The next edition of the Business Archives Section Quarterly (BASQ) is in the works!
This time we are dealing with the ways in which corporate archives are managing during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is an unusual time for us all, and we are interested in hearing how business archivists are supporting their companies. We've had some great conversations on the message board about this topic and want to take it to the newsletter.
You can check out the threads “Your Responses to COVID-19” (March 19...
The Nominating Committee for the Acquisitions & Appraisal Section is seeking individuals interested in acquisitions and appraisal for the following three positions (see below for duties):
Vice Chair/Chair Elect
Steering Committee At-Large Member (2 positions available)
Candidates must be members of SAA and this Section at the time of nomination. We encourage candidates of all experience levels and from various types of institutions. Consider nominating yourself or a colleague! Please...
Webinar from March 26, 2020
Authors Among Us: A Conversation with Christina Zamon, Rachael Woody, and Margot Note An hour-long conversation between three archivists about their forays into writing and publishing. Christina Zamon, Rachael Woody, and Margot Note each discuss their impetuses for publishing works on archival topics, such as lone arranging, grant writing, and family archives.
SAA Students and New Archives Professionals (SNAP) Section hosted an "Ask Me Anything" web event on Monday, February 24, 2020, with past SAA Nominating Committee members.
Our panel consists of former SAA Nominating Committee members who will be on hand to explain how the Nominating Committee process works. This event, for those newer to SAA, or those who may just need a refresher, aims to demystify how the Nominating Committee works as well as to emphasize the importance of voting in SAA...
Something important to you missing from this newsletter? Send a submission my way and let me know what you would like to see.
Please submit newsletter items about archives and human rights (writ broadly) to hilary.h.barlow@gmail.com. These can be recent publications, upcoming events or exhibitions, opportunities and scholarships, or something else entirely as long as it connects to archives and human rights. For the March newsletter, please send you submission by March 24, 2020.
The archives of the Museum of Chinese in America may be in better shape than feared, after a five-alarm fire destroyed part of the Chinatown building where they were kept.
City workers began the process of recovering the museum's boxes from the building at 70 Mulberry Street on Wednesday. The archives, which boast 85,000 items of historical and cultural significance, were stored on the second floor of the five-story building, where a fire on January 24th destroyed the top floors and roof. Nine...
The official exhibition, in Sandton City until July, begins with a series of large paintings by John Meyer, one of hills, presumably in the Eastern Cape, where three young boys are seen running through rays of sunshine and blades of tall grass. The entrance engulfs the viewer, enabling them to fully immerse themselves in what is about to be an excellently curated narrative of Nelson Mandela. The first gallery invites viewers to feel the power and emotion of one of the most dramatic and...
On February 1, 2020, the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience suspended the membership of the National Center for Historical Memory in Bogotá, Colombia, of its worldwide network of more than 275 historical sites, museums and initiatives of memory. To be clear, only the National Center for Historical Memory has been suspended; the Coalition continues to fully support its other Colombian members, including the Center for Memory, Peace and Reconciliation, the Casa de la Memoria Museum...
This year will be the First International Meeting of Museums of Memory and Human Rights, which will take place in Santiago de Chile on November 12 and 13, organized in the context of our 10th Anniversary.
The meeting seeks to foster critical reflection and enhance the coordination of collaborative initiatives that highlight the role of these spaces with respect to the duty to remember that it is the responsibility of the states, and the right to memory that is characteristic of people, peoples...
On January 26, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved the sale of the 157,000 square foot National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Seattle facility, which holds permanent federal records for Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. This decision raises the question: which is more important, access to historic records or selling a public facility in a high-value real estate market? There has been fierce opposition from historical societies in Alaska and Seattle, historical...
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the forced evacuation and relocation of all people in “military areas” who might pose a threat to national security. Since the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor had occurred just months earlier, many believed that people of Japanese ancestry posed that threat, and the entire West Coast was deemed a military area.
Over the next six months, 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese descent were taken...
Building on the collaborative, community-engaged work of the American Philosophical Society’s Center for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR), the APS Library & Museum launched The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Native American Scholars Initiative (NASI) in 2016 to foster the development of the next generation of Indigenous and allied students and scholars.
As part of its NASI initiative, CNAIR will host a three-day conference in Philadelphia on September 24-26, 2020. The...
StoryCorps is an American nonprofit founded in 2003 by David Isay with a mission to preserve and share the stories of people from all backgrounds. Modeled after the oral history projects conducted by the WPA in the 1930’s, the organization places recording booths and facilitators in accessible spaces to enable anyone to record their story. Among its numerous projects, StoryCorps has permanent recording booths in Chicago, NYC and Atlanta, a mobile booth that travels the U.S. in a retrofitted...
MATTHEW CONNELLY: But in this case, it was fascinating, because what I found and what others have found is that records relating to the death, the sexual assault of undocumented immigrants had been designated as temporary. In other words, these were records they decided had to be deleted after sometimes three years, five years, 10 or, at most, 25 years, in this case.
So there was a big outcry. A lot of people — in fact, tens of thousands of people — spoke up in protest. Dozens of members of...
The Latino Museum Studies Program (LMSP) provides a national forum for graduate students to share, explore and discuss the representation and interpretation of Latino cultures in the context of the American experience. It provides a unique opportunity to meet and engage with Smithsonian professionals, scholars from renowned universities, and with leaders in the museum field.
Created in 1994 as Smithsonian Institute for Interpreting and Representing Latino Cultures (SIIRLC), LMSP seeks to...
A national organization based in Minnesota is kicking off a new 10-year plan to bring attention to a dark chapter in U.S. history — and it’s just gotten the funding to put the plan into action.
Between 1869 and the 1960s, it’s estimated hundreds of thousands of Native American children across the country were removed from their families and sent to government boarding schools.
The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition formed in 2012 to seek justice and healing for those...
This document is a set of guidelines for granting agencies, grant writers, and grant reviewers supporting the ethical creation of contingent positions in digital library work. We encourage granting agencies and grant reviewers to endorse and integrate these guidelines into application requirements, and urge institutions creating contingent positions to consult these guidelines when developing such positions.
Grants are opportunities to request and receive funding and other support that treats...
What worries you most about the state of the world now?
I worry about what I think is a real decline in the teaching of good history. History majors are down more than any other major. Humanities are already down compared to STEM, which I can understand — STEM is important. But I believe the humanities are incredibly important if we want to create an engaged, responsible citizenry.
I just thought about that word “humanity.”
Yeah. It’s the study of what it means to be human. Nazis didn’t fall...
Join us on Wednesday, April 29th 2020 for #PresTC2020, a Preservation Week Twitter Conference hosted by the Society of American Archivists Preservation Section. This free and inclusive conference on Twitter will present a series of lightning talks that we hope will be of interest to librarians, archivists, and anyone who may care about preserving cultural heritage.
Each speaker will have 10 minutes to present their talk, and then take questions from you, the audience. Of course, this is...
With the publication of Frank Boles’ article “To Everything There Is a Season” in the Fall/Winter 2019 edition of American Archivist (sections of the issue are available online, print edition forthcoming in March 2020), the Students and New Archives Professionals (SNAP) section wishes to bring up some concerns regarding both the initial peer review process the article underwent, as well as the larger question of whose voices American Archivist chooses to uplift.
While we do respectfully...
"The Basics of Branding" will be led by Denver-based artist and designer Amy Ventura of Daring Luna, the design and branding firm she recently launched to help women entrepreneurs (though her tips and knowledge will apply to business people of any gender - I swear!) Amy will discuss the essential components of thoughtful branding to attract the right clients. Please mark your calendars for: "Basics of Branding" Wednesday, January 29, 2020 12:00 PM CST
Link to webinar
by Dave J. Moore, Heritage & Brand Asset Manager, Carhartt
Hey Midwest business archivists!
We’re excited to announce we’ll be reprising the Business Archives Preconference at this year’s Midwest Archives Conference (MAC) Annual Meeting. We were at capacity last year in Detroit and we hope to do it again! The preconference will take place from May 6 in Des Moines, Iowa. Preliminary information on the MAC Annual Meeting is available here: https://www.midwestarchives.org/2020-annual-meeting....
We can all say by now that business archivists wear many hats. When we’re not working on traditional archival tasks, we’re serving as a researcher, historian, copywriter, IT professional… and often, an exhibits specialist. Developing exhibitions with our collections is a fantastic way to connect to employees and the public. And these displays come in many, many forms.
Have you put your company’s collections on display somewhere? Examples could include exhibits at:
A corporate headquarters or...
Privacy and Confidentiality Award
The Privacy and Confidentiality (P&C) Section Committee is pleased to announce the establishment of an annual Privacy and Confidentiality Award. The award is intended to encourage engagement in privacy and confidentiality issues related to archives and will recognize individuals, groups, and organizations that advance the professional understanding of and practical approaches to such issues. The following are types of works and activities that may be...
