CHICAGO — The Society of American Archivists (SAA) honored the accomplishments, innovations, and over-the-top efforts made by professionals in the archives field at a ceremony on August 13 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. Seven new Fellows were named and 17 awards were announced at ARCHIVES*RECORDS/DC 2010: The Joint Annual Meeting of the Council of State Archivists, National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators, and SAA. Award categories included outstanding contributions to the archives profession, advocacy and public awareness, writing and publishing excellence, and scholarships and travel awards. A summary of recipients follows.
The American Heritage Center (AHC), University of Wyoming, was the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award, which was established in 1964 and recognizes an archives institution, education program, nonprofit organization, or governmental organization that has given outstanding service to its public and has made an exemplary contribution to the archival profession. Director Mark A. Greene accepted the award on behalf of the center.
Over the last two decades, the AHC has evolved into an exemplary archival institution that serves as an inspiration to the profession. The “More Product, Less Process” (MPLP) theory of archival processing, which the AHC co-developed, has amounted to a revolution in practice and has made a significant impact on the entire archives profession. In a similar vein, the AHC has contributed to the development of archival theory and practice by promoting reappraisal and deaccessioning as standard collection management tools.
The AHC serves its constituencies in an outstanding fashion by maintaining an active K–12 and undergraduate outreach program, administering History Day for the State of Wyoming, and providing consistently excellent reference service. Since 2003, AHC has adopted an accessioning process that ensures new collections do not disappear into an invisible backlog, launched a pilot project to apply MPLP theory to digitization efforts, and is currently experimenting with a new model for its acquisitions program.
Sister Jane Aucoin received the Sister M. Claude Lane, O.P., Memorial Award, which honors an individual archivist who has made a significant contribution to the field of religious archives. Upon becoming the archivist for the Congregation of St. Joseph, Aucoin embraced professional membership and archival training and began employing principles of arrangement, description, access, and preservation to the congregation’s collections.
“Sister Jane Aucoin has been a faithful sister of the Congregation of St. Joseph for 66 years, and she served as archivist for the Congregation from 1999 to 2009,” said one Awards Committee member. “She organized archives from the Congregation of St. Joseph from Minnesota, Ohio, and Louisiana into a single repository in New Orleans.”
During her 10-plus years as archivist, Sr. Jane was dedicated to the organization, arrangement, and preservation of the materials in the Congregation of St. Joseph archives, both in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Hurricane Katrina, in 2005, forced the evacuation of the sisters from the city of New Orleans due to widespread floodwaters, and the collection had to be moved. Preparing the collection required four weeks of 10-hour days in a difficult environment. Sr. Jane persevered and succeeded in safely housing and moving the collection.
In 2008, Hurricane Gustav brought a second challenge to the Sisters and their archival collection. This time water threatened from above due to roof damage. Sr. Jane enlisted volunteers and collaborated with the Diocese of Baton Rouge Archives to temporarily relocate the most vulnerable items in the collection until repairs could be completed.
Upon Sr. Jane’s retirement late in 2009, she again directed the movement of the collection to Wichita, Kansas, where the materials remain today.
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, where she served from 1960 until her death in 1974.
Ann Russell was honored with the Spotlight Award, which recognizes the contributions of individuals who work for the good of the profession and archives collections—work that does not typically receive public recognition. Between 1978 and the present, Russell worked for archives, special collections, and historical societies nationwide in staff training; emergency planning and collections salvage work; digital project planning; digital conservation; advocacy and outreach to grant funders; as well as teaching, writing, and consulting.
One nominator noted her as “one of the moving forces and creative mothers of preservation in the United States. She has shown herself to be creative, collaborative, innovative, effective, flexible, and tireless in service of the archival profession and the records we hold.”
As director of Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC), Russell initiated the center’s field service office and obtained ongoing grant funding to support staff positions. She launched internship programs that seeded at least 50 conservators into the profession at labs across the country. Russell envisioned and raised funds for dPlan, an innovative online disaster planning tool used by cultural heritage repositories, particularly archives nationwide. In May 2009, after 30 years of service, Russell retired as executive director of NEDCC.
Kathleen Roe, director of archives and records management operations at the New York State Archives and David Carmicheal, director of the Georgia Archives, received the Council Exemplary Service Award for their outstanding service to SAA and the archives profession. The award cited their hard work on the Joint Task Force on Preserving the American Historical Record (PAHR) since its inception in August 2006; their collaborative advocacy efforts between and among SAA, CoSA, NAGARA, regional archives organizations, and affiliated organizations; development and support of PAHR legislation; and support of passage of PAHR in the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate.
Both Roe and Carmichael are Fellows of the SAA. Roe has served on or chaired a number of SAA committees. She has been honored by the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, Hunter College for her contributions to documenting New York's Latino communities, awarded three NEH-Mellon Fellowships for the Study of Archival Administration, and been a member of several national and international archives practices research projects. Carmicheal is a past president of CoSA, and has led a disaster assessment team that reported on the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the Mississippi coast.
U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) also received the Council Exemplary Service Award for FOIA and related services.
The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation was awarded the J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award, which honors an individual, institution, or organization that promotes greater public awareness, appreciation, or support of archives. The Delmas Foundation was honored for its long-term support of and involvement in the archival profession’s work to address the challenges of managing, preserving, and providing access to archival records, and to fostering the development of the archival profession.
As one Awards Committee member noted, “The Foundation has had a true broad and long-term impact on the archival profession by 1) making it possible for a group of American archivists to meet with their Canadian counterparts to discuss the possible creation of a common North American descriptive standard; 2) funding the Primarily History Project at the University of Glasgow and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, to address the questions of how best to configure electronic access tools to support research; and 3) funding the 1999 Working Meeting of Graduate Archival Educators held at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Studies.”
Established in 1989, the award is named for the noted American historian J. Franklin Jameson.
The Giza Archives at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston received the Philip M. Hamer and Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Award, which recognizes individuals or institutions that have increased public awareness of archives documents. The Giza Archives was honored for its outstanding efforts in promoting its vast holdings of early-20th-century archaeological expedition records. The Giza Archives and its accompanying website provided unprecedented access to the records of the Harvard University—Boston Museum of Fine Arts archaeological expedition to the Giza Pyramids during the early 1900s. The digitization of thousands of glass plate negatives, expedition diary pages, object records, maps, and manuscripts allow people from all over the world to virtually explore Giza and learn more about the history of archeology.
“The website’s creative display, visual search, and high-resolution zoom features effectively use today’s technology to provide insight into the ancient Egyptian civilization during the Pyramid Age,” said one Awards Committee member. Scholars and enthusiasts alike now have immediate access to important primary research materials that previously had been difficult, and in some cases impossible, to examine.
The Philip M. Hamer and Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Award was established in 1973 and is named for two SAA Fellows and former presidents.
The North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries Special Collections Research Center was awarded the C.F.W. Coker Award for its finding aid redesign project. The 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.
“With its robust search functionality including full-text searching, faceted browsing, and a virtual book-bag for saving collection information, the NCSU Libraries Special Collections finding aid redesign project sets a new benchmark for both the accessibility and usability of archival finding aids,” said one member of the Awards Committee. Using state-of-the-art web technologies, the Center builds on standard descriptive practices to place collections more directly in users’ pathways and research expectations.
Established in 1984, the award honors SAA Fellow C.F.W. Coker.
The Waldo Gifford Leland Award was presented to Karen D. Paul (United States Senate), Glenn R. Gray (Federal Reserve Board), and L. Rebecca Johnson Melvin (University of Delaware) for their editorship of the book An American Political Archives Reader. The award is given for writing of superior excellence and usefulness in the fields of archival history, theory, or practice.
This volume, published by Scarecrow Press in 2009, addresses very real and immediate needs within the American archival community. Editors Paul, Gray, and Melvin seamlessly bring together recent scholarship pertaining to the unique challenges of documenting complex and voluminous congressional collections. The work covers a broad landscape while offering fresh perspectives in the areas of arrangement and description.
An American Political Archives Reader also provides invaluable information on less written topics, such as the topic of building research centers. “This work will be of superior use to archivists confronted with political collections, especially those who are not in congressional research centers,” said one Awards Committee member.
Established in 1959, the Waldo Gifford Leland Award is named for one of North America’s archives pioneers and SAA’s second president.
Archival and Special Collections Facilities: Guidelines for Archivists, Librarians, Architects, and Engineers, edited by Michele Pacifico and Thomas Wilsted, received the Preservation Publication Award, which recognizes the author(s) or editor(s) of an outstanding published work related to archives preservation.
Archival and Special Collections Facilities, published by SAA in 2009, is the product of the SAA Task Force on Archival Facilities Guidelines and the SAA Standards Committee. The book, which includes contributions from archivists, architects, conservators, and construction specialists, is intended as a working document toward development of a national standard for archival facilities, and it should serve as a resource for archival facilities design, construction, and renovation. The book covers topics such as the building site and construction, archival environments, fire protection, and security. Contributors include Patrick Alexander, Nick Artim, David Carmicheal, Ernest Conrad, Gregor Trinkaus-Randall, Scott Teixeira, and Diane Vogt-O’Connor.
The Preservation Publication Award was established in 1993.
The Fellows’ Ernst Posner Award was presented to Scott Cline, city archivist at the Seattle Municipal Archives, for his article “To the Limit of Our Integrity”: Reflections on Archival Being” in American Archivist (vol. 72, no. 2). 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 American Archivist.
The Award Committee noted that Cline’s essay was “innovative and thought-provoking, integrating a breadth of sources and personal experience into a coherent and eloquently written piece on what it means to be an archivist in the world today. The four values proposed for archivists to inform how they do their work in a moral and ethical manner (faith, radical self-understanding, intention, and integrity) is a provocative invitation to engage in self-examination. Inspiring a discussion among archivists who are just embarking on their careers or an internal dialogue for those who are assessing decades in the profession, the piece addresses the best parts of who we are as individuals as well as a profession.”
The Awards Committee also gave an Honorable Mention to Jeffrey Mifflin for his article, “'Closing the Circle': Native American Writings in Colonial New England, a Documentary Nexus between Acculturation and Cultural Preservation,” American Archivist (vol. 72, no. 2).
The Fellows’ Ernst Posner Award is named for Ernst Posner, an SAA Fellow, former president, and distinguished author.
Emily Monks-Leeson, a student in the Archives and Records Management Path within the Master of Information Program at the University of Toronto, was named the winner of the Theodore Calvin Pease Award for her paper, “Archives on the Internet: Representing Contexts and Provenance from Repository to Website.”
Monks wrote the paper in a second-year course, “Archival Representation,” during the winter term of the 2009–2010 academic year. Associate Professor Heather MacNeil nominated the paper, which provides an in-depth analysis of the representational practices at play in digital archives. In examining two specific websites in the context of archival theory, the paper makes a compelling argument that these digital archives represent provenance and context in new and more flexible ways. The insights from this discussion not only apply to the digitization practices of archives, but also to the way in which archivists conceptualize the key tenets of archival theory and practice.
From choice of topic to approach to delivery, the paper demonstrates a high level of creativity and originality. The paper explores an important topic relevant to different types of repositories making their holdings available online. Professor MacNeil noted, “It is a worthwhile contribution to contemporary discussion surrounding the ‘archival turn’ in the humanities disciplines and the impact of that turn on archival theory and practice.”
Established in 1987, the award is named for Theodore Calvin Pease, the first editor of the American Archivist.
Elaine Goh a doctoral student at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia, received the Oliver Wendell Holmes Travel Award, which 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.
Goh earned her Master of Archival Studies at the University of British Columbia and her bachelor’s degree in sociology at the National University of Singapore. Her research interests concern the impact of organizational culture on recordkeeping and the management of financial records. Her nominator described Goh as “a proactive colleague, always emphasizing the value of theory and its capacity to improve practice. . . . She is a natural leader, both in a professional and in an academic sense.”
Established in 1979, this award honors SAA Fellow and former President Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Miranda N. Rivers and Vivian Wong were each awarded the Harold T. Pinkett Minority Student Award, which 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.
Rivers earned a bachelor’s degree from Spelman College and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in history and library science in archive management at Simmons College. She was a Mellon Librarian Recruitment Fellow at the James B. Duke Memorial Library at Johnson C. Smith University in 2008, and received the Mellon Graduate Library School Scholarship in 2009.
“She is learning everything she can about the archives profession, and was an intern for Project SAVE: The Armenian Photo Archive Collection, and is an archives technician at the Fredrick Law Olmsted Archives National Park in Boston,” said one Scholarship Committee member.
Wong is currently pursuing a PhD at UCLA in Information Studies, where she also received her Master's of Fine Arts from the School of Theater, Film, and Television. Her bachelor’s degree in East Asian studies was earned at Bryn Mawr College. Her research interests included the documentation, collection, preservation, and circulation of historical and cultural records in Asian American communities and archives in the Asian diaspora. “She comes to the profession as a filmmaker, and when she created a film in 2005 about her grandmother from Malaysia titled, ‘Homecoming,’ it spurred her interesting in documenting underrepresented communities,” said one Scholarship Committee member.
Established in 1993, the award honors the late Dr. Harold T. Pinkett, who served with distinction during his tenure at the National Archives and Records Administration.
Keara Duggan was awarded the 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. Duggan, a recent graduate of New York University, completed her master’s degree in archives and public history in January 2010. In 2009, she founded the first SAA Student Chapter at New York University, and has served as an intern at the American Philosophical Society and worked as an archivist, researcher, and metadata consultant on a digital archive of Ojibwe Indian material. Duggan’s involvement in the “Protocols for Native American Archival Materials” particularly impressed the Peterson Award Subcommittee members.
“As part of her master’s thesis, she developed a website featuring case studies for archivists, museum professionals, and tribal communities grappling with issues surrounding Native American archival materials,” said one Scholarship Committee member. “Despite her young age, she has already made a significant contribution to building bridges between archives and Native American communities.”
The Donald Peterson Student Scholarship was established in 2005, and honors the memory of New York lawyer and philatelist Donald Peterson.
LaNesha DeBardelaben and Susan Gehr were each awarded the Mosaic Scholarship, which offers financial support to minority students who manifest a commitment both to the archives profession and to advancing diversity concerns within it. DeBardelaben and Gehr both received a $5,000 scholarship, a one-year membership in SAA, and complimentary registration to DC 2010.
DeBardelaben has a MA degree in history from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and is a student in the MLS program with a specialization in Archives and Records Management at the School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University-Bloomington. In her past work with the Missouri Historical Society’s “Through the Eyes of a Child” project, she taught students and teachers how to incorporate the program’s curriculum unit within the classroom to develop oral history projects. As project manager for the Teaching American History Grant for Flint (Michigan) Community Schools, she organized history summer institutes and speaking engagements for and about the history of diverse ethnic communities.
“LaNesha’s goal is to further the work of documenting, archiving, and digitizing the records of African American women’s history,” said one Awards Committee member.
Gehr is earning a master’s degree in Library and Information Sciences at San Jose State University. As member of the Karuk Tribe (California), she acted as the Karuk Tribe’s tribal language program director where she co-published with linguist William Bright a dictionary of the Karuk language. After attending the Western Archives Institute, she prepared a preservation and use report for Humboldt State University’s Center for Indian Community Development as they planned their Native Languages Archive. Currently, she volunteers with Humboldt State’s Special Collections Unit where she processes an anthropologist’s collection that includes field notes and recordings gathered in preparation for a book on Yurok Indian spirituality.
“Susan’s goal is to understand and address the comprehensive archival needs of tribes in the northwestern California region and to contribute to the field of archival studies for Native American/Alaska native people,” noted one Awards Committee member.
Venus E. Van Ness, a student in the combined MSIS/MA program at the State University of New York at Albany, was awarded the F. Gerald Ham Scholarship, which offers $7,500 in financial support to a graduate student in his or her second year of archival studies at a U.S. university. Scholarship selection criteria include the applicant’s past performance in her or his graduate program in archival studies as well as faculty members’ assessment of the student’s prospects for contributing to the archives profession. Ness received a bachelor of science degree from Cornell University and a juris doctorate from Marquette University Law School before returning to graduate school at SUNY-Albany to pursue archives.
“Among a large number of deserving applicants, Ms. Van Ness distinguished herself by her outstanding writing and analytical skills in her paper ‘Legal Liabilities and Archives: Orphan Works and Copyright Issues,’” said one Awards Committee member.
The award was created in 1998 by SAA Fellow, past president, and longtime member F. Gerald Ham and his wife Elsie.
Sarah L. Patterson of the Maryland State Archives received the Modern Archives Institute Scholarship, whereby she was able to attend the Winter 2010 Modern Archives Institute of the National Archives and Records Administration. The two-week program provides an introduction to archives principles and techniques for individuals who work with personal papers and the records of public and private institutions and organizations. The institute seeks to help archivists acquire basic knowledge about caring for archival materials and making them available.
Patterson received her MLS degree from Indiana University in 2008, before starting her professional career at the Maryland State Archives. Patterson works with records dating from the founding of Maryland in 1634 to the present day.
“It is her love for history and the records which tell the story of the past that influenced her decision to make archives her profession,” said one committee member. “Sarah's desire to become a more well-rounded professional prompted her to apply for Modern Archives Institute Scholarship.”
The distinction of Fellow is the highest honor bestowed on individuals by SAA and is awarded for outstanding contributions to the archives profession. Daria D’Arienzo, David Haury, Diane Kaplan, Leon Miller, Christopher J. Prom, Scott Schwarz, and Becky Haglund Tousey were named Fellows. The honor was established by SAA in 1957 and is conferred annually. There are currently 169 Fellows.
Daria D’Arienzo is an archival consultant whose work focuses on local communities and small groups that have traditionally been underserved. As one nominator noted, “D’Arienzo has long been an ambassador for our profession, a mentor for young professionals, a leader in our community, and a valued colleague.”
D’Arienzo has committed her career to bringing archives to public attention and to showing their importance in society. She began her archival career at Yale University on a grant project to develop the university’s own archives and then moved to the University of Connecticut archives for a similar grant project. She left UConn for Amherst College, where she served more than 20 years as college archivist and, later, head of Archives and Special Collections.
She has a distinguished record of service to SAA, the New England Archivists, the Northeast Document Conservation Center, the Academy of Certified Archivists, and other organizations. As co-chair of the SAA Awards Committee, she reorganized the numerous subcommittees, brought order to prior inconsistencies, and skillfully negotiated the inevitable compromises needed to balance competing interests. As a mentor to younger archivists, she has also dedicated much of her professional energy to developing and supporting grass-roots archives for local communities.
“Daria started me on my career as a historian, teaching, encouraging, and materially aiding me at every point in my path—she even introduced me to the subject of my first book," said Debby Applegate, author of The Most Famous Man in America, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning biography of Henry Ward Beecher.
D’Arienzo holds a bachelor’s degree from Boston University and a master of arts in liberal studies from Wesleyan University. In addition to her interests in archival outreach, preservation, and community archives, D’Arienzo early committed her abundant energies to effective management. She earned a second master’s degree in business administration from the University of Massachusetts and then applied this knowledge to archival programs.
For several years she helped organize and spoke at SAA sessions dealing with management issues, ranging from project management to staffing, using volunteers, empowering women managers, and accommodating people with physical impairments. Her concern for the “unsung heroes” of the profession led to the creation of SAA’s Spotlight Award, which honors individuals who contribute to the profession through “tireless committee or advocacy work, volunteerism, and/or quietly but effectively promoting the profession”—but whose work “would not typically received public recognition”—an apt description of D’Arienzo herself.
David Haury, Pennsylvania state archivist, is marked by a career of significant contributions to his work and the archives profession. During 10 years at Bethel College in Kansas, he moved from his first position as assistant archivist to directorships of the college’s research library and the archives of the General Conference of the Mennonite Church. He followed with 15 years at the Kansas State Historical Society, first as assistant, then associate director.
In 2004, Haury became the director of the Bureau of Archives and History and State Archivist for the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, one of the nation’s largest state archives. Professionally, Haury has proven leadership not only in SAA but also CoSA and the Midwest Archives Conference (MAC). He is one of the few to serve on both the SAA and CoSA governing councils.
His contributions as a scholar and editor include books and articles on the history of Mennonite faith and community, articles for state historical publications, and The Midwestern Archivist. His extensive experience as an editor includes several books, a large number of Mennonite periodicals, Archival Issues and MAC Newsletter. Haury was involved in the SAA publications program for a decade, during a time in which the Archival Fundamentals Series was launched and the monographs catalog was expanded to include new areas of interest and titles from other publishers. One nominator noted that the result of “a larger and increasingly professionalized publishing program . . . meant so much for SAA’s success, both financially and intellectually.”
Another nominator wrote, “David . . . shares a trait with successful secret agents: his very effectiveness makes him almost invisible to the casual observer. But the accomplishments are manifest when you start looking, and they have made real benefits to the archival profession.”
Haury holds a bachelor’s degree from Bethel College, a master’s and PhD from Harvard University, and a master’s of library science from the University of Illinois.
Diane Kaplan is head of public services in the Manuscripts and Archives Department at Yale University. She has been an archivist for almost 40 years, with much time spent in Manuscripts and Archives in the Yale University Library where she has acquired extensive expertise in preservation microfilming, arrangement and description, and public services.
Throughout her lengthy career she has had an impact on the practice of the archives profession in so many different areas through her work at Yale, and through publications and conference presentations in which she shared the findings of her research. She is a master collaborator who has worked willingly with others to advance the professional discourse on topics from collection policies for faculty papers and minimal processing standards, to archival metrics and archives revenues, to issues of access versus privacy.
Kaplan developed the first online tutorial for using archives and manuscripts in the United States, and has played a leading part in diversifying the profession. Her contributions to the profession also include serving for 10 years on SAA’s Membership Committee and being a founding member of the New England Archivists.
One supporter noted: “In addition to her pioneering work on many aspects of archives, Diane has served as a mentor to generations of archivists at Yale; to members of the New England Archivists . . . and to the archival community as a whole through her service on the SAA Membership Committee.”
Kaplan earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master of Arts degree in history from the University of Michigan.
Leon Miller is head of the Louisiana Research Collection at Tulane University. Miller’s first major professional activity was chairing the membership committee of the Society of Southwest Archivists (SSA), where he tripled membership in two years. He went on to serve as SSA’s vice-president and president, and received its Distinguished Service Award in 1994.
Miller has shared his interest in archival membership, outreach, and mentoring with other organizations. During his term as Regent for Outreach for the Academy of Certified Archivists (ACA), the number of people taking certification exam increased by 200% in two years. He went on to become ACA president and received ACA’s Distinguished Service Award in 2004. In addition, he has chaired or served on more than a dozen SAA committees, including serving on SAA Council and chairing the SAA Membership Committee, where he created the SAA Mentoring Program in 1994. After more than 15 years, the SAA Mentoring Program is still helping to welcome newer archivists into the profession.
Miller’s resume includes a lengthy list of exhibits and publications on historical and archival subjects. For nearly 20 years he has served as editor of various archival publications, including the Southwestern Archivist, ACA News, and Reach Out!, the newsletter of SAA’s Reference, Access, and Outreach Section. Miller earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from the University of Arkansas.
Christopher J. Prom is assistant university archivist and associate professor of library administration at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. One of his nominator’s said: “Prom represents the best of the archives profession—he is a pragmatist practitioner who consistently looks above the trees of daily work to envision and shape the larger forest that gives our efforts meaning and purpose. He is a scholar who grounds his research on efforts to make archives work more efficient, more forward-looking, and more practical. He is an effective collaborator, both within the profession and in helping to bridge the gap between archivists and librarians.”
Prom is also an innovator. He is the co-director of the ARCHON project, which developed award-winning software for archivists and manuscript curators. The software automatically publishes archival descriptive information and digital archival objects in a user-friendly website. During the 2009–2010, he was Fulbright Distinguished Scholar at the University of Dundee (Scotland), where he conducted the “Practical E-Records” project, seeking to develop cost-effective approaches to identifying, preserving, and providing access to born-digital records.
Prom has demonstrated extraordinary commitment to the archives profession through service on a variety of committees in SAA and the Midwest Archives Conference, ranging from technical standards to editorial boards. He has further committed himself to regularly publishing his work so that others may benefit. As another nominator stated: “There is probably no better way to describe Chris than simply . . . an extremely smart, class act. . . . It is because he wears his excellence so lightly that his being named a Fellow will bring as much distinction to the award as it will bring to him.”
Prom earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Marquette University and a PhD from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Scott Schwartz is archivist for music and fine arts and adjunct professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. As one of his nominator’s noted: “Scott represents the best of an archivist, always finding ways to increase awareness of what an archives is and what it can offer to the public and to generate enthusiasm for archives as a profession.”
His transformation of the Sousa Archives into a vibrant Center for American Music has been recognized by the more than 15 awards and grants he has received to advance his activist archives vision. This vision led Schwarz, in 2004, to engineer one the decade’s most important archival outreach programs: convincing the United States Senate to declare November, “American Music Month.”
His contributions to the field are many: as a principal developer of ARCHON, award-winning software for archivists and manuscript curators that automatically publishes archival descriptive information and digital archival objects in a user-friendly website; as technological coordinator for a variety of programs at the Smithsonian Institution, including the Ivory Soap Advertising Digital Image Library and the Scurlock Photograph Collection Image Library; and through publishing of articles in the professional literature and presentations at archives workshops.
“It’s hard to overstate the transformative impact ARCHON and the Archivist’s Toolkit are having on facilitating the control and description of archival holdings,” said one nominator.
Since serving on the Program Committee in 1993, Schwartz continues to be an active member of SAA. He has chaired the membership Committee and the Nominating Committee. He was instrumental in establishing and securing funding for SAA’s Donald Peterson Student Scholarship Award.
Prior to joining the University of Illinois in 2003, Schwartz worked for 10 years as archivist at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History and as technical archives specialist at East Tennessee State University. He holds a bachelor’s in music education from the State University of New York at Fredonia and a master’s in music education and history from Michigan State University.
Becky Haglund Tousey is archives senior manager at Kraft Foods Inc., where she runs a global corporate archives program with repositories and staff in several countries. She has gained the respect and support of Kraft Foods management, as well as of her archival colleagues, for her outstanding professional standards and execution. Tousey has shared her knowledge and best practices around the world, by presenting at conferences in North America, Scotland, France, Italy, Austria, Germany, and Japan. As one of her nominators noted, “Becky’s management of Kraft’s archives has served as a beacon of excellence and adaptation.”
Tousey is well known for advancing the goals and activities of regional, national, and international archival associations through her exemplary service in numerous positions, including terms on SAA’s governing Council and the Midwest Archives Conference’s Council, as co-chair of SAA’s Program Committee and Host Committee, and as secretary of the International Council on Archives Section on Business and Labour Archives.
Less well known are her frequent unsung volunteer activities, such as the 15 years she spent leading teams of ballot counters for SAA elections. Her nominators spoke frequently of her intelligence, commitment to the profession, kindness, hard work, and modesty. One individual who served with her on both the SAA and MAC Councils said, “Hers was the reliable voice of reason, objectivity, and logic that so often prevailed at times when hand wringing, discord, or indecisiveness would otherwise deter progress.”