2019 Candidate Information

Thank you to all of our excellent candidates for standing in the 2019 Archival Educators 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 Chair, for a one-year term; and
• 3 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! 

Chair Candidates

The following candidates are running for the Chair position:

Alex H. Poole
Assistant Professor, College of Computing and Informatics, Drexel University

Assistant Professor at Drexel University’s College of Computing and Informatics, Alex H. Poole received his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Poole’s research and teaching interests center on archives and records management, digital curation, digital humanities, and diversity and inclusivity.

Poole received the Jesse H. Shera Award for Distinguished Published Research from the American Library Association in 2019, the Bob Williams History Fund Best Paper Award from the Association for Information Science and Technology in both 2018 and 2017, the Arline Custer Memorial Award for Best Article from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) in 2018, and the Theodore Calvin Pease Award from the Society of American Archivists in 2013. His work has been published in The Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Library and Information Science Research, The Journal of Documentation, The Library Quarterly, Digital Humanities Quarterly, The American Archivist, Archival Science, The International Journal of Information Management, and Information & Culture: A Journal of History. At Drexel, he teaches courses in Information Science.

Poole earned a diploma from Loomis Chaffee School (cum laude), a B.A. from Williams College (Highest Honors, History), an M.A. from Brown University (History), and an MLIS (Beta Phi Mu) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Steering Committee Member Candidates

The following candidates are running for the section steering committee:

Ryan Leimkuehler
University Records Manager, Kansas State University

My name is Ryan Leimkuehler and I am the University Records Manager for Kansas State University. I earned my MLIS from Emporia State University and hold an MA from Missouri State University in History. I am interested in serving on the Archival Education Section because of my role in educating archives students at Emporia State University. In addition to my teaching role I believe that archival education and outreach are key pillars to increasing archival relevance in society as a whole. I am particularly interested in interactions with short term and long term professionals in the field and how knowledge is passed from generation to generation. My time as an instructor for Emporia State University has helped me identify areas where students struggle and further develop resources for students to easily understand our professional jargon. Finally my preparation and eventual certification as a Certified Archivist inspired me to help fellow professionals and students prepare for the exam. This position will be an excellent way to engage my interest in education and further my development of leadership skills.

Anjelica N. Ruiz
Director of Libraries and Archives, Temple Emanu-El, Dallas, TX

Anjelica N. Ruiz is the Director of Libraries and Archives at Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, Texas, where she also teaches Judaica to fourth graders on Sunday mornings. She has previously worked at the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas in the Center for Jewish Education and the donor services department. She holds a M.S. in library science from the University of North Texas; a M.S. in criminal justice from Texas State University; and a B.A. in criminology from St. Edward’s University. 

I came into my current role after the archives had been unstaffed for three years. As a result, I had to hit the ground running, which has been full of challenges, especially as Temple’s 150^th anniversary is just around the corner. I have been involved at Temple since 2011, converted to Judaism in 2013, and began teaching religious school in 2014, so to be able to combine my love of Temple, my desire to maintain its history, and teaching that history to students has been a dream come true.

Alexis Antracoli
Interim Assistant University Librarian for Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries

Alexis Antracoli is Interim Assistant University Librarian for Rare Books and Special Collections at the Princeton University Libraries.  Previously she worked at Drexel University Libraries and the University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library.  Alexis also teaches in the Rutgers University School of Communication and Information graduate program in Library Science, and has previously taught archives and records management courses at New York University and Drexel University.  She has published on web archiving, inclusive description, and the archiving of born-digital audio visual content. Alexis is active in the Society of American Archivists, where she is wrapping up her term as Chair of the Web Archiving Section and serves on the Finance Committee.  She is especially interested in applying user experience research and user-center design to archival discovery systems, developing and applying inclusive description practices, and web archiving.  She holds an M.S.I. in Archives and Records Management from the University of  Michigan, a Ph.D. in American History from Brandeis University, and a B.A. in History from Boston College. 

I am interested in serving on the Archival Educators Section Steering Committee to help facilitate discussions among archival educators about how to best meet the educational needs of aspiring archivists.  I would also like to work with the steering committee to facilitate resource sharing among archival educators to support and improve our own teaching, and am open to hearing from section members about how to best accomplish this.