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