Read the 2017 joint Section meeting minutes.
Read the 2016 meeting minutes.
The Society of American Archivists Preservation Section is holding a Twitter Conference beginning at 9:00 AM EST on April 26th as part of Preservation Week 2018. This free and inclusive conference will cover a range of preservation related topics for archivists and librarians (or any interested party!). You can follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #PresTC and ask questions to the conference “speakers”.
Each speaker will have a 15 minute time slot allocated to their presentation. There...
Share your public library archives projects at the Public Libraries Archives and Special Collections section meeting at the 2018 SAA Annual Meeting! This year's PLASC meeting will feature lightning talks highlighting community-focused projects by public library archives and special collections.
Submit a short description of a lightning talk on a public library archives or special collections project that might serve as a model for other institutions looking to involve their communities in...
Students in UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Investigations Lab used open sources to document the March 2017 chemical weapons strikes on Al-Lataminah, Syria—including a strike that appeared to have targeted a medical facility. The report Chemical Strikes on Al-Lataminah was issued on January 18.The Lab’s open source work—analyzing and verifying photos and videos found on Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter—was conducted in collaboration with the Syrian Archive, a nonprofit organization that curates visual...
A brand new public tour that explores the rich and complex human rights history of the Métis people will launched on Louis Riel Day (February 19), free with admission at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR).The 75-minute tour takes visitors on a journey through many of the exhibits at the Museum related to Métis rights and includes activities and group discussion. It begins at the Ancestral Place Circle in the CMHR’s welcome hall and continues through the Indigenous Perspectives gallery...
Britain, 1910. EM Forster published Howards End; Cora Crippen was murdered by her husband, sparking an international manhunt as he went on the run with his mistress; and the suffragettes felt the wrath of the home secretary, Winston Churchill, on “Black Friday”, as 300 women attempted to enter parliament to argue for their rights. After the ensuing riot, the government desperately attempted to cover up evidence of police brutality and serious physical assaults on the suffragettes, but the...
On the Internet no one knows you’re a dog, as the old joke goes. But does anonymity truly exist on the web anymore? And when it’s taken from us, what else do we lose? So Sad Today talks about the value of anonymity for women and self-care. Jonathan Hirshon shares his personal battle to keep his face off Facebook. New Yorker cartoonists Peter Steiner and Kaamran Hafeez discuss the evolution of memes and digital anonymity, in dog years. And Alison Macrina and Morgan Taylor reveal what’s...
I was excited to be part of a symposium in New York, Libraries in the Context of Capitalism, put on by the Metropolitan New York Library Council in their new digs on 11th avenue. It’s a nifty space where people can do things – have a meeting or workshop, use equipment to transfer older format media (VHS tapes, audio cassettes, etc.) to digital, or record a podcast. The Council also coordinates a number of programs among libraries and archives in the area. This symposium, the first of a series...
All these conferences have sessions related to human rights and archives, and the HRA Blog needs YOU to write posts summarizing them. It's not as hard as it sounds, and it's a great way to ad a publication to your resume. Here are two examples of sessions covered at SAA 2017.
If you're interested in covering a session at these or other conferences, or if you have any questions, email hilary.h.barlow@gmail.com
Archival silences distort the past, shaping our current and future self-understanding, so preserving Princeton’s history sometimes means attempting to correct the work of our predecessors. My struggle to bring 19th and early 20th-century African American graduate alumni to light illustrates one way white supremacy of that era continues to influence us today. It also supports the argument that archives are not neutral, so researchers and archival staff must pay close attention to the ways...
We are looking for folks who would like to share their stories and experiences of working on the front lines of reference, access, and outreach to contribute to the RAO News blog. (See what we're about at https://raoarchivists.wordpress.com/.) Share your successes, your failures, your inspirations, your innovations. We are especially interested in "intersections"--both in areas of overlap and cooperation, or potential for cooperation, with our other SAA sections, and in ways we can aid and...
On February 22, 2018 we held our second Google Hangout. The topic was "silo-ing" or the creation of different sets of metadata for the same items. The session was attended by 14 people. The transcript of the session is attached as a PDF.
The Steering Committee of the SAA Web Archiving Section proposes to change the Section's governing “Standing Rules,” that dictate its composition and portfolio of responsibilities in advance of its next call for leadership nominations, anticipated in May 2018. We welcome you to review the attached PDF, which tracks changes to the Section’s Standing Rules as last updated and approved in 2017. In brief however, the Steering Committee propose to do the following:
Eliminate the positions of...
I hope everyone’s New Year is off to a great start! A big thanks to the Steering Committee for the dedication and passion that they are bringing to the work of the section so far. Since the annual meeting, we submitted our annual report that outlines our projects and goals for the next year https://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/1117-VI-P-SectAnnReports.pdf (pg. 51). Streamlining communication between the Steering Committee and membership is a core focus. Also, while revisiting the...
Preserving Stories from the Greatest Generation
Gavin Do, Archivist, Go For Broke National Education Center
Boiled down, oral histories are inherently about allowing individuals to tell their stories while ensuring these stories stand the test of time. For the past twenty years, Go For Broke National Education Center (GFBNEC) has focused on preserving stories from a special group of individuals.
Seventy-five years ago, the world was embroiled in war. The United States had entered World War II...
Digital Archives Seeks to "Unhide" Stories of Japanese American World War II Veterans
Gavin Do, Archivist, Go For Broke National Education Center
The Japanese American Military History Collective (JAMHC) is a digital cooperative based on a partnership between the Japanese American Service Committee, Military Intelligence Service Veterans Club of Hawaii, Nisei Veterans Memorial Center, Go For Broke National Education Center and other partners. The goal of JAMHC is to increase access and...
Page 1- Letter from the Chair, Janet Hauck, University Archivist, Whitworth UniversityPages 2-3- $385,205 Awarded to Philadelphia’s Historic Congregations from Carol Smith, Archivist, Christ Church Preservation TrustPage 4- “Archiving Antigua” Project at the Moravian Archives from Paul M. Peucker, Archivist and Director, Moravian Archives, Bethlehem- Last Call for Nominations for the Sister M. Claude Lane, O.P., Memorial Award from Jillian Ewalt, Metadata Archivist, California State University...
Volunteer One Hour to Help Us Transform the Understanding of Metadata Practices for Oral History
Jaycie Vos, Oral History Association Metadata Task Force
The Oral History Association Metadata Task Force (MTF) is charged with improving access and discovery for oral history interviews by helping their creators and caretakers improve the capture and preservation of the interviews’ metadata.
The MTF saw the need for more structured information to offer a base understanding of metadata: what it is...
Texas After Violence Project Oral Histories
Jane Field, Project Coordinator and Digital Archivist, Texas After Violence Project
Ten years ago, the Texas After Violence Project (TAVP) conducted its first official interview with Ireland Beazley, whose son, Napoleon, was executed by the State of Texas for a crime he committed as a minor. Like our interview with Ireland, many of our early oral histories focused nearly exclusively on those who were affected by capital punishment, but we have since...
National Education Association Oral Histories at George Washington University Libraries
Vakil Smallen, National Education Association Project Archivist, George Washington University Libraries
The National Education Association (NEA) and the libraries of the George Washington University (GWU) formed a partnership in 2008 to process and house the Association’s archives and library at the Gelman Library within the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC). Following the official opening of the...
Billy Graham Center Archives Oral History Interviews Online
Bob Shuster, Archivist, Billy Graham Center Archives at Wheaton College
In 2017, the staff of the Billy Graham Center Archives at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois transcribed over 38 hours of oral history interviews, filling 646 pages. Most of these transcripts have been put online and can be found, along with the audio file, at: http://www2.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/newtran.html They are also all available for viewing in the BGC...
by Dave J. Moore, Brand Archivist and Historian
Three dollars could buy you a good sized order of overalls at the turn of the 20th century. This check was submitted to Hamilton Carhartt & Co., based in Detroit, from D.L. Powers of Jonesville, Michigan in 1898.
120 years later, Powers Clothing is still going strong… and still selling Carhartt. When you have retail partners that old, you know you must be doing something right. Financial records like this are just one example of the materials...
A press release announcing the approval of the Standardized Statistical Measures and Metrics for Public Services in Archival Repositories and Special Collections Libraries was jointly issued by ACRL and SAA on January 25, 2018.
The new document was approved by the ACRL Board of Directors in October 2017 and by the SAA Council in January 2018. Standardized Statistical Measures and Metrics for Public Services in Archival Repositories and Special Collections Libraries is available on the ACRL...
