Fellow: Christina Zamon

Christina Zamon, head of Special Collections and Archives at Georgia State University, will be inducted as a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists (SAA)  during an awards ceremony at the Annual Meeting of SAA in Chicago, IL. The distinction of Fellow is the highest honor bestowed on individuals by SAA and is awarded for outstanding contributions to the archives profession.

 A multi-hyphenate archival practitioner who has held many roles—including solo archivist, department head, educator, fundraiser, author, and mentor—Zamon earned her MA and MLIS from the University of Maryland. To solidify her professional trajectory in archives, she became a Certified Archivist through the Academy of Certified Archivists in 2005. In 2013, she demonstrated her trailblazing mentality by becoming one of the first Digital Archives Specialists through SAA.

Alongside these qualifications, Zamon has spent more than twenty years as a professional archivist, over the course of which she has served in increasingly responsible and challenging positions. She dove into all aspects of the profession as a solo archivist at the National Press Club (NPC) in Washington, DC. In this role, she largely established the archives as an institution adhering to best practices as defined by SAA and other professional organizations. Notably, she was instrumental in finding and acquiring a suitable space to house the NPC's archival records. Following her successful tenure at NPC, Zamon took on the role of head of Archives and Special Collections at Emerson College in Boston. No longer a solo act, she supervised the work of two full-time staff members as well as student workers and interns. Her work on the American Comedy Archives was pivotal in the establishment of Emerson's new Comedic Arts Major and Comedy Center. Since 2016, Zamon has led the Special Collections and Archives (SCA) team at Georgia State University. Most recently, Zamon successfully sought and acquired nearly $350,000 in funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a new 9,800 sq. ft. media preservation facility, significantly improving the library's ability to preserve fragile formats. In the past five years, Zamon has helped to secure over $1 million in grant funds for the department, increasing accessibility and preservation of important cultural heritage records.

Zamon’s success is not just limited to these places. Many archivists were introduced to her and her care and concern for archivists and archival work through her seminal work, The Lone Arranger: Succeeding in a Small Repository, published in 2012 by SAA. Created to help archivists working in small, underfunded repositories succeed, the guidance and support articulated in the text transcends institution types and has been used to build and sustain archival programs across the country, thus making it one of the most impactful SAA publications. It’s been so well received that Zamon was asked for a completely revised and new edition that is now re-written, expanded, and retitled. Alone in the Stacks: Succeeding as a Solo Archivist was released in May 2024.

Since joining SAA in 2001, Zamon helped formalize the Lone Arrangers Section, now the Solo Archivists Section. Additionally, she has served as the College and University Archives Section’s vice-chair and chair and co-chair/chair of the Awards Committee. Through these positions, she worked to have the section be responsible for the “Campus Case Studies” peer review process. More recently, Zamon has served on the steering committee and is currently the co-chair/chair of the Archives Management Section. In the past, she founded the Boston Area Archives and Records Consortium, bringing together archivists to support and share resources. She is also an active member of the Academy of Certified Archivists and has served in a variety of capacities with the Society of Georgia Archivists (SGA). Zamon served as the president of SGA in 2023. During her term, she helped move their strategic plan forward and restructured the organization to improve efficiency.

Her high degree of initiative, resourcefulness, commitment, and service to the field and SAA is best described by one supporter who wrote, “Christina is an absolute powerhouse who gives her all for this amazing profession.” Another added: “It would be easy to list Christina’s many professional accomplishments, but it would not do justice to the outstanding and long-lasting impacts that Christina continues to make on the archives profession.”