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Candidates for Co-Chair (2019-2021) Alison Anderson, MLIS, CA Senior Processing Archivist; Harvard Property Information Resource Center Biography and Candidate Statement: I am currently the Senior Processing Archivist at the Property Information Resource Center (PIRC) in the Harvard Planning Office, where I have worked for the last twelve years. The PIRC is the main repository for Harvard’s building and land records and supports capital-level construction and campus planning at Harvard. As...
May 31, 2019   Design Records Section
Open Positions:  Vice-Chair (1) Steering Committee (2)   Candidate for Vice-Chair:  Name: Robert Lay Title: Head of Arrangement and Description Institution: Richard B. Russell LIbrary for Political Research and Studies  Biography: Robert Lay is the Head of Arrangement and Description at the Richard B. Russell Library at the University of Georgia. In this role, he oversees archival processing and digital projects and serves as the curator of the Georgia Disability History Archive. Robert holds...
2019 Election: Candidate Statements Thank you to all of our excellent candidates for standing in the 2019 Students and New Archival Professionals Section election. Please take some time to review their candidate statements and get to know them so you can make an informed choice. You will be voting for: One Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, for a two-year term; and One Secretary (one-year term) Three Steering Committee members (one-year terms). Ballots will be managed by SAA staff through Survey Monkey...
The Independent Archivist Section Elections will be held in early July 2019. The ballot will be sent to all members of the section through SAA Connect and voting will be conducted via Survey Monkey. Ballots will remain open for two weeks. Steering Committee Candidate Rachael Woody  I have been an archivist for more than 10-years with 2-years (and counting) as a consulting archivist. Along the way I've developed a passion for advocacy and specifically, advocating for our value as archivists. As...
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 June newsletter, please send you submission by June 24, 2019.
If you are attending any of the above conferences in the coming month, the HRA Section Blog could use your help! It's not as hard as it sounds, and it's a great way to add a publication to your resume. The post can be a simple summary of the issues discussed at a certain session, or you can get a little opinionated and say what you thought was most productive about the session or not as productive.  Here are two examples of sessions covered in the past year. If you're interested in covering a...
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (NURFC) continues its Freedom 55 Programming Series this spring as part of its year-long commemoration of the 55th anniversary of Freedom Summer, an integral milestone in the nation’s civil rights history.“Being an institution focused on the continual struggle for human rights, it’s important that we further this discussion and honor all freedom fighters,” says Jacqueline Dace, NURFC deputy director. “Focusing on Freedom 55 not only allows us to...
The decades-long history of the two-spirit movement here in Manitoba and throughout North America is now being saved and preserved at the University of Winnipeg Archives. The collection — mostly donated by long-time Winnipeg two-spirit activist Albert McLeod — will be on display at the archive's launch Monday, kicking off the school's Pride Week celebrations. Believed to be the most comprehensive collection of two-spirit materials in Canada, Mcleod says the archives will be used by researchers...
In August 2017 an exhibit titled A Campus Divided: Progressives, Anti-Communists, Racism, and Antisemitism at the University of Minnesota, 1930-1942 opened in Elmer L. Andersen Library, the home of Archives and Special Collections at the University of Minnesota. The exhibit was a culmination of years of original research pulling from archival materials to tell the story of racism and surveillance of students on campus during the interwar years. My involvement, as Archivist for the Upper...
The National Security Archive, along with 15 other media organizations, filed a “friend of the court” brief on April 29 in the lawsuit Barr v. Redacted challenging the FBI’s authority to issue national security letters (NSLs) without any judicial oversight and under indefinite gag orders. The letters demand business records from a wide array of organizations for national security investigations, and their accompanying gag orders prohibit the recipient from speaking with anyone about the NSL,...
Esther F. arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau in August 1944 — a period when the camp’s crematoriums were operating at full capacity. Esther, a physician, was held for five days before being transported to Guben, a labor camp in Germany where she was assigned to care for Jewish factory workers. At Guben, a sub-camp of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in eastern Germany (present-day Poland), a female Nazi officer instructed Esther to produce a list of medical supplies she needed. Mentally and...
At last month’s “Vision & Justice” convening hosted by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, luminaries from Harvard and beyond came together to consider the most pressing problems at the juncture of justice, arts, and race. In particular, the conference description characterized the “foundational right of representation in a democracy” as “the right to be recognized justly.”So it was peculiar that neither the event nor the subsequent publicationreferenced the ongoing struggle of...
In the latest on our blog, Eira Tansey relates how historians put today's politics in historical context. Eira, Digital Archivist/Records Manager at the University of Cincinnati Libraries, reflected on her experience as an archivist attending the Organization of American Historians Conference. Her piece touches on issues of racial justice, labor and surveillance. Read the post here. If you'd be interested in writing for the Human Rights Archives Section blog, email hilary.h.barlow@gmail.com...
The SAA Public Library Archives and Special Collections Section seeks candidates to serve in leadership positions for June 2019 elections! Getting involved in PLASC leadership is a great way to engage in professional development and public service.  Time commitment is approximately 5 hours/month, including attendance at a virtual monthly meeting. Annual meeting attendance is NOT required. Over the last 2 years PLASC has been engaged in reinvigorating the section and developing outreach...
  Since the section's bylaws were changed to standing rules per the member affinity group transition approved by Council in August 2016, the Preservation Section's standing rules have been in need of an update. This update reflects the current operations of the section's steering committee as it has evolved over the last five years. These changes mostly address the section's online presence, update outdated modes of communication prescribed in the standing rules, and clarify some confusing...
May 24, 2019   Preservation Section
The Encoded Archival Standards Section is seeking candidates for three positions: one co-chair and two Steering Committee members. The successful candidates will serve a two-year term (August 2019-August 2021). Nominees must be current members of the Society of American Archivists to be considered. Please feel free to email current co-chairs Lora Woodford at lora.woodford@lyrasis.org or Dallas Pillen at djpillen@umich.edu with any questions regarding the nominations/election process or the...
The Web Archiving Section is excited to accept nominations for the following Steering Committee positions for the 2019-2020 year!  If you or someone you know would like to run for a position on the the Web Archiving Section Steering Committee please fill out this form by May 31, 2019:​ Candidate Name Job Title and Institution Headshot (high resolution, optional) Bio and Candidate Statement (1-2 paragraphs) Title of Steering Committee position being sought Please keep in mind that membership...
May 20, 2019   Web Archiving Section
Dear Section Members, As was announced earlier this year, the Collection Management Tools Section Steering Committee is proposing significant changes to the mission, goals, and name of this section. The overall vision is to move from a narrow focus on collection management tools to a broader focus on all aspects of collection management of archival materials. Major changes include: Changing the section name from Collection Management Tools Section to Collection Management Section An increased...
Hello, everyone! The P & C Steering Committee is proposing updates to the Standing Rules to officially create a Past Chair position and add a fourth Steering Committee member.  The majority of other sections also have Past Chair positions and P & C has informally done this as well for many years.  The Past Chair can serve a valuable role by providing continuity and institutional memory, and traditionally within the P & C leadership works closely with interns and spearheads special...
Please send any nominations by Friday, May 31st! Self-nominations are encouraged!  Are you seeking an opportunity to expand your network and get further involved in the oral history community? If so, consider running for an open position on the Steering Committee. Benefits of providing your time and expertise to the Steering Committee include: Networking with engaged colleagues. Cultivating leadership skills in a real world setting.  Driving trends in the field.  Gaining service credit...
May 10, 2019   Oral History Section
The Students and New Archives Professionals (SNAP) Section is seeking nominations for a Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, Secretary, and three At-Large positions.  Serving in a leadership role on the Section is a wonderful way to become more involved with SNAP and SAA and get to know other archivists. Our proposed SNAP bylaws require that to ensure adequate student representation in SNAP leadership, at least two candidates on the slate must be students at the time of the election. In order to hold a...
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 May newsletter, please send you submission by May 24, 2019.
On International Roma Day, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum welcomes efforts in Congress and in US embassies around the world to recognize the genocide against Europe’s Roma at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators, to honor the Romani community and culture, and express concern about continuing violence directed against Romani populations. In light of the history of the persecution of Roma, which culminated during the Holocaust when at least 250,000 Roma were targeted and...
In the early 1920s, the director of the Bristol Museum in Britain received a package containing two human skulls. The donation came from Alfred Hutchins. He had left England seeking brighter horizons and by the late 1800s was living in Southern California. There he became an amateur archaeologist, excavating Native American graves on the Channel Islands. He offered the museum this collection, apparently in honor of his son, who perished during the First World War.Last week in a ceremony,...