Design Records Section Leadership

The Architectural Records Roundtable was established in June 1990, and its members convene at the annual Society of American Archivists' conference meeting. The name of the group was changed to the Design Records Section in 2017, in accordance with the new regulations for naming of SAA component groups and to reflect the wider scope of the section.

DRS Meeting History - identifies dates and locations of past meetings, and provides links to each year's Annual Report and Meeting Minutes.

DRS archives are housed as a series within the records of the Society of American Archivists records located in the Archives Department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the Division of Archives and Special Collections.  The online finding aid is located at: http://www.uwm.edu/Libraries/arch/findaids/uwmmss172/roundtables.html
 

Current DRS Leadership

Allison Olsen
DRS Senior Co-Chair (2021-2023)

Allison Olsen serves as the Digital Archivist, building the digital infrastructure and online presence for the Architectural Archives collections. She also works alongside the Archivist and Curator on exhibitions, reference and public services, collections management, and rights and reproductions.  

Before joining the Architectural Archives, Allison worked as a Facilities Archivist at University of Pennsylvania in the Office of the University Architect and as a Visual Resources Librarian at the University of New Hampshire. She graduated from the University of Delaware with a BA in History and an MA in Historic Preservation and worked at the Center for Historic Architecture and Design documenting the Mid-Atlantic built environment and preserving archival collections.  Allison also holds an MSC in Library and Information Management from the University of the West of England. During her stay in the UK, Allison worked in the library and archives of the 11th-century Hereford Cathedral.

Katie Twomey
DRS Co-Chair (2023 - 2025)

Katie Twomey is the Archivist at the Portman Archives, recently she has completed her masters in Historic Preservation and has worked at the Portman Archives for the past 5 years in Atlanta, GA. Katie works primarily on the digitization and record creation for the analog and digital architectural drawings of architect and developer John C. Portman, Jr. In the past, she served as the Outreach Manager and Outreach Co-Chair of the Society of Georgia Archivists. Prior to her current position, she served as the Environmental Review Historian for Georgia's State Historic Preservation Office. Katie is looking forward to learning and growing in this field and hopes to contribute to a positive experience for all who take part in the Design Records Section. 

Andi Altenbach

DRS Steering Committee Member (2021 – 2024)

Andi Altenbach is the Archivist & Librarian at Studio Gang, a design firm with offices in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Paris. She has worked to build up the archival and records management programs, to steward the Studio’s diverse collections of architectural models, sketches, digital files, and other design records. Since 2017, she has been an active member of the Design Records Section, the Digital Design Records Task Force, and, locally, the Chicago Area Archivists. This has included coordinating programming, presenting at the Section Meeting, and collaborating with DRS members on writing on design records topics.

As a lone arranger mainaging design collections, she has benefited greatly from the collective knowledge, insight, and generosity of the Design Records Section community, and she is looking forward to the opportunity to give back by serving as a Steering Committee Member. Andi is interested in developing strategies for utilizing our collective energy as a SAA section to cultivate relationships with record creators in addressing the complex needs and challenges of design collections. 

Jade Snelling
DRS Steering Committee Member (2022 - 2025)

Jade Snelling is the Collections Archivist for the International Archive of Women in Architecture at Virginia Tech. Jade works with architectural records and design-related records that document the contributions of women to the built environment. Jade completed the SAA DAS certification in 2018 and is also a certified archivist with the Academy of Certified Archivists. Prior to her current role, summer of 2020, Jade worked on a mass digitization projects of architectural records. Before starting at Virginia Tech in spring of 2017, Jade worked as a graduate research assistant at the Alexander Architectural Archives while earning a M.S. from the University of Texas at Austin. Jade is looking forward to serving this professional community - both to share knowledge and learn from others in this section and beyond.  

Kristin Bjork
DRS Steering Committee Member (2022 - 2025)

Kristin Bjork is the Architectural Records Project Processing Archivist at Harvard University's Property Information Resource Center (PIRC). Kristin has over 15 years experience in the archival field working with many types of materials, including objects, photography, design records, visual materials, and library/archival collections. Prior to joining the PRIC, Kristin worked at Harvard's Peabody Museum in both archivial and collections management roles. Kristin holds a master's degree in Library and Information Science from Simmons University along with a graduate certificate in Museum Studies from Harvard Extension School. Kristin is excited about the opportunity to become more active in the Design Records Section as a Steering Committee Member. 

Helice Koffler
Member-at-Large (2021 - 2023)

Helice is the Project Rare Book Cataloger for the Cary Graphic Arts Collection at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Previously she was the Processing Archivist for the Shubert Archive and editor of its annual publication, The Passing Show. Helice has wide experience with past positions at the University of Washington, New York Public Library, King County Archives, and Fales Library, New York University. She earned a dual degree in Art History and English, as well as an M.A. in English from Hunter College, City University of New York and earned my M.L.I.S. at the Palmer School of Library & Information Science, Long Island University. She is a Certified Archivist and have had significant experience as a freelance archival consultant. Helice has been active with numerous professional and scholarly organizations.

Betsy Frederick-Rothwell

Web Liaison (2023-2025)

My new role as Curator & Head Archivist at the Environmental Design Archives (EDA) is a homecoming. I received my graduate degree in architecture from the University of California, Berkeley and fell in love with historic buildings while working as a processing archivist at the EDA after graduation. I went on to work as a preservation specialist for the U.S. General Services Administration and to obtain my MS in Historic Preservation and Ph.D. in Architecture (architectural history/historic preservation) at the University of Texas at Austin. Before returning to the Bay Area, I served as a lecturer in architectural history and a preservation project reviewer for the Texas Historical Commission.