Our latest at the Human Rights Archives Section blog examines the challenges and rewards of curating an archival collection documenting capital punishment in the United States. The post summarizes presentations from the University at Albany's National Death Penalty Archive at the Fall 2017 Mid-Atlantic Region Archives Conference.
Content note: this post contains references to execution, violent death, rape, harm to children and racism in the justice system.
Read it here.
On December 7, 2017, we held the first VMCAS Google Hangout to discuss cataloging guidelines. 37 people attended, sharing experiences, challenges and advice. A transcript of the session is attached below.
By Suzanne E. Shapiro, PVH Historian / Heritage Brands Archivist
Cluett, Peabody and Co. (makers of ARROW brand) factory photo circa 1900. Image courtesy PVH Archives.
Overview
The PVH Archives is a digital and physical resource created to preserve all archival materials pertaining to PVH Corp. and its portfolio of iconic apparel brands including CALVIN KLEIN, TOMMY HILFIGER, and the Heritage Brands—Van Heusen, IZOD, ARROW, Warner’s, and Olga....
The Congressional Papers Section formed the CSS/CMS Task Force in August 2016, and the Task Force has pulled together the most comprehensive report to date about archiving Constituent Services Systems (CSS) in the Senate and Correspondence Management Systems (CMS) in the House of Representatives.
The report, released on November 15, 2017, provides an overview of how CSS and CMS developed over time, which vendors and systems are currently in use, how systems are deployed in congressional offices...
The Reference Access and Outreach (RAO) Section of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) has established a new standing committee, the Exhibits and Events Committee (E2), and we are recruiting potential members through December 13, 2017. Visit https://goo.gl/X9r18i to volunteer.
Background and rationale for the establishment of E2:
Several members of the Reference Access and Outreach (RAO) Section of the Society of American Archivists led by Jill Severn, Amy Schindler, and Jessica...
The 2016-2017 Preservation Section Annual Report is now available on the Reports Page for members to review: https://www2.archivists.org/groups/preservation-section/reports
The proposed standard was approved by the SAA Standards Committee at its July 2017 meeting. The next step in the SAA approval process is review by SAA Council.
An update on the review and approval process from our ACRL colleagues:
The ACRL Board of Directors has approved the new Standardized Statistical Measures and Metrics for Public Services in Archival Repositories and Special Collections Libraries. In order to support increasing demands on archival repositories and special collections...
Kerri Anne Burke, Global Curator of Citi Heritage Collections, addresses a meeting of the New York Corporate Archivists group, hosted by the AP Corporate Archives at New York headquarters, Oct. 3, 2017. Valerie Komor, director of AP’s Corporate Archives, and Burke discussed demonstrating the business value of archives. (AP Photo/Chuck Zoeller)
The Associated Press (AP) Corporate Archives, founded in 2003, documents the history and operation of...
Not sure why the NYT and CBC were so full of archival news this month. 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...
“We will put special emphasis on new leads,” said the retired special agent, Vince Pankoke, 59, who is leading the effort. “We need to verify stories as they come in, and we know that is going to lead to further investigation.”
In the search for new leads, he and his team are digitally combing through millions of pages of scanned material from the National Archives in Washington as well as archives in the Netherlands, Germany and Israel.
Read more here.
While the Agency deserves credit for compiling a basic guide to searching their FOIA reading room, it still omits information or leaves it spread out across the Agency’s website. In one egregious example, the CIA guide to searching the records lists only three content types that users can search for, a review of the metadata compiled by Data.World reveals an addition ninety content types. This guide will tell you everything you need to know to dive into CREST and start searching like a pro....
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that thousands of sensitive records pertaining to abuses at Indigenous residential schools are confidential and should be destroyed.
In a unanimous decision released Friday, the top court said the collection of accounts for independent compensation assessment was meant to be a "confidential and private process" and that "claimants and alleged perpetrators relied on the confidentiality assurance."
Read more here.
If Canada is truly multicultural, why are images of the immigrant experience missing from our official archives? When Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn searched through the records at the National Film Board, the CBC, and Libraries and Archives Canada, she saw a striking lack of diversity in the images she found.
"To my great disappointment, it was really difficult to find forms of representation, but more importantly to see how multiculturalism could have changed over time," she says.
Read more here.
There’s growing acknowledgement that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities have been “researched to death” since the early days of colonisation, yet given little control over or access to data that is collected.The emerging Indigenous data sovereignty movement asserts that Indigenous peoples across the globe have inherent and inalienable rights relating to the collection, ownership and application of data about them and their lands and lives.Read more here.
Is there an issue that really irks you and you have something to say? Is there something in the news that can benefit from an archival perspective? Did you work on an incredible project related to archives and human rights and you want to share you insights? See a conference session or other event related to archives and human rights that you'd like to cover?Send blog post pitches to hilary.h.barlow@gmail.com. Include a short summary of your idea and why you're the best person to write it....
In April 2015, Aaron Bryant rushed to be there when demonstrations swept through Baltimore on the day of Freddie Gray’s funeral. He filmed protesters angered by Mr. Gray’s death throwing rocks, watched the helicopters overhead and listened to marchers singing hymns.But Mr. Bryant was neither a police officer nor a participant in the protest. He was a curator for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, there to collect artifacts, testimony and footage as the events unfolded...
“There is an arc of history that is very dramatic when you put these documents together,” said Peter Kornbluh, the exhibition’s curator who is a senior analyst at the National Security Archive in Washington and director of its Chile Documentation Project. “They have provided revelations and made headlines, they have been used as evidence in human rights prosecutions, and now they are contributing to the verdict of history.”On view are documents revealing secret exchanges about how to prevent...
MDOS did not hold an election in 2017. Here are the current members with the date they were elected.
Chair: Martha Parker, University of Arkansas Libraries - 8/6/2016 - 8/18/2018
Steering Committee Member: Matthew McEniry, Texas Tech University Library - 8/22/2015
Steering Committee Member: Laurel Mcphee, University of California, San Diego - 8/6/2016
Steering Committee Member: Melissa Torres, University of Houston Downtown - 8/22/2015
Steering Committee Member: Blake...
Please join us in welcoming the incoming MDOR steering committee members. We are so pleased to have them on board!
Chair: Kari Smith - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Co-Chair: Martha Parker - University of Arkansas Libraries
Steering Committee Member: Laurel Mcphee - University of California, San Diego
Steering Committee Member: Blake Graham - University of Nebraska at Lincoln
And we would like to welcome Bertram Lyons to MDOR as the Council Liaison.
The results of the Future Initiatives Survey, conducted in fall 2017 are available in the attached PDF.
The Students and New Archives Professionals (SNAP) Roundtable is seeking nominations for the appointed ex-officio positions of Blog Coordinator, New Professionals Blog Editor, Junior Social Media Coordinator, and Student Chapter Coordinator (see descriptions below). Ex-officio positions are open to all SNAP members.
The term for each office is one year, beginning on January 1, 2018 and ending on December 31, 2018. A second year may optionally be considered after the end of the first year. If...
