by Cristina Vignone, Education Chair, Business Archives Section
In order to further explore the topic of business archives and exhibitions, the BAS held an industry-wide call on the topic on April 27, 2020.
Over 70 members of the section gathered virtually for presentations by five BAS members—Elizabeth McGorty, Archivist & Records Manager at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation; Cristina Vignone, Associate Archivist & Manager of Research Services at Tiffany & Co.; Neil...
by Greg McCoy, Immediate Past Chair
As stated at the 2019 Annual Section Meeting, the section’s Standing Rules are in need of updating to reflect the changes in the roles and responsibilities of Section officers, to reflect changes in SAA guidelines, and other small changes. None of these fundamentally alter or change the Section’s overall mission or objectives, and the majority of changes are in the sections related to Officers, Committees, and Elections. Changes are viewable in the documents...
The Human Rights Archives section is seeking candidates to run for the following positions to serve as part of the steering committee starting in August 2020. Over the years the HRA has developed and matured. If elected to serve, your participation will be crucial to setting the goals and mission of the section.
The commitment for this section is as follows (attending the Annual Meeting is not required):-Monthly steering committee call lasting 1 hour -Commitment to section projects with...
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 25, 2020.
The COVID-19 public health crisis is having an unprecedented impact on the American work force, including the federal government and its FOIA and MDR offices.
Some agencies are making submitting FOIA requests more difficult, even going so far as to shutter their Records Management offices, while others are making it easier to submit requests electronically. The disparate approaches across the federal government are causing confusion for many FOIA requesters.
Read more here.
A Passover haggadah produced from memory while in hiding from the Nazis, a matzah cover retrieved after the Holocaust, and an image of matzah baking in the Lodz ghetto.
These are just some of the many artifacts and photographs which have been put together by Yad Vashem for its new, online exhibition recalling the Passover holiday during the Holocaust era.
The exhibition, which is now online, illustrates the stories of Jews caught up in the horrors of the Nazi genocide and cataclysmic world...
Sites of Conscience is hosting a series of free webinars in response to the COVID-19 pandemic on a range of social, political and cultural heritage topics including memorializing the pandemic, civil liberties, and refugee communities. There are upcoming webinars in May and June, and you can view previous webinars from earlier this month.
Read more and register here.
In case you missed our second Rights & Records webinar last month, you can view the recording on SAA's PathLMS platform here.
For human rights defenders, witnesses, and those caught in between some of history’s most violent and difficult moments, video footage functions as a mechanism for seeking justice, accountability, and hopefully, one day, peace. Join WITNESS (a global organization that helps people use video and technology to protect and defend human rights) as representatives share...
The site sits hundreds of miles from any major city. There are no statues to admire, no gift shops to buy postcards, and no cheery activities for the kids. To get there, one must drive through hours of farm and dirt roads amid potholes and sometimes ice patches in winter littering the journey like land mines.
And when you arrive at the Sand Creek Massacre site, you’ll find open plains and a few markers. The rest is up to you.
This quiet piece of land tucked away in rural southeastern Colorado...
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) has accelerated the launch of a new online feature in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, inviting people to share their human rights stories by video.
Initially envisioned as a way to collect personal stories about contemporary human rights issues,“Share Your Story” now creates an opportunity for people to connect and relay their experiences during the pandemic. Participants aged 18 and over are invited to record and upload short videos (up to two...
In August 1992, in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, nearly 2 million books went up in flames.
Fragile, 500-hundred-year-old pamphlets and vibrant Ottoman-era manuscripts disintegrated into ash as the building holding them, the National Library of Bosnia-Herzegovina, was shelled and burned. It was not the first act of cultural destruction by Serbian forces against other ethnic groups in the Balkans, and it certainly wasn’t the last: Over the next seven years, Serb nationalists led by dictator...
New light will be shed on one of the most controversial periods of Vatican history on Monday when the archives on Pope Pius XII – accused by critics of being a Nazi sympathiser – are unsealed.
A year after Pope Francis announced the move, saying “the church isn’t afraid of history”, the documents from Pius XII’s papacy, which began in 1939 on the brink of the second world war and ended in 1958, will be opened, initially to a small number of scholars.
Critics of Pius XII have accused him of...
Our organization and mission depends on donations, admissions, education program fees and event sales to operate. Our closure will have a significant impact on our operating budget and your support is needed now more than ever.
Our effort to reveal stories of freedom’s heroes and to challenge and inspire everyone to take courageous steps of freedom today has not been diminished and our light of freedom will shine brighter than ever. Rest assured that, with your contributions during this time,...
In case you haven't had a chance to read our interview with StoryCorps Union Bargaining Committee member Maura Johnson, you can read it here. It has been updated with new informational links by author Claire Bennett.
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...
This timely webinar addressed the dynamics of recording remote interviews. The webinar covered the legal and ethical considerations and implications of oral histories conducted via distance interviewing, aspects of interviewing in a distance environment, and best pratices for recording archival-quality distance interviews.
This webinar was conducted by faculty from Baylor University Institute for Oral History and was supported by the Oral History Association. The full recording of the webinar ...
The Students and New Archives Professionals (SNAP) Section is seeking nominations for a Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, Secretary, and three At-Large positions. To nominate yourself or someone else, please complete our form.
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...
Jeremy Linden gave a special extended Preservation Week webinar on May 8th, 2 PM E.S.T. (previously scheduled for May 1st)
The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the advent of sustainable practices throughout the cultural heritage community, ranging from redefined standards and best practices to broadened discussions and understanding of what sustainability means in the context of collecting organizations including archives, museums, and libraries. This webinar will:
· Outline...
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...
