Ernst Posner Award, and the Oliver Wendell Holmes Award were not given out in 2014.)
Trevor Owens, a digital archivist with the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program at the Library of Congress, is the 2014 recipient of the Archival Innovator Award. Established in 2012, the Archival Innovator Award recognizes archivists, repositories, or organizations that show creativity in approaching professional challenges or the ability to think outside the professional norm or that have an extraordinary impact on a community through archives programs or outreach.
Owens has led a plethora of creative initiatives that in some way have helped to move the archives profession forward. He has conserved and organized innovative events to bring the preservation community together; for instance, he led the Preservation.exe: Toward a National Strategy for Preserving Software conference at the Library of Congress as well as the Curatecamp: Exhibition “unconference” that brought together archivists, preservationists, and digital collection managers to discuss what access and exhibition mean for archives and archivists in the era of online platforms and delivery.
Owens’ work also has led to a number of practical tools and documents for the archives community, including the Levels of Digital Preservation framework document, which demystifies digital preservation best practices and provides a tiered implementation model accessible to any institution regardless of size, staff, or budget.
One supporter wrote that Owens “displays a remarkable ability to take an idea and steward it into a project, product, or outcome that has tangible benefits. . . . He is capable of engaging with complex, theoretical ideas and distilling them into language that all archivists—students and leaders—can understand.”
The Remixing Archival Metadata Project (RAMP) by the University of Miami Libraries is the 2014 recipient of the C.F.W. Coker Award from SAA. The team members who worked on this project are: Tim Thompson, Matt Carruthers, Andrew Darby, David Gonzalez, and Jamie Little.
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 archives description, or otherwise have a substantial impact on national descriptive practice.
Over the years, the archives community has produced a body of detailed biographical descriptions that support access to the broader social and historical context surrounding archival and special collections. The emerging archival authorities format, EAC-CPF (Encoded Archival Context–Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families), provides a framework for encoding those descriptions and establishing a dialog between librarians and archivists regarding name authority control. The RAMP editor is a web-based tool for generating and disseminating EAC-CPF records. The RAMP editor successfully brings together librarians and archivists with a diverse range of skills around a project with a singular goal: to make descriptive work more accessible to the public by making archival description dynamic and reusable.
As one supporter noted, “The RAMP project is innovative because it allows for the enhancement and transformation of archival description into other useful forms beyond the traditional finding aid.”
Established in 1984, the award honors SAA Fellow C.F.W. Coker.
Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Program, led by Nicolás Kanellos and Carolina Villarroel at the University of Houston, is a 2014 recipient of the Diversity Award. The award recognizes an individual, group, or institution for outstanding contributions in advancing diversity within the archives profession, SAA, or the archival record.
The Recovery Program is being honored for its outstanding achievement in accessioning important Latino archives, organizing and describing them, and making them available broadly to educational institutions and communities via publication and electronic delivery. The program has accessioned, organized, and described such important collections like that of Leonor Villegas de Magnón, a Laredo activist who in the early twentieth century recruited Anglo Texan, Mexican American, and Mexican women for a nursing corps to tend to the wounded and fallen on the battlefields of the Mexican Revolution. As an early feminist, she documented the role of women in her writings. Recovery also has assembled the world’s largest collection of microfilmed Hispanic newspapers published in the United States from 1808 to 1960.
“[This program] has made these records accessible to increasingly larger numbers of researchers who have in turn significantly impacted the development of Latino Studies,” one supporter wrote. “This has become obvious in scholarly conferences that I have attended and noticed increasing numbers of scholars acknowledging the use of digitized records made available by the program.”
Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Program joins Jennifer O’Neal, university historian and archivist at the University of Oregon Libraries, as the 2014 recipients of the Diversity Award.
Jennifer O’Neal, Corrigan Solari University Historian and Archivist at the University of Oregon (UO) Libraries, is a 2014 recipient of the Diversity Award.
Throughout her career, O’Neal has made contributions that reflect the criteria for the Diversity Award, particularly to American Indian and other indigenous groups. O’Neal joined SAA in 2003, helping to found the Native American Archives Roundtable in 2005. After participating in the drafting of the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials in 2006, she participated in a multiyear process to bring awareness about the Protocols and advocated strongly for an SAA endorsement, which had a major impact on the profession’s discussion of Native American archives. O’Neal has continued to take leadership roles and advance issues of diversity via SAA’s Native American Protocols Forum Working Group and through the formation of SAA’s new Cultural Heritage Working Group, for which she currently serves as co-chair.
At UO, O’Neal was a lead instructor for the Oregon Tribal Archives Institute, an initiative that helped provide basic archival training to archivists, records managers, curators, and cultural resources specialists affiliated with Oregon’s nine federally recognized tribes. In addition, she co-teaches a UO honors college course on race and ethnicity in the American West, specifically focusing on the hidden history of the Northern Paiute tribal community.
One supporter noted that O’Neal’s “combined educational endeavors, publications, and continued service to the profession and to tribal communities across the nation make [her] an incredible model for other archivists to strive to emulate.”
O’Neal joins the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project at the University of Houston as the 2014 recipients of the Diversity Award.
Michelle Chiles, a 2013 graduate from Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science, is the 2014 recipient of the Donald Peterson Student Travel Award given by the Society of American Archivists. Established in 2005, the award supports students and recent graduates from graduate archival programs within North America to attend SAA’s Annual Meeting. The goal of the scholarship is to stimulate greater participation in the activities of the organization, such as presenting research or actively participating in an SAA-sponsored committee, section, or roundtable.
As a founding member and former co-chair of the New England Archivists’ (NEA) Roundtable for Early Professionals and Students (REPS), Chiles helped implement a pilot mentoring circles program. Chiles will be sharing her perspectives at the Joint Annual Meeting during the session “A Push in the Right Direction: Expanding Models of Mentorship.”
One supporter noted that Chiles consistently “push[es] the profession forward and advocate[s] for students and new professionals in the archival profession. In particular, her work with REPS . . . [has pushed] NEA to recognize and address the concerns of new professionals and students.”
The Donald Peterson Student Travel Award was established in 2005 and honors the memory of New York lawyer and philatelist Donald Peterson
Beth Shields, the electronic records analyst at the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives (KDLA), and an electronic records consultant for the Council of State Archivists (CoSA), is the 2014 recipient of the Emerging Leader Award.
Created in 2011, the Emerging Leader Award celebrates and encourages early career archivists who have completed archival work of broad merit, demonstrated significant promise of leadership, performed commendable service to the archives profession, or have accomplished a combination of these requirements.
In her work at KDLA, Shields works to improve Kentucky’s electronic records management policies and procedures. Her contributions help to ensure that Kentucky government records will be properly managed and preserved, regardless of format. As the co-chair of CoSA’s State Electronic Records Initiative, Shields provides insight and coordination for this large and important collaborative project that has far-reaching implications for electronic records and digital preservation in all state and territorial archives.
The Award Committee noted that Shields brings “a unique combination of vision and in-depth knowledge of the archival enterprise, along with a collaborative spirit that clearly marks her as an emerging leader in [the archives] profession.”
William J. Levay, a graduate student in the School of Information and Library Science at Pratt Institute in New York City, is the 2014 recipient of the Elsie and F. Gerald Ham Scholarship. The award offers $7,500 in financial support to a graduate student in his or her second year of archival studies at a US university. Scholarship selection criteria include the applicant’s past performance in his or her graduate program in archival studies as well as faculty members’ assessment of the student’s prospects for contributing to the archives profession.
Prior to attending Pratt Institute, Levay worked as a processing archivist and graduate assistant at New York University’s Fales Library and Special Collections as well as the archives assistant at the Associated Press (AP) Corporate Archives. In this position, Levay processed the Vienna Bureau Records, a large collection of news wires dating from the 1950s through the 1990s, sent to the Vienna Bureau from AP correspondents working behind the Iron Curtain. During his time at Pratt, Levay has furthered his involvement in the archives profession through internships, part-time work, and participation in workshops and conferences offered by the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York, the New York Archives Conference, and the Association for Recorded Sound Collections. Levay's interests include digital archives and linked data. He currently works as a graduate assistant on the Linked Jazz project and he was the sole developer of the new website of the ARChive of Contemporary Music.
“There is no doubt in my mind that [Levay] will go on to make valuable and imaginative contributions, no matter what type of library or archival work he lands,” one supporter wrote. “He has all the ingredients for success: curiosity, optimism, hard work, [and] humor.”
The award was created in 1998 by SAA Fellow, past president, and longtime member F. Gerald Ham and his wife Elsie.
Frederick J. Stielow, vice president and dean (emeritus) of libraries, electronic course materials, and ePress for the American Public University System (APUS), will be inducted as a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) during a ceremony at the Joint Annual Meeting of the Council of State Archivists, the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators, and SAA in Washington, DC, August 10–16, 2014. The distinction of Fellow is the highest honor bestowed on individuals by SAA and is awarded for outstanding contributions to the archives profession.
Stielow earned master’s degrees in history and library and archival science, as well as a dual doctorate in American studies and history at Indiana University. He went on to accrue more than thirty years’ experience as an educator, consultant, and manager in archives and related fields. His managerial experience is diverse; in one of his first professional positions, Stielow served as head of archives and special collections at the then University of Southwestern Louisiana, a major center for the revival of the Cajun and Creole heritage. Later in his career, he headed Wayne State University’s Walter Reuther Library, the country’s premier labor archives repository with a staff of twenty-five.
Stielow also undertook a productive decade-long interlude as an archival educator. He served as the director of the history/library science program at the University of Maryland and built a new archival concentration at the Catholic University of America.
“[Stielow] has made considerable contributions to the archival profession in his role as an archival educator,” one supporter wrote. “He has trained archivists in several different graduate programs and through his writing, but more importantly, he regularly informs, challenges, and engages our community to think about new approaches, clarify existing practices to ensure their rationality and application, and to constantly move forward in our approaches.”
In 2004, he was solicited to build a virtual library as part of regional accreditation efforts at APUS, a virtual university serving 100,000-plus students in more than 120 countries. In less than a decade, Stielow grew collections from 20,000 volumes and 8,000 serials to 170,000 ebooks and multiyear runs of 53,000 journals. Access increased by 3,000 percent and searches now exceed 100,000,000 annually. These efforts resulted in his recent selection as the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2014 Distance Librarian of the Year.
Stielow has been an active member of SAA for thirty years, serving on the ALA/SAA/American Alliance of Museums Committee on Archives, Libraries, and Museums; the Harold T. Pinkett Minority Student Award Committee; and the ALA–SAA Joint Committee.
Stielow is one of five new Fellows named in 2014. There are currently 179 Fellows of the Society of American Archivists.
Mark Duffy, director of The Archives of the Episcopal Church, will be inducted as a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) during a ceremony at the Joint Annual Meeting of the Council of State Archivists, the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators, and SAA in Washington, DC, August 10–16, 2014. The distinction of Fellow is the highest honor bestowed on individuals by SAA and is awarded for outstanding contributions to the archives profession.
Duffy earned a master’s degree in history and archives from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and achieved doctoral candidacy at the School of Information, University of Texas at Austin. Duffy worked in a variety of institutions early in his career. Serving as the chief archivist and project director for the City of Boston Archives, Duffy was responsible for initiating and administering a comprehensive municipal archives and records management program for the first time for the city. Duffy also worked at Harvard University for six years, as associate curator for University Records and Planning and later as associate director for the Harvard Depository. “It is not always easy to make the change from a government records program to a university, nor is it easy to administer records in an academic setting. [Duffy] flourished in the academic setting. . . . The outstanding abilities [Duffy] evidenced by balancing current records work within an academic library setting is a testament to his intelligence and commitment to archives programs,” one supporter wrote.
Duffy has held his current position as director of The Archives of the Episcopal Church since 1992. “He successfully educated the bishop and senior staff about the lifecycle of records and gained their support to build the archives—almost from scratch,” one supporter wrote. His astute and resourceful development of the church archives, and his masterful implementation of records systems and a digital archives program there, has made it one of the soundest programs among religious archives in the country.
As Duffy built the archives of the Episcopal Church, he published articles and manuals on religious archives, which have won awards and become standards in the professional literature. Duffy’s stature in his field of specialization was recognized in 2012 when he was the recipient of the SAA and Society of Southwest Archivists’ Sister M. Claude Lane, O.P., Memorial Award for his significant contributions to the field of religious archives.
Duffy also has made distinguished contributions to SAA. He has served in a variety of leadership positions, starting with the Archivists of Religious Collections Section, then as a member of the Nominating Committee, the SAA Council, co-chair of the 2009 Program Committee, and currently as treasurer of SAA and the SAA Foundation. Duffy was central to the development of the SAA Foundation since first serving on the Council; he initiated and stewarded the 2013 annual fund drive, which brought in $40,000 in donations.
“[Duffy] has never been satisfied with the status quo, and certainly not with mediocrity. He pays attention to the tiny details while always thinking of the big picture, and he never shirks a job that needs to be done if it means progress toward the short- and long-term goals,” one supporter wrote.
Duffy is one of five new Fellows named in 2014. There are currently 179 Fellows of the Society of American Archivists.
Merrilee Proffitt, senior program officer at OCLC Research, will be inducted as a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) during a ceremony at the Joint Annual Meeting of the Council of State Archivists, the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators, and SAA in Washington, DC, August 10–16, 2014. The distinction of Fellow is the highest honor bestowed on individuals by SAA and is awarded for outstanding contributions to the archives profession.
Proffitt graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of California at Berkeley. While pursing that degree, she discovered her passion for archives working as the office manager for the Regional Oral History Office (ROHO) at the Bancroft Library at Berkeley. Throughout her career, Proffitt has been a trailblazer. While serving in positions of increasing responsibility leading up to director of digital archive development at the Bancroft Library, she was a key project team member for a number of the library’s pioneering digital projects, including the California Heritage Collection, an online archive of more than thirty thousand images illustrating California’s history and culture, and the Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives, which provides documentation of the experience of Japanese Americans in World War II internment camps.
In 2004, while working at the Research Libraries Group (RLG), Proffitt was part of a team that authored the RLG Best Practice Guidelines for Encoded Archival Description, a guide that went on to receive the 2004 C.F.W. Coker Award from SAA. “This important initiative in archival description, which involved a two-continent collaboration, would never have come together without [Proffitt’s] knowledge, energy, enthusiasm, and diplomatic skills,” one supporter wrote.
In her current role at OCLC Research, Proffitt leads the research project Mobilizing Unique Materials, an initiative that seeks new collaborative methods that will allow the unique materials found in libraries, archives, and museums to be “effectively described, properly disclosed, successfully discovered, and appropriately delivered.” In the process of shaping and executing this initiative, she’s authored papers on the scholarly and teaching impact of digitizing collections, as well as organizing events that help shape a new professional point of view, such as the conference Past Forward! Meeting Stakeholder Needs in 21st-Century Special Collections.
One of Proffitt’s supporters noted that she has an “unstoppable quest to improve the profession. She has the intelligence to identify areas in which archives can improve, and the indomitable will to move an archival agenda forward. . . . Proffitt has been the kind of person on whom others rely to get a job done, but to whom they also turn when they want to learn.”
Proffitt is one of five new Fellows named in 2014. There are currently 179 Fellows of the Society of American Archivists.
Michelle Light, Director of Special Collections at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries, will be inducted as a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) during a ceremony at the Joint Annual Meeting of the Council of State Archivists, the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators, and SAA in Washington, DC, August 10–16, 2014. The distinction of Fellow is the highest honor bestowed on individuals by SAA and is awarded for outstanding contributions to the archives profession.
Light earned master of science in information and master of arts in history degrees from the University of Michigan. Light has held important positions of progressive responsibility at five repositories over the course of her fifteen-year career. In each of her professional roles, she has had a transformative impact on her repository, advancing it in new strategic directions. In her first professional position as an archivist at Yale University, she developed a database of archival authority records for Yale University units that informed her contributions to the international group that created Encoded Archival Context. Later in her career, Light broke new ground at the University of California–Irvine. Working as the head of Special Collections, Archives, and Digital Scholarship, she implemented a virtual reading room that allows researchers near and far to access born-digital records. She also led a multicampus taskforce in creating “Guidelines for Efficient Archival Processing.” Within the first year working in her current role, Light has established infrastructure to sustain an ambitious collecting program to document the Southern Nevada region, completed a staff reorganization that will allow Special Collections to work more effectively, and carried out a strategic planning process that set direction for her division and contributes to the UNLV Libraries’ aspirations.
Light has served SAA in a variety of leadership positions, including an active role on the American Archivist Editorial Board as well as on the Council, for which she played a critical role in the group’s efforts to create a new strategic plan for SAA.
“Light is one of the most creative and accomplished archivists of her generation, and her achievements have had a lasting impact on the field,” one supporter wrote. “Her intelligence, creativity, work ethic, collegial nature, scholarly aptitude, and commitment to archives are of the highest level.”
Light is one of five new Fellows named in 2014. There are currently 179 Fellows of the Society of American Archivists.
Stephen E. Novak, head of archives and special collections at the Columbia University Medical Center, will be inducted as a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) during a ceremony at the Joint Annual Meeting of the Council of State Archivists, the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators, and SAA in Washington, DC, August 10–16, 2014. The distinction of Fellow is the highest honor bestowed on individuals by SAA and is awarded for outstanding contributions to the archives profession.
Novak earned a master of arts in history degree from New York University. Throughout his career, Novak has worked in an array of archival repositories with increasing levels of responsibility. In his first professional position as a field archivist at Seton Hall University, Novak conducted on-site surveys of historic and current records in institutions across New Jersey. In that position, Novak “immediately exhibited several traits that have characterized his archival career ever since,” one supporter wrote. “Rather than focus narrowly on his own particular project, he demonstrated a wide-ranging curiosity that extended to every aspect of archival administration.” Later, as archivist at The Julliard School, Novak took on the daunting task of establishing an archives and records management program at the institution. He not only accomplished this task, he also helped produce an award-winning guide to the collections and made the archives a vital part of the organization. Novak has held his position at the Columbia University Medical Center since 1997 and is responsible for administering all aspects of the collection, which includes the archives of the Columbia University Medical Center and a rare book collection of 27,000 volumes.
Novak also has taken an active role in several groups within SAA. Perhaps most significant is that he was one of the founders of the Lesbian and Gay Archives Roundtable (LAGAR), a group that has become a strong voice within SAA for the concerns of lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgendered (LBGT) collections and archivists. Novak was an enthusiastic member of the LAGAR committee that oversaw the creation of Lavender Legacies (1998), the first formal and comprehensive guide to primary source material relating to the history and culture of LBGT people held by North American repositories. Novak also has served on SAA’s Science, Technology, and Health Care Roundtable’s Steering Committee and as a co-chair.
“[Novak] has been a constructive contributor to the archival scene in New York City for approximately thirty years and also has made his mark on the national level,” one supporter wrote. “He has left behind a better program at every institution he has worked at, and he advocates for archives at every opportunity with style and enthusiasm.”
Novak is one of five new Fellows named in 2014. There are currently 179 Fellows of the Society of American Archivists.
Allan Jason Sarmiento, a graduate student in the Capital Campus Public History Program at California State University, Sacramento, is a 2014 recipient of the 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.
Sarmiento is pursuing a master of arts in public history degree with a concentration in archives and manuscripts and has gained professional experience through working at the California State Archives, the Center for Sacramento History, and the Yolo County Archives, among other institutions. Sarmiento also had a leading role in establishing the Welga! Archives at the University of California, Davis’s George Kagiwada Reserves Library. The archives’ mission is to store and make accessible primary source materials detailing Filipino-American labor history.
Sarmiento’s passion for the archives profession is evident, and he shares that passion with others. “On his initiative, [Sarmiento] reinstated the long-dormant SAA Student Chapter at CSU Sacramento and was elected its president,” one supporter wrote. “He has energized the group of student members to become active in the field by coordinating scholarly, hands-on, philanthropic, and social activities.”
Established in 1993, the award honors the late Dr. Harold T. Pinkett, who served with distinction during his long tenure at the National Archives and Records Administration and who was a Fellow of SAA. Also receiving the Pinkett Award this year is Raquel Flores-Clemons, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Raquel Flores-Clemons, a graduate student in the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is a 2014 recipient of the 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.
While pursuing her master’s degree, Flores-Clemons has served as an active member of an archive that seeks to identify, collect, and preserve digital and paper records that document the creative process and practices of members of Midwest hip-hop communities. She also works as a volunteer at Figure One Gallery and Exhibition Lab Space, where she organizes and creates metadata for imported and original born-digital oral histories, among other tasks.
“[Flores-Clemons] has shown exceptional interest and dedication to the field of librarianship, archiving, and special collections,” one supporter noted. “She is goal-oriented and focused with a specific area of interest and shows a keen understanding of the importance of maintaining visual documentation of our cultural history.”
Established in 1993, the award honors the late Dr. Harold T. Pinkett, who served with distinction during his long tenure at the National Archives and Records Administration and who was a Fellow of SAA. Also receiving the Pinkett Award this year is Allan Jason Sarmiento, a graduate student at California State University, Sacramento.
National History Day (NHD) and its executive director, Dr. Cathy Gorn, are 2014 recipients of the J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award. The award honors an individual, institution, or organization that promotes greater public awareness, appreciation, or support of archives.
Celebrating its fortieth anniversary in 2014, NHD is an academic program in which middle and high school students choose historical topics related to a theme and conduct extensive primary and secondary research through archives, libraries, museums, oral history interviews, and historic sites. After analyzing and interpreting their sources and drawing conclusions about their topics’ significance in history, students present their work in original papers, websites, exhibits, performances, and documentaries.
“A large number of [NHD participants] go on to become lifelong friends of archives and the archival endeavor,” one supporter said. “History Day creates a large cadre of citizen ambassadors for archives, many of whom may develop into donors, financial supporters, and public advocates later in life.”
Established in 1989, the award is named for the noted American historian J. Franklin Jameson. National History Day joins the LGBT Center of Central PA History Project as 2014 recipients of the award.
The Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Center of Central PA History Project is a 2014 recipient of the J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award given by the Society of American Archivists (SAA). The award honors an individual, institution, or organization that promotes greater public awareness, appreciation, or support of archives.
The LGBT History Project collects and presents the stories of LGBT history in central Pennsylvania as told by those who lived them, through written accounts and video interviews. Started in August 2012, the ongoing project has completed video oral history interviews with twenty-six individuals and collected about ten cubic feet of archival and artifact materials. The LGBT Center has developed a partnership with the Dickinson College Archives in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to receive, catalog, store, and make available to researchers and the public the archival and artifact collections donated to the LGBT History Project.
The Award Committee was particularly impressed by LGBT Center’s efforts to coordinate with archival programs to ensure permanent and professional care of the collections. The committee also commended the center for providing website access to those collections.
Established in 1989, the award is named for the noted American historian J. Franklin Jameson. The LGBT Center of Central PA History Project joins National History Day as the 2014 recipients of the J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award.
Joanna Chen is the 2014 recipient of the Josephine Forman Scholarship. The $10,000 scholarship provides financial support to minority students pursuing graduate education in archival science, encourages students to pursue careers as archivists, and promotes the diversification of the American archives profession.
Chen, who is now pursuing a master of library and information science degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, discovered her passion for archives while working at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, where she processed collections, created finding aids, researched for exhibitions, led workshops, and provided reference for diverse communities.
One supporter noted that Chen is “deeply and reflexively engaged in thinking about the archival field and ways to increase its diversity. At the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, she translated and gave tours in Taiwanese and Mandarin, reached out to the Chinese-American community, and created an exhibit on African American liberators.”
She continues her professional work while she pursues her degree at UCLA, working as an archive assistant at the Ralph J. Bunche Center Archive to process and create finding aids for special collections focused on African American Studies.
The Josephine Forman Scholarship was established in 2010 by the General Commission on Archives and History of the United Methodist Church and is named for Josephine Forman, who served as archivist for eighteen years at the Southwest Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church.
Maria E. Sánchez-Tucker, a master’s student in the Library and Information Science program at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM), is a 2014 recipient of the Mosaic Scholarship. The Mosaic Scholarship provides funding to students who demonstrate potential for scholastic and personal achievement and who manifest a commitment both to the archival profession and to advancing diversity concerns within it.
Prior to attending UWM, Sánchez-Tucker earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of New Mexico and a master’s degree in museum science from Texas Tech University. Sánchez-Tucker took on the challenging position as the founding and executive director of the Bessemer Historical Society (BHS) in Pueblo, Colorado, a historical society that focused on the preservation of a large corporate archives and historic complex. While working at BHS, Sánchez-Tucker raised $6.5 million to renovate an historic building so it could become the Steelworks Museum and Archives. She later went on to work as the manager of the Special Collections and Western History Department and InfoZone News Museum, where she was responsible for developing a digitization program.
“[Sánchez-Tucker] actively promotes diversity both in and out of the workplace—in programming, collections, and personal commitment to local organizations,” wrote one supporter. “As a Pueblo native, she has deep ties to the community, which puts her in a unique position to foster active collaborations between community groups and the library to promote better understanding and appreciation for diversity.”
First awarded in 2009, the Mosaic Scholarship also provides recipients with a one-year membership in the Society of American Archivists and a complimentary registration to the 2014 Joint Annual Meeting. Rebecca Nieto, a graduate student at McGill University, is also a 2014 recipient of the Mosaic Scholarship.
Rebecca Nieto, a master’s student in the Library and Information Science (MLIS) program at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, is a 2014 recipient of the Mosaic Scholarship. The Mosaic Scholarship provides funding to students who demonstrate potential for scholastic and personal achievement and who manifest a commitment both to the archival profession and to advancing diversity concerns within it.
Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Nieto earned her bachelor’s degree in English literature from Oberlin College. While pursuing that degree, Nieto worked as a reference assistant at Oberlin’s Mudd and Clarence Ward Art Libraries. Following her graduation, Nieto spent a year as a library assistant at Albuquerque Academy and volunteered with Indian Pueblo archives.
As a graduate student at McGill, Nieto is working to earn an MLIS degree with a concentration in Archival Studies. Nieto, an Association of Research Libraries Diversity Scholar, is also spearheading an SAA student chapter at her institution.
Nieto’s supporters commended her exceptional academic work. “[Nieto] is bright and articulate and often stimulates classroom discussion with her thoughtful comments,” one supporter wrote. “Her written work, including a major term paper, is clear and analytical. In her term paper, she demonstrated a strong grasp of the appraisal issues involving both government and personal records and a showed a fine understanding of the different challenges faced by archivists in these areas.”
First awarded in 2009, the Mosaic Scholarship also provides recipients with a one-year membership in the Society of American Archivists and a complimentary registration to the 2014 Joint Annual Meeting. Also receiving a 2014 Mosaic Scholarship is Maria Sanchez-Tucker, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
The Emma Goldman Papers Project (EGPP) of the University of California, Berkeley, is the 2014 recipient of the Philip M. Hamer–Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Award. The award recognizes individuals or institutions that have increased public awareness of archives documents.
The EGPP has collected and published tens of thousands of documents by and about American social and political activist Emma Goldman (1869–1940). A leading figure in anarchism, radicalism, and feminism in the United States, Goldman dedicated her life to the creation of a radically new social order rooted in absolute freedom. An eloquent immigrant, she championed universal justice unconfined by national boundaries and passionately advocated for free speech, women’s independence, birth control, workers’ rights, and “everybody’s right to beautiful, radiant things.” In the spirit of Goldman, the EGPP has extended its scholarly research to serve the community and educate the public about the complexity of engagement in social and political transformation. It has published a microfilm edition of the papers and is currently working on a four-volume selective book edition, Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of The American Years (1890–1919).
The Hamer-Kegan Award Subcommittee selected the EGPP for its efforts in “making the activism, voice, connections, and struggles of this important American heard.” The award will be accepted by Candace Falk, director and editor of EGPP.
The Hamer-Kegan Award was established in 1973 and is named for two SAA Fellows and former presidents. Past recipients include Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project, the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota, March On Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project team (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Libraries), and the Giza Archives at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Activists' Guide to Archiving Video, published by WITNESS, a nonprofit organization that uses video to expose human rights abuses, is the 2014 recipient of the Preservation Publication Award. Activists' Guide to Archiving Video focuses on preserving digital video, an area in which there is still little published guidance. Available freely online in three languages, the guide is organized into eight sections that focus on stages in a video archiving workflow: create, transfer, acquire, organize, store, catalog, preserve, and share. Unlike other resources, it is aimed at content creators rather than archivists, enabling interventions that support preservation early in the digital lifecycle. The guide also uses easy-to-understand language and low-cost recommendations that empower individuals and grassroots organizations with fewer resources to take action to safeguard their own valuable collections. To date, the guide has found enthusiastic users among nonarchivists, including independent media producers and archives educators, as well as archivists who are new to managing digital video content.
The Award Committee noted that the guide was a “valuable contribution to the field of digital preservation” and an “example of what a good online resource should be.”
Established in 1993, past recipients of the Preservation Publication Award include Aligning National Approaches to Digital Preservation and Geospatial Multistate Archive and Preservation Partnership (GeoMAPP) Best Practices for Archival Processing for Geospatial Datasets.
Judi Fergus, the director of the Arthur Moore Methodist Museum, Library and Archives in St. Simons Island, Georgia, is the 2014 recipient of the Sister M. Claude Lane, O.P., Memorial Award.
The award honors an archivist who has made a significant contribution to the field of religious archives. Fergus is responsible for preserving the history of the United Methodist Church and the South Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church. In this position, Fergus has gathered local church histories of more than six hundred local churches. Fergus also helps welcome more than twenty thousand visitors to the museum each year, directs educational programs for groups of all ages, and is in charge of a reference library of more than five thousand volumes. In addition, she has developed exhibits depicting the role of women in the United Methodist Church, life in colonial Georgia, coins of the Bible, and other topics. To raise funds for the museum, Fergus has been instrumental in hosting a murder mystery dinner event for the past four years.
“All of these activities would seem enough in themselves to qualify [Fergus] for any award,” one supporter wrote. “However, perhaps most important is the attitude and manner in which she does them.” Fergus never loses site of the importance of what she calls the museum’s “Ministry of Memory,” the supporter noted.
Created in 1974, the award is funded by the Society of Southwest Archivists and honors Sister M. Claude Lane, O.P., a Dominican nun who was the first professionally trained archivist at the Catholic Archives of Texas in Austin. Recent past recipients include the late Audrey Newcomer, former director of archives and records at the Archdiocese of St. Louis, and Mark Duffy of the Archives of the Episcopal Church.
Kate Theimer, author of the popular blog ArchivesNext, is the 2014 recipient of the Spotlight Award. The Spotlight Award recognizes the contributions of individuals who work for the good of the profession and archives collections—work that does not typically receive public recognition.
Since 2011, Theimer has used Facebook, Twitter, and her blog to raise money for Spontaneous Scholarships that help unemployed, underemployed, and underfunded archivists to attend SAA’s Annual Meeting. The first year the scholarships were offered Theimer raised $5,504 to assist 18 students and 8 SAA members at the full registration rate; the program continued in 2012 and 2013 resulting in a total of more than $20,000 in donations and almost one hundred archivists assisted over the first three years. Theimer recently launched a campaign to raise funds for the 2014 scholarships.
One supporter wrote: “By organizing and leading the Spontaneous Scholarship program over the past three years, Theimer has demonstrated her continuing commitment to advance the profession by supporting her colleagues in a direct and tangible way.”
Joshua D. Hager, who recently earned a master’s degree in information science from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science, is the 2014 recipient of the Theodore Calvin Pease Award. The award recognizes superior writing achievements by students of archival studies.
Dr. Helen R. Tibbo, alumni distinguished professor at the School of Information and Library Science, nominated Hager’s paper “To Like or Not to Like: Understanding and Maximizing the Utility of Archival Outreach on Facebook.” Hager, who is currently employed as the correspondence assistant at the State Archives of North Carolina, conducted a thorough study involving qualitative interviews with twenty-three respondents and carefully coded and analyzed the data to create a clear text that presents a view of how archivists are using social media to engage users. Tibbo noted that the paper “focuses on a topic that is highly relevant to archives today” and is an “innovative study that elucidates best practice.”
The paper will be published in The American Archivist Volume 78, Number 1 (Spring/Summer 2015). Established in 1987, the award is named for the first editor of The American Archivist.
Ellen Gruber Garvey, an English professor at New Jersey City University, is the 2014 recipient of the Waldo Gifford Leland Award for her book, Writing with Scissors: American Scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance, published by Oxford University Press. The Waldo Gifford Leland Award is given for writing of superior excellence and usefulness in the fields of archival history, theory, and practice.
Writing with Scissors provides an engaging narrative on the role of newspaper clippings scrapbooks as archival records that transcend lines of race, politics, gender, and class. Garvey contextualizes the keeping of these scrapbooks as a way for marginalized people to tell their history. As scrapbook makers reused free books and blank scrapbooks to create and manage their own personalized texts, they claimed ownership of their reading matter and constructed counter-narratives to their portrayals in the press. By reading scrapbooks against new technologies for managing newsprint, Garvey encourages archivists to view scrapbooks as “direct ancestors of digital information management.”
The Award Committee noted that the book is “compelling, well-written, well-researched, and supported by thoughtful examples that illuminate how scrapbooks function as democratic archives.”
Established in 1959, the Waldo Gifford Leland Award is named for one of North America’s archival pioneers and SAA’s second president. Past recipients include Astrid Eckhart for The Struggle for the Files: The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives after the Second World War; Francis X. Blouin and William G. Rosenberg for Processing the Past: Contesting Authority in History and the Archives; and Laura A. Millar for Archives: Principles and Practices.