2023 Election: Candidate Statements

Thank you to all of our excellent candidates for standing in the 2023 Accessioning, Acquisitions, & Appraisal 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 three-year term; and
• [2] Steering Committee members (two-year terms). 

Ballots will be managed by SAA staff through Survey Monkey; keep an eye on your inbox for when the ballot opens! 

Vice Chair/Chair-Elect Candidates

The following candidate is running for the Vice Chair/Chair-Elect position:

Dawne Howard Lucas
Technical Services Archivist for Collection Management, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

I have nearly two decades of experience in archives and special collections, mostly in roles pertaining to accessioning, acquisitions, and appraisal. Since 2020, I have led the archival accessioning program at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Wilson Special Collections Library, and also play a key role in the library’s ArchivesSpace implementation. I am a member of the National Best Practices for Archival Accessioning Working Group (NBPAAWG), which is charged with developing best practices for accessioning that can be adopted and adapted for widespread use. My previous service to SAA includes co-chairing the Science, Technology, and Healthcare Section and chairing the Donald Peterson Student Travel Award Subcommittee, and I served as president of the Society of North Carolina Archivists from 2019 to 2020. I am a huge sports fan (go Tar Heels!) and enjoy reading mystery novels and doing jigsaw puzzles.

I am excited for the opportunity to serve in a leadership role for the Accessioning, Acquisitions, & Appraisal section, collaborating with so many fabulous section members doing valuable, forward-thinking work.  Before the pandemic, I served in leadership positions within several professional organizations, including SAA and the Society of North Carolina Archivists, and I look forward to becoming more professionally active after a hiatus of a few years. The addition of the word “accessioning” to this section’s name has helped to increase the visibility of this essential component of collection management, and I am particularly interested in promoting the connection between accessioning and other aspects of the profession. 

 Steering Committee Member Candidates

The following candidates are running for the section steering committee:

Clare Trissel Davis
Project Archivist, Colorado College

Clare Trissel Davis is the archivist for the “History of Colorado College” project, a three-year, gift-funded effort to preserve historical records valuable for understanding the multiple dimensions of Colorado College life.  She holds a MLIS with a concentration in Archives Management from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons University (2016) and a MA from Yale Divinity School (2013).  Clare has overseen major accessions, acquisitions, and appraisal projects for the past seven years with a focus on the preservation of institutional history and the diversification of the historical record.  She is a member of the Rocky Mountain Society of Archivists and the Academy of Certified Archivists.

I would make a strong addition to the SAA’S Accessioning, Acquisitions, and Appraisal Section Steering Committee as I am actively engaged in the selection of archival materials at the Colorado College.  In my role as the archivist of the “History of Colorado College” project, I communicate the value and importance of historical preservation departments and develop record retention schedules in collaboration with campus administrators.  Regular engagement with updated best practices and standards is essential to my work. I am committed to the formation of collection development policies and the communication of the value and importance of archival preservation and access and often interact at the crossroads of the archive and the broader library community at the Colorado College.  In addition to new acquisitions, I am transferring existing College Archives materials to a new ArchivesSpace instance and managing the college’s Archive-It account.  My interests include the decolonization of the catalog and internet archivy and I believe I would lend valuable perspective to the committee.

Bo Doub
Accessioning Archivist, University of Southern California (USC) Libraries

I am the Accessioning Archivist at the University of Southern California (USC) Libraries. Prior to my current position, I was the Archival Projects Librarian in the USC Libraries’ Special Collections unit; Project Archivist at the Computer History Museum; and Project Archivist at the Center for the Study of Political Graphics. My past involvement with the Society of American Archivists includes serving as co-chair for two different sections: first for the Diverse Sexuality and Gender Section (DSGS) and second for the Encoded Archival Standards (EAS) Section.

I hope to join other professionals representing a variety of institutions to explore different standards and workflows for accessioning born-digital and analog archival materials. Recently I have been experimenting with different tools for describing, linking, and enabling access to hybrid digital/analog archival acquisitions across multiple digital asset and collections management systems. I would like to share my accessioning experience and learn from other members of the Accessioning, Acquisitions, & Appraisal (AA&A) Section community. If elected to the AA&A Section Steering Committee, I would also like to collaborate with members of the National Best Practices for Archival Accessioning Working Group to facilitate public forums for discussing archival accessioning best practices. 

Gina Rappaport
Photo Archivist and Head Archivist, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

Gina Rappaport is the Photo Archivist and Head Archivist at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Anthropological Archives. Before joining the Smithsonian in 2009, Gina worked as a project archivist for a variety of individuals and institutions, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the University of Washington, The National Park Service, and the Winthrop Group.  Gina received her MA in history and archives management from Western Washington University. 

Accessioning, acquisitions, and appraisal all figure largely in my work at the National Anthropological Archives. I am responsible for accessioning all new material and am one of the main points of contact for acquisitions. I routinely work with donors and conduct on-site collection surveys and other archival fieldwork, with much appraisal work involved. 

While I find acquisitions (to include appraisal and accessioning) work deeply interesting, meaningful, and engaging, I don’t get the chance to speak with other archivists doing this work as often as I’d like and feel out of the loop on new discussions and developments in the field.  I would love to be considered for a position on the AA&A steering committee and to contribute to and learn from the work of the section. I have served on SAA section leadership in the past for the Native American Archives Section, so have a good sense of what kind of commitment this would be, and I am ready to commit. I am currently on the SAA 2023 program committee and will attend the conference this July and I plan to attend the AA&A section meeting.