RSRT 2014 Election Nominee Biographies

SAA Recorded Sound Roundtable 2014/2015 Elections

Nominee Bios and Statements

Position: Vice Chair/Chair-Elect

1.       Nominee: Sarah Cunningham

Bio/Statement: Sarah Cunningham is the Audiovisual Archivist for the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and is responsible for media digitization projects, processing collections, the preservation and transfer of vintage audiotapes and the storage of information and digital delivery. (2003 – Present) 

Position: Web liaison

1.       Nominee: Jolene Beiser

Bio/Statement: Jolene Beiser has been working as an Archivist at the Pacifica Radio Archives since November 2010. Her primary responsibility is as the Project Archivist on Pacifica’s two-year NHPRC-funded grant project American Women Making History and Culture: 1963-1982. For this project she is coordinating the digitization of nearly 1,700 reel-to-reel tapes, and updating legacy catalog records through two levels of cataloging–editing item-level descriptions with standardized metadata, and creating a searchable online finding aid available at the Online Archive of California.  In 2012-2013 she led the development of a new Drupal-based content management system for the Pacifica Radio Archives, updating legacy records to up-to-date metadata standards, and allowing for easy sharing of content with web users.

Position: Steering Committee member—Vote for up to 4

1.       Nominee: Eric Cartier

Bio/Statement: I’m the Digital Librarian in charge of Digitization Center operations at the University of Maryland Libraries, and I’m interested to serve as a Steering Committee member. We’ve had a functional audio digitization setup here since early 2013, and myself, a colleague, and graduate student assistants have refined it in many ways since then. Everyday we’re transferring recordings on obsolete formats from WMUC (our college radio station), broadcasting collections, and literary manuscripts collections, and making them accessible directly to researchers or via ingest to our Digital Collections. Our documentation and setup are such that we are building a satellite center called the Performing Arts Audio Digitization Studio (PAADS) to ramp up digitization of valuable content on degrading carriers, a task of urgent importance these next couple of decades. I live and breathe this work, so I think I can make a valuable contribution to the Recorded Sound Roundtable by serving as a Steering Committee member, and would likely like to do so for more than one year. Please do consider me.

Nominee:  Rebecca Chandler

Bio: I am currently a Consultant with AVPreserve in New York City where I support archives, museums, and other organizations in their efforts to preserve and make accessible audiovisual collections. I specialize in reformatting setups, workflows, and preservation planning. I have a strong technical background in recorded sound, having received my BM in Music Technology from New York University and worked for years in television post-production as an audio engineer. A trip to the library at Sony Music Studios early in my career piqued my interest in archives and legacy materials, prompting me to earn my MSLIS with an archives certificate from Pratt Institute. My education and background in both television post-production and archives has made me flexible, as well as appreciative of and open to diverse approaches or viewpoints that impact the creation and care of recorded sound and moving image materials.

In the short time that I have been an SAA member, in particular a member of the Recorded Sound Roundtable, I have come to appreciate the importance of the organization in the field as we are in a period of great need and great opportunity for preserving our audiovisual heritage. I aim to support the Roundtable’s mission to address challenges that sound and moving image archivists face and hope to help create a collaborative space in which all voices can be heard. Archives containing sound and moving image recordings hold a vital part of our national, local, and personal histories. These recordings represent a wide breadth of invaluable and often irreplaceable information that the members of this Roundtable preserve and to which they are charged with providing access. This knowledge is not abstract; it holds the power to change real people in real ways.

I would be honored to help further the goals and represent the interests of the Recorded Sound Roundtable both within and without the SAA community as a member of its Steering Committee.

Thank you for your consideration!

3.       Nominee: Shannon Erb

 Bio/Statement: My name is Shannon Erb, and I am interested in running for a position on the steering committee.  I am a student (finishing my MLIS this August) at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, and the Moving Image Digitization Specialist at the County Music Hall of Fame. I am also an active member of ARSC, AMIA, MAC and SAA.

However new to the field, I have pioneered many recorded sound projects at my former employers, as well as hold a weekly radio show that focuses on archival tracks.

In graduate school at UW-Milwaukee, I served a duel position as the President and Treasurer of their SAA Student Chapter, as well as am an active board member and chair for many local organizations.

I would love to serve on the steering committee of this Roundtable, as I want to be more active in SAA at a professional level, and want to bring new ideas and events to the Roundtable for the future! My enthusiasm and knowledge for recorded sound will certainly prove to be very beneficial to the committee and members. 

4.       Nominee: Susan Hooyenga

Institution affiliation:  Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, Indiana University.  

Bio: I’ve been working with archival sound recordings at Indiana University since 2008, first with Sound Directions, then with the MDPI.  I’ve attended the Recorded Sound Roundtable nearly every year since 2003, when I first attended SAA as a student.  For me, the RSRT is the best part of the annual SAA meeting.  I served as Chair in 2012/2013, and I would like to remain involved with the Steering Committee.