2022 Candidates for Encoded Archival Standards Section

Thank you to all of our excellent candidates for standing in the 2022 Encoded Archival Standards (EAS) Section election. The EAS Section has two open positions for the 2022 election and two candidates running unopposed. Please take some time to review each candidate statement below.

You will be voting for:

• One co-chair, for a two-year term, serving in year one as junior co-chair and in year two as senior co-chair; and
• One Steering Committee member, for a two-year term.

SAA staff will manage the ballots through Survey Monkey. Please keep an eye on your inbox for ballot notifications.

Co-Chair Candidate

Kelly Revak
Metadata Librarian, Library of Congress

Biography
I have a MA in Folklore and a BA in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. Cumulatively, I have over 20 years of experience in archives, often as a ‘lone arranger,’ which led me to develop a broad range of skills and a strong focus on efficiency. In my 6 years at the Library of Congress I have led numerous efforts to extract, map, transform and encode data for various cataloging and access initiatives. My projects at the Library include increasing tribal access to Native American recordings, setting in place policies for inclusive description, transforming legacy data for collection finding aids, processing and cataloging materials, editing the Ethnographic Thesaurus, and a role as Accessions Archivist. In my current position as a metadata librarian, I focus on large cataloging system migrations, data transformations, and analysis and updating of Library workflows.

Candidate Statement
I have a particular interest in EAD and EAD3 conversion projects. I was a critical member of the Library’s EAD3 conversion team and founding co-leader of the Library’s EAD “Striketeam”, a subcommittee focusing on testing and reviewing EAD3 schema mapping, workflows and systems. With this team, I created and maintain Library-wide and divisional EAD3 XML templates and tools to facilitate data entry and validation. These tools and processes are now in use across the Library and have resulted in more consistent and efficiently created finding aids while also facilitating deeper levels of description and more dynamic linking within documents. I am interested in bringing the skills and knowledge I have developed around EAD and other encoding standards back to the wider archival community through participation in EAS Section leadership.

Steering Committee Member Candidate

James Truitt
Senior Archives Technician, Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College

Biography
James Truitt is Senior Archives Technician at Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. He is enthusiastic about encoded standards, having seen their benefits firsthand. In the past four years, James has worked on the Philadelphia-wide In Her Own Right aggregator project and the Friendly Networks project, which uses EAC-CPF records to document the dense web of relationships between 18th-century Quakers and their records. He is a frequent SNAC editor and has overseen the creation or improvement of over 200 records in the last year.  He also uses encoded standards during routine archival processing work and has experience implementing TEI. James holds a BA from Haverford College.

Candidate Statement
Encoded standards are powerful tools that enable exciting new methods of discovery and analysis. By linking the far-flung records left by one person, as in the case of SNAC, or aggregating descriptions to permit easy cross-repository searching, like NAFAN, technologies based on encoded standards have transformative implications for how archival research is conducted. However, these standards can also create new burdens for archives workers. Their technical complexity can be an intimidating barrier to entry or represent an ongoing toll on an archivist's already limited resources. As a candidate for the steering committee, I look forward to supporting the innovations that encoded standards make possible while also working to ensure their accessibility by continuing the committee’s program of outreach.