T-Kay Sangwand, Candidate for Nominating Committee

Professional experience: Digital Scholarship Librarian, UCLA (2016–present); Human Rights Archivist | Librarian for Brazilian Studies, UT Austin (2009–2015), Co-Principal Investigator on “Post-custodial Archival Development and Digital Scholarship: Lessons from Latin America” grant funded by Mellon Foundation (2014–2015).

Education: MLIS and MA in Latin American Studies, UCLA, 2008; BA, Women’s and Gender Studies and Latin American Studies, Scripps College, 2005.

Professional activities: Society of American Archivists: ARL/SAA Mosaic Program Selection Committee (2013–2015); Founder and Co-chair, Human Rights Roundtable (2009–2011); Annual Meeting Navigator (2013–2015); Harold T. Pinkett Award Selection Committee (2009); Member (2007–present).

Professional activities: Technical advisory board member for Latin American Microform Project, Center for Research Libraries (2013–present); Featured practitioner for New Tactics’ “Archiving Human Rights for Advocacy, Justice, and Memory” Tactical Dialog (2012); Certified archivist (2011–present); Manuscript reviewer for American Archivist, Archival Science, Library Quarterly, Interactions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies (2012–2014); Proposal reviewer for iConference (2009).

Peer-reviewed publications: Co-editor of Critical Archival Studies special issue of Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies (forthcoming 2016); “Revolutionizing the Archival Record through Rap: Cuban Hip Hop and Its Implications for Reorienting the Archival Paradigm” in Through the Archival Looking Glass: A Reader on Diversity and Inclusion (SAA, 2014); “The Human Rights Documentation Initiative at the University of Texas Libraries” in New Review of Information Networking 15 (2010).

Selected presentations: “Decolonizing archival practice and diversifying the historical record through human rights post-custodial archiving” keynote talk at Kansas University’s Digital Humanities Forum (2015); “Post-custodial theory of archives: a debate” at SAA Annual Meeting (2015); “Diversifying the Archival Record through Participatory Archiving and the Post-Custodial Model” invited speaker at ARL/SAA Mosaic Leadership Forum (2014); “Never Neutral: Archives and Archivists in Post-Conflict States” presentation at International Council on Archives Annual Meeting (2013); “Towards Socially Responsible Data Curation” invited speaker at Association for Research Libraries’ Fall Forum: Library Workforce in the 21st Century Research Libraries (2012); “Lesbian Longevity: Building Partnerships and Preserving Memory with the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archive" presentation at SAA Annual Meeting (2010); “(S)aving (O)ur (S)ound: Overcoming Barriers to Digital Preservation in Small, Mixed Media Archives” poster at SAA Annual Meeting (2007).

Awards: Library Journal Mover & Shaker–Advocate (2015); Digital Library Foundation Conference Fellowship (2015); Archives Leadership Institute Scholarship (2013); Rare Books and Manuscripts Section Conference Scholarship (2009); California Rare Book School Scholarship (2008); SAA Harold T. Pinkett Award (2008).

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Question posed by Nominating Committee:

SAA’s strategic plan emphasizes the importance of diversifying the profession using a broad definition of diversity (race, culture, geography, institutional type, sexual orientation, age, constituent group, etc.). How is SAA currently cultivating a diverse group of future leaders for the organization, and how would you strive to represent this diversity within the slate of candidates?

Candidate's Response:

With ongoing commitments such as the Diversity Committee, Harold T. Pinkett Award, and Roundtables (i.e. Archives & Archivists of Color, Native American Archivists, Women Archivists, Lesbian and Gay Archives Roundtable) to newer initiatives such as the ARL/SAA Mosaic Program and SNAP Roundtable, SAA has made concerted efforts to cultivate diversity in its membership and across the profession. I recognize that these efforts resulted from the dedication of members across the organization who pushed SAA leadership to move forward on these initiatives and further developed as leaders themselves in the process. As a member of the Nominating Committee, I would aim to identify a) a candidate slate that not only reflects the various aspects of SAA’s broad definition of diversity and b) candidates who work towards diversifying archives and archivists as a core responsibility within our profession, and not a niche concern.

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