The Society of American Archivists celebrated outstanding achievement in public service, outreach, and writing, and provided scholarship assistance to students at an awards ceremony held August 19, 2005, during SAA’s 69th Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Hundreds of conference attendees packed the grand ballroom of the Hilton New Orleans Riverside to honor their colleagues and salute their successes. The annual competition recognizes accomplishments of the preceding calendar year.
The Awards Committee, co-chaired by Daria D’Arienzo of Amherst College and Philip Mooney of Coca-Cola Company, worked with subcommittees in the selection process for each award. SAA heartily congratulates the following award recipients and extends its thanks to all who participated in the competition.
WILLIAM SUMNERS, director of the Southern Baptist Library and Archive, received SAA’s Sister M. Claude Lane, O.P., Memorial Award for his significant contribution to the field of religious archives. Established in 1974, the Sister M. Claude Lane, O.P., Memorial Award is sponsored in conjunction with and funded by the Society of Southwest Archivists.
Sumners has served as director of the Southern Baptist Library and Archives since1988, where he has shaped an important collection into a model of archival standards and efficiency during a time of transition and controversy within the denomination. One nominator described Sumners as a “hardworking, creative, and utterly dependable fellow laborer in the archival vineyard.” Another praised his general excellence and persistence in keeping the Southern Baptist archive intact during financial hardships. Archivists, librarians, and researchers alike praise him as a mentor and inspiration to many who have sought aid and answers at the Southern Baptist Library and Archive. Sumners’s contributions to the profession include being a workshop instructor and an author of numerous publications, most notably Documenting the Spirit: Manual and Guidelines and the Church Archive Series. A 30- year member of SAA, he has served with distinction in the Archivists of Religious Collections Section.
The SURVIVORS OF THE SHOAH VISUAL HISTORY FOUNDATIONreceived SAA’s Philip M. Hamer and Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Award in recognition of its website and online resource featuring information about the Testimony Archive of Holocaust survivors and other Holocaust witnesses. The award was accepted by DONNA CASEY, an archivist for the foundation. The award, which recognizes individuals or institutions that have increased public awareness of archival documents for education, instructional, or other public purpose, was established in 1973 and is named for two SAA Fellows and former presidents.
The Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation has innovatively raised public awareness of its vast archive of testimonies from Holocaust survivors and witnesses. One of three strategic goals adopted by the foundation is to preserve and provide access to the Testimony Archive. Through its website, www.vhf.org, the foundation has made available basic biographical data on more than 50,000 testimonies searchable through the online Testimony Catalogue. The online Testimony Viewer allows visitors to view portions of materials from the Testimony Archive directly. To further extend awareness of the Testimony Archive, the foundation has produced 10 documentaries that have been screened or broadcast in 50 countries for 110,000 students, educators, and the general public. The foundation partners with more than 42 locations around the world that serve as Visual History Collection Sites.
The Online Archive of California (OAC) received SAA’s C.F.W. Coker Award. The award was accepted by OAC Director ROBIN CHANDLER.
The Coker Award recognizes finding aids, finding aid systems, projects that involve innovative development in archival description, or descriptive tools that enable archivists to produce more effective finding aids. Nominees must, in some significant way, set national standards, represent a model for archival description, or otherwise have substantial impact on descriptive practices.
The OAC provides access to more than 120,000 images, 50,000 pages of documents, letters and oral histories, and 8,000 guides to collections located at museums, historical societies, and archives in California. The OAC’s consortial approach for implementing and delivering Encoded Archival Description (EAD) finding aids has become a model for other regional and statewide projects. The OAC has developed best practice guidelines for EAD and encoding tools to assist contributing institutions, all of which are made available to the archival community on its website at www.oac.cdlib.org. The OAC’s work has made it possible for more than 100 repositories in California to encode finding aids in EAD and make them available through a sophisticated user interface.
The OAC exemplifies positive collaboration among cultural heritage institutions. This collaboration gives researchers unprecedented access to historical records from institutions throughout California.
SAA’s 2005 Waldo Gifford Leland Award for writing of superior excellence and usefulness in the field of archival history, theory, or practice was presented to RICHARD J. COX for No Innocent Deposits: Forming Archives by Rethinking Appraisal (Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2004). Established in 1959, the award is named for one of North America’s archival pioneers and SAA’s second president.
The book makes an important and valuable contribution to the topics of appraisal and acquisitions. Rather than offering a basic primer or “how-to” guide, it presents a much needed, and more thoughtful, analysis of the issues surrounding these two critically important archival enterprises. The book is both insightful and provocative, engaging readers in lively interaction with the discussions presented. Highly readable and extensively researched, it leads readers to think deeply about appraisal and to question their beliefs and assumptions. No matter their own points of view or biases, all archivists can benefit from the analyses, musings, and examples that illustrate how and why appraisal is the most fundamentally important activity the profession undertakes, the activity that carries the greatest long-term consequences. This is the third time that Cox has received the Leland Award.
SAA’s 2005 Preservation Publication Award was presented to the National Film Preservation Foundation for its book, The Film Preservation Guide: The Basics for Archives, Libraries and Museums. The award was accepted by DAVID WELLS, designer and typesetter of the book. Established in 1993, the award recognizes the author or editor of an outstanding work published in North America that advances the theory or practice of preservation in archival institutions. The Film Preservation Guide is an introductory text, jargon-free and suitable for a broad audience. It is the first of its kind and much needed because it codifies principles, terms, and practices and presents up-to-date archival theories, methods, and techniques. The book is well illustrated and easy to use. It is available both in print and electronically at www.filmpreservation.org.
SAA’s 2005 Fellows’ Ernst Posner Award was presented to ELENA DANIELSON for her article in the most recent volume of the American Archivist. The award, established in 1982 by the Fellows of SAA and named for former SAA President Ernst Posner, recognizes an outstanding essay dealing with some facet of archival administration, history, theory, and/or methodology published in SAA’s semi-annual journal.
Danielson, associate director of the Hoover Institution, and director of Library and Archives, received the award for her essay, “Privacy Rights and the Rights of Political Victims: Implications of the German Experience” in volume 67 of the American Archivist. This superior exposition of the conflicts between privacy, security, and access as exemplified in the East German “Stasi” files clearly and effectively sorts out and explains these competing elements. She shows that opening records can help address past injustices and strengthen the democratic process. The article reflects substantial research using primary and secondary resources in multiple languages and offers keen analysis of issues. Danielson demonstrates that privacy rights and the right to information can be reconciled, an issue that is timeless and often vexing for archivists and citizens of all nations.
SAA’s 2005 Theodore Calvin Pease Award was presented to IAN CRAIG BREADENof the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, for his student paper, “Sound Practices: Online Audio Exhibits and the Cultural Heritage Archive.” Established in 1987, the award is named for the first editor of SAA’s semi-annual journal, American Archivist, and recognizes superior writing achievement by a student enrolled in archival administration classes or engaged in formal archival internship programs. The award includes a certificate, cash prize, and forthcoming publication of Breaden’s paper in the American Archivist.
“Sound Practices” was written by Breaden as a master’s student paper for Professor Helen Tibbo at UNC’s School of Information and Library Science. In her nomination form,Professor Tibbo wrote, “This is one of the best papers I’ve supervised in years. The creation of an analysis/evaluation framework and recommendations based on such analysis places this student paper in a small group of such ambitious studies.” Breaden is the fifth student from UNC to receive the Pease Award.
Breaden’s paper examines the use of audio media in twenty- five Web exhibits. The online audio exhibits are analyzed using a matrix that measures specific aspects of audio performance. Based on this analysis, the author proposes a set of standards for archives to use as a starting point whenever they are incorporating audio elements into online exhibits. The paper was praised by committee members for its solid review of the technical and other issues surrounding the use of digital audio and the standards for digital audio formats. The author was also commended for going the extra mile by developing an assessment tool for archivists.
JENNIFER OSORIO and PAUL SEVILLA of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), are the joint recipients of SAA’s 2005 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. The award, established in 1993, honors the late Dr. Harold T. Pinkett, who served with distinction during his long tenure at the National Archives and Records Administration and was a Fellow of SAA. It is coordinated through the SAA Archivists and Archives of Color Roundtable.
Jennifer Osorio is currently enrolled in the MLIS program at UCLA, specializing in archives and records management. She is incoming co-president of UCLA’s SAA student chapter and the outgoing co-president of the student chapter of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. She is also the recipient of the Society of California Archivists’ James V. Mink Scholarship. Osorio is currently working as a graduate student researcher on the International Research and Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES 2) Project in the UCLA Department of Information Studies.
Paul Sevilla was born in the Philippines and immigrated to the United States when he was 10 years old. Before he began his graduate degree, he provided reference support at theCalifornia Department of Health Services Resource Center. He is in his second year as a MLIS student at UCLA. Currently, Sevilla is working at UCLA’s Department of Special Collections and interning as an archival research assistant at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood, Calif. In addition to the Pinkett Minority Student Award, Sevilla also received a partial scholarship to attend the 46th Annual American Library Association’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Section Preconference in St. Louis last July. He has also received other student honors and awards through the years, including the Gates Millennium Scholarship.
LINDA HOCKING and DEBRA KIMOKreceived SAA’s 2005 Colonial Dames Scholarship. Established in 1974, the award enables new archivists to attend the Modern Archives Institute of the National Archives and Records Administration. Each scholarship covers $1,200 of the total tuition, travel, and housing expenses associated with attending the institute. To be eligible for this scholarship an individual must have been 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 award is funded by the Colonial Dames of America, Chapter III, Washington, D.C.
Linda Hocking, recipient of the Colonial Dames of America Scholarship to the Winter 2005 Modern Archives Institute, is Curator of Library and Archives at the Litchfield Historical Society in Litchfield, Conn. Hocking received her MLIS in 2001 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her BA in Political Science in 1995 from Marist College. In a letter to the Colonial Dames she explained that she will soon begin a digitization project on historical society records from 1751–1833. Because of her attendance at the MAI, she “will now be able to make better decisions about level of description, arrangement, conservation needs and issues surrounding the creation of digital facsimiles.”
Debra Kimok, recipient of the Colonial Dames of America Scholarship to the Summer 2005 Modern Archives Institute, is Special Collections/Reference Librarian for the Benjamin F. Feinberg Library, State University of New York (SUNY) at Plattsburgh. Kimok received her MLS from SUNY Buffalo in 2000 and her BA in History from SUNY Plattsburgh in 1997. In her cover letter, she wrote, “While all of my previous internships and self-study have provided me with a good understanding of archival practice, I strongly believe that both SUNY Plattsburgh and I will benefit greatly by my participation in the Modern Archives Institute. I am looking forward to immersing myself in this work and learning all I can from the instructors and other archivists.”
CHARLOTTE A. WALTERS received SAA’s 2005 Donna Cutts Scholarship. Established in 2002, the award enables one archivist each year to attend the Modern Archives Institute of the National Archives and Records Administration. Each scholarship covers $1,200 of the total tuition, travel, and housing expenses associated with attending the institute. To be eligible for this scholarship an individual must have been 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 award is funded by the Colonial Dames of America, Chapter III, Washington, D.C.
Walters, who attended the Winter 2005 Modern Archives Institute, is an administrative assistant in the University Libraries/Center for Southwest Research-Political Archives at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where she processes and describes manuscript collections as well as maintains and develops guidelines for the processing and description of political papers. The Center for Southwest Research holds both manuscript and book materials that document the history and culture of New Mexico and the Southwest, including New Mexico’s governance and administration by Spain and Mexico, pre-1825. Walters received her BA in Social Thought and Political Economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2004. In a letter to the Colonial Dames, she notes, “The Institute gave me many resources and an important professional network to support the archives here in New Mexico. It is a solid base for me to build upon and increase my professional expertise.”
ROBERT S. MARTIN, who completed his four-year term as director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in July, received SAA’s Council Exemplary Service Award.
Martin was nominated by President George W. Bush to be director of IMLS in June 2001; the U.S. Senate subsequently confirmed his nomination by unanimous consent. During his tenure, IMLS awarded 4,704 grants to America’s museums and libraries totaling more than $899 million. Martin served with distinction throughout his term as IMLS director and he consciously and consistently sought to include archival projects and priorities within the IMLS scope of grant programs.
A librarian, archivist, educator, and administrator, Martin was professor and interim director of the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Women’s University (TWU) prior to his appointment at IMLS. From 1995 to 1999, he was director and librarian of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Martin returned to work in September at the Denton campus of TWU, where he has been named the Lillian Bradshaw Endowed Chair in Library Science.
GEORGE F. FARR, JR. received the 2005 J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award from SAA in recognition of his advocacy and support of archival preservation and access projects during his distinguished career at the National Endowment for the Humanities, and particularly as its Director of the Division of Preservation and Access. Established in 1989, the award is named for the noted American historian who was a long-time advocate for the establishment of a National Archives in the United States.
Farr put a concerned and caring face on the Division of Preservation and Access, fostered an openness and understanding that changed the NEH’s grant process, and assisted in transforming the preservation world as it is known today. Always generous with his time, and gracious to everyone he met, he was an integral part of the archival, library, and academic communities, and a frequent presence at SAA Annual Meetings. Fostering a belief that the cultural heritage of the nation needs to be preserved and made available to all, he energized a generation of individuals and organizations to make a difference in the future by paying attention to the past. His broad definition of cultural artifacts included archives, books, and three-dimensional objects. This breadth of vision expanded preservation efforts and helped develop access tools to still and moving images and sound recordings, thereby unlocking many hidden collections.
Farr’s groundbreaking work has had a national impact on the preservation and access of archival and library materials. Projects that he guided during the past two decades include: a national initiative to identify, catalog, and microfilm the nation’s newspaper heritage; the microfilming of brittle books; the preservation of material culture collections; the digitization of microfilmed newspapers for increased accessibility; grants for smaller institutions to obtain consultants and preservation supplies; the establishment of regional preservation/conservation centers with field service departments; the creation of a national clearinghouse for preservation information; and the establishment of university programs to train preservation personnel, among others.
Two long-standing contributors to the Society of American Archivists—PHILIP B. EPPARD and SCOTT SCHWARTZ—were honored for their service by the SAA Council at the 2005 Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Eppard, associate professor in the School of Information Science and Policy at the University at Albany, State University of New York, served as American Archivist Editor for ten years. Schwartz, archivist for the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was the Membership Committee chair and advocate who saw SAA’s membership development efforts reach new levels.
SAA Council Resolution Honoring
Philip B. Eppard
American Archivist Editor
1996–2005
Whereas Philip B. Eppard has furthered professional discourse through his editorship of the American Archivist from 1996 to 2005; and
Whereas he facilitated the transition from quarterly to semiannual publication; and Whereas he re-established a timely production schedule for the journal; and
Whereas he balanced the content mix with theoretical and practical articles and oversaw publication of theme issues on graduate archival education, encoded archival description, and user studies; and
Whereas he harnessed new technologies to streamline the editorial review process; and
Whereas at SAA Annual Meetings he hosted new author forums and, together with Editorial Board members, presented sessions on how to conduct research projects and produce publishable papers from them; and
Whereas he brought a personal warmth to the editorship that encouraged new authors to submit manuscripts to the journal; and
Whereas his sharp intellect and analytic perspective enhanced the quality of the journal;
Therefore Be It Resolved that the Society of American Archivists owes a debt of gratitude and expresses its sincere thanks to Philip B. Eppard for advancing he professional discourse through his nine-year editorship of the American Archivist.
SAA Council Resolution Honoring
Scott Schwartz
SAA Membership Committee Chair
1996–2005
Whereas Scott Schwartz has served with distinction for ten years on the Society of American Archivists Membership Committee, nine years of which he has served as its chair; and
Whereas during his tenure the organization has experienced increased membership; and
Whereas he has enthusiastically and passionately supported the recruitment and retention of members through tracking and reporting on membership statistics and trends and through the Key Contact Program, Mentoring Program, Career Center, annual raffle and silent auction, and other development initiatives;
Therefore Be It Resolved that the Society of American Archivists extends its sincere gratitude to Scott Schwartz for his outstanding leadership of the Membership Committee.
Nancy Bartlett, Thomas Battle, Connell Gallagher, Joan Krizack, Richard Pearce-Moses, Megan Sniffin-Marinoff, Helen Tibbo, and John (Jac) Treanor were named Fellows of the Society of American Archivists on August 19, 2005, during an awards ceremony at SAA’s 69th Annual Meeting in New Orleans. An overflow crowd packed the ballroom of the New Orleans Hilton Riverside to salute the eight new Fellows. Established in 1957 and conferred annually, the distinction of Fellow is the highest honor bestowed on individuals by SAA and is awarded for outstanding contributions to the archival profession. There are now 154 current members so honored out of a membership of more than 4,200.
The Committee for the Selection of SAA Fellows evaluates nominees on the following criteria: appropriate academic education and professional and technical training; a minimum of seven years professional experience in any of the fields encompassed in the archival profession; writing of superior quality and usefulness in advancing SAA objectives; and contributions to the archival profession through work in and for SAA.
As specified by the SAA constitution, election as Fellow is by 75 percent vote of the Committee for the Selection of SAA Fellows. The committee consisted of the five immediate past presidents of SAA—Timothy Ericson, Peter Hirtle (chair), Steven Hensen, H. Thomas Hickerson, and Lee J. Stout—and three Fellows selected by Council—Anne Gilliland, Karen Jefferson, and Kris Kiesling.
SAA welcomes the eight new Fellows and extends its thanks to those involved in the selection process. Following are citations for the Fellows presented during the awards ceremony.
NANCY BARTLETT is Head Archivist for the University Archives and Records Program and Assistant to the Director for Academic Programs at the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. Her championship of international awareness as a key component of the archival professional identity has been lauded by her colleagues worldwide. One nominator wrote, “The word ‘international’ is probably associated more with Nancy Bartlett than with any other member of the archival profession in the United States. In her work she has informed all of us of the links that bind us through common concerns about records management, implications of diplomatics across political boundaries, the impact of the European model on archival thought, the commonalities in archival practice between East and West. [Through her] extensive work in Denmark, France, Russia, China, and with the International Council on Archives, she has come to a real understanding of national, cultural, and procedural differences among archival institutions that has been enormously influential in shaping the international conversation about archival practice.”
Another nominator wrote, “Nancy Bartlett is one of the most original thinkers in the archival profession in the U.S.A. . . . Through her extensive writings and many presentations she has brought to all of us a greater appreciation of the role of the archivist as mediator. That is, mediator between scholars and the historical record, between the visual object and the user, between the psychology of a culture and its own heritage, between ‘silences’ in the archives and the extant record, between bureaucratic processes and archival policy.”
A provocative and articulate author in her own right, Bartlett has served as editor-in-chief of Comma—International Journal on Archives; co-editor of the international section of American Archivist, as well as co-editor of two special issues; co-editor of a special issue on archives of China of the
International Council on Archives’ journal Janus; and a member of the editorial boards of the American Archivist, Janus, and the Midwest Archives Council’s Archival Issues, as well as a member of SAA’s Task Force on Electronic Publishing. She also has the distinction of being the only U.S. archivist ever to participate
as a stagiaire, a seminar participant in the Stage Technique International d’Archives, in Paris in 1985.
— Anne Gilliland, University of California, Los Angeles
THOMAS C. BATTLE is the Director of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC) at Howard University. During his 32- year career at MSRC, he helped build an outstanding library, museum, manuscript collection, and university archives. The MSRC is one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive repositories for the documentation of the history and culture of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and other parts of the world. As one of Howard University’s major research facilities, the MSRC collects, preserves, and makes available for research a wide range of resources chronicling the Black experience.Its collections include more than 175,000 bound volumes and tens of thousands of journals, periodicals, and newspapers; more than 17,000 feet of manuscript and archival collections; nearly 1,000 audiotapes; hundreds of artifacts; and 100,000 prints, photographs, maps, and other graphic items. These extraordinary historical materials are a source of great pride to the Black community, and the MSRC is held in high esteem around the world.
Battle has written and published a number of articles during his career. However, more important are his initiatives to support scholarship and publishing. In 1983 Dr. Battle organized a symposium on Black contributions to the preservation of Black history that acknowledged activities dating back to 1827. The proceedings of this symposium—Black Bibliophiles and Collectors: Preservers of Black History—were the first of six titles in the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center Series published by Howard University Press.
Battle is an active member of numerous archives, library, history, and museum associations and works with many community groups. His outreach efforts have educated countless persons about the importance of preserving history and introduced them to archives as a profession. He is a long-time member of the Society of American Archivists and has served on numerous committees and task forces and most recently completed a term on its governing council. He works tirelessly to expand diversity, always recommending and encouraging the participation and inclusion of younger and lesser known archivists.
An alumnus of Howard University, Battle is affectionately known as “Dr. B,” “Bat,” and “TCB” (for “taking care of business”) His dedication, commitment, enthusiasm, generosity, skills, knowledge, leadership, and contributions exemplify what is best in the archival profession.
— Karen Jefferson, Atlanta University Center
CONNELL GALLAGHER joined the University of Vermont in 1970 as its University Archivist and Curator of Manuscripts. He currently serves as the Director of Research Collections at the Bailey/Howe Library and is also a lecturer on archives and Vermont history. Within the archival profession, he has made numerous contributions to the theory of privacy and confidentiality— a perennial topic of abiding interest to archivists, but one of special and keen interest in today’s political and social climate.
Gallagher is actively involved in a number of professional associations. He has served SAA in a variety of leadership
capacities, including as chair of the Privacy and Confidentiality Roundtable, Congressional Papers Roundtable, and the College
and University Archives Section. He is a member of SAA’s Ethics Committee and has served as a mentor to new
archivists. In addition, he is the past president of the New England Archivists and the Vermont Library Association, and
is a long-time member of the Academy of Certified Archivists.
Gallagher has come to represent the very best of the archival profession. As one of his supporters put it, “Whether it be mentoring young archivists, serving our national and regional organizations, or publishing and presenting so the rest of us can learn from his work, Connie Gallagher has served the archive profession with distinction for more than thirty years.” Many of his supporters singled out the mentoring he had provided to younger colleagues.
Others supporters remarked upon his demeanor: “…a quiet exemplar of the archival profession…never [grandstanding] but always there when needed—one of the quintessential ‘ nice guys’…[a] consummate professional, respectful though rigorous, thoughtful though articulate, patient though pointed.” There is remarkable unanimity among Gallagher’s colleagues and nominators who describe him in their letters of support as “ kind,” “wise,” “dedicated,” “steadfast,” “intelligent,” “modest,” “ knowledgeable,” “patient,” and “professional.” The archival profession is lucky to have someone within its midst who so effectively embodies these assets.
— Steven Hensen, Duke University
JOAN KRIZACK is the University Archivist and Head of Special Collections at Northeastern University. Her nominators cited her “burning intellectual honesty coupled with an astounding capacity for work and no shyness about ‘encouraging’ others to excel.” She is a remarkable archivist who has distinguished herself through her writings, her service to the profession, and her archival activism. In 1994 she edited the publication, Documentation Planning for the U.S. Health Care System (Johns Hopkins University Press), which eventually won SAA’s Waldo Gifford Leland Award for writing of superior quality and usefulness. Later on in her career at Northeastern University, Krizack started another exemplary project to document the experiences of underrepresented populations in the Boston area.
As one nominator noted, “Joan’s fiery activism was an inspiring contrast to the dry appraisal rhetoric . . . that I had encountered up to then.” Through this project Krizack made history a palpable and empowering part of the communities present, by showing them that their past accomplishments and challenges are worthy of remembrance and study.
Krizack has also been a major contributor to the archival profession. She has served SAA in a variety of leadership capacities on numerous sections, committees, and boards, including the Program Committee, the Publications Board, the American Archivist Editorial Board, and the Task Force on Diversity. Her nominators all note her willingness to tackle complicated, challenging, and at times contentious issues, while always giving thoughtful consideration to the opinion of others. She has been very active in the New England Archivists as well, including serving as its president. Krizack helped create the current Research Fellowship Program for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and, after overseeing its operations for several years in Boston, saw it safely moved to North Carolina.
One of her nominators put it best: “Joan’s dedication to archives makes you want to be a better archivist.”
— Peter Hirtle, Cornell University
RICHARD PEARCE-MOSES is the Director of Digital Government Information at the Arizona State Library Division of Archives and Public Records, where he has worked since 1999. Prior to that time he was Photograph Archivist and then Documentary Collections Archivist and Automation Coordinator at The Heard Museum, and from 1988 to 1994, Curator of Photographs and Associate Archivist in the Department of Archives and Manuscripts in the Arizona State University Libraries. The earliest part of his career was spent as Historic Photography Project Coordinator at the Texas Historical Foundation, and as Assistant to the Curator of the Photography Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
Pearce-Moses’s service to SAA has been extensive and varied. This month he begins his one-year term as the association’s 61st president. He was a member of the governing council from 1999 to 2002, twice served on the Nominating Committee, and was a member of the Committee on Education and Professional Development, the Education Office Advisory Board, the Committee on Archival Information Exchange, the Task Force on Sections and Roundtables, and chair of the Visual Materials Section. For many years he co-instructed the SAA workshop “Administration of Photographic Collections.”
In 2002 Pearce-Moses was awarded a fellowship from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to tackle the revision of the SAA glossary. The just-published Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology (SAA, 2005) contains more than 2,000 defined entries and more than 600 leadin terms and is destined to become an authoritative reference.
Several of Pearce-Moses’s nominators spoke of his compassion as a mentor, his willingness to reach out to new members of SAA, and his work with Native American archivists and their collections. One nominator wrote, “He asks hard questions, makes thoughtful proposals, enjoys vigorous debate, and both relishes and contributes to the camaraderie that is the hallmark of groups within SAA. He is intent and avid about his profession.”
— Kris Kiesling, University of Texas at Austin
MEGAN SNIFFIN-MARINOFF is University Archivist at Harvard University. She was described by her nominators as a “model professional,” “a mentor to a generation of archivists who received their education at Simmons College,” and a “prodigious contributor” to the archival profession. She began her career as a graduate assistant in the university archives at New York University and went on to a distinguished teaching career at the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science. She then was appointed Head of Archives and Special Collections at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Later on she joined the staff of Harvard University, serving first as librarian and deputy director of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, before assuming her current position as university archivist.
Sniffin-Marinoff’s colleagues and former students credit her with being a “clear thinker, a compassionate colleague” and a dedicated mentor whose “sound judgment and ability to articulate issues in a soft-spoken but effective way” have benefited those with whom she has had the chance to work.
Over the years she has contributed countless hours of service to the Society of American Archivists, including as a member of the governing council, Nominating Committee, Committee on Education and Professional Development, Public Information Committee, Committee on Regional Archival Activity, and Awards subcommittees. She has been equally active in the New England Archivists and has served as a consultant, trustee, and advisor for such groups as the Northeast Document Conservation Center, the WGBH Education Foundation, and the City of Boston Archives Advisory Committee.
She also has an impressive record of international involvement, currently serving as a member of the Steering Committee of Section on University and Research Institution Archives for the International Council on Archives, and a participant in two international colloquia on archival education.
— Timothy Ericson, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee
HELEN R. TIBBO is a Professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her principal achievements are as a scholar and as an outstanding educator of new archivists, librarians, and information scientists. Armed with a PhD in Information and Library Science from the University of Maryland, she accepted an initial appointment at the University of North Carolina in 1989 and was promoted to full professor in 2003. At UNC, while contributing to the building of a top-ranked academic program, she has served as Assistant Dean and as Associate Dean of the School of Information and Library Science; she has served on numerous academic and administrative bodies, including two terms on the Graduate School’s Administrative Board; and she was elected as treasurer and as chair of the UNC-Chapel Hill Chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
Tibbo’s research focuses on the users of archives and their discovery and use of archival holdings, particularly in today’s networked environment. Her university courses range across a broad spectrum, from archival administration and records management to information technologies and digital preservation to information retrieval and use and user evaluation. She is a dedicated teacher who infuses her students with a passion for research, writing, and the archival endeavor. And she’s an enthusiastic mentor, committed to insuring the professional success of her students, thirteen of whom have published and won awards. In fact, since its establishment in 1997, one half of all of the recipients of SAA’s Theodore Calvin Pease Award for superior student writing have been Tibbo’s pupils, which is a remarkable record.
At SAA, she has served in a variety of leadership capacities, including election to the governing council and to the Nominating Committee; as chair of the Archival Educators Roundtable and the Task Force on the Future of the American Archivist; and as a member of the American Archivist Editorial Board. She has also appeared on fourteen of the last sixteen SAA Annual Meeting programs. In 1994, she received SAA’s Fellows’ Ernst Posner Award for her outstanding essay in American Archivist, “The Epic Struggle: Subject Retrieval from Large Bibliographic Databases.”
— H. Thomas Hickerson, Cornell University
JOHN (JAC) TREANOR is Vice Chancellor for Archives and Records Management for the Archdiocese of Chicago. He began his career in Boston in its archdiocesan archives after receiving his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from the University of Massachusetts. Following two years at the Massachusetts State Archives, Treanor joined the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1986 and built its archives into a model repository that has influenced Catholic archives around the world. He has taken modern archival practice, reinforced it through records management, and demonstrated how information technology can both enable and incorporate these professional streams. He has done this while persuading dioceses and religious orders that archives are both canonically necessary and extraordinarily valuable. And, in the midst of modern American Catholicism’s stormiest era, when shutting the doors to the world might seem the easiest path, Treanor has campaigned for transparency and openness for the archival record.
Treanor is among a small number of archivists who have found the means to integrate archives and records management, and he has implemented an electronic records program. He has been instrumental in technology planning and policy and he helped re-engineer the archdiocese-wide IT infrastructure. One of Treanor’s nominators noted that his “knowledge of technology and how to apply it to solve business problems continues to be a significant asset” for the archdiocese.
Not only has Treanor created a model program, but his leadership efforts have reached around the world. He has lobbied chancellors and bishops to promote archival programs. He helped create the Association of Catholic Diocesan Archivists and has held all its offices. He created biennial conferences where diocesan archivists meet leading professionals and researchers. The publications he edited from these conferences both unify practice and advocate for the scholarly use of the records.
In addition, Treanor’s commitment to education extends to frequent presentations in venues ranging from local to international. He has served a variety of organizations well in program development, he’s fostered communication and shared effort between the archival and records management professions, and he’s a mentor to both his own staff and his colleagues in the greater archival community.
— Leon Stout, Pennsylvania State University