The Human Rights Archives Roundtable has been approached by three panels who are seeking endorsemsents. Since the Roundtable can endorse up to two panels, I would like Roundtable members to vote on the two panels that resonate the most with the membership's interests.
Below are the panel names and abstracts with the full proposals attached. After reading the proposals, please click on the Survey Monkey link to vote on which panels you believe should receive the Roundtable's endorsement.
DEADLINE TO VOTE: Monday, October 10, 2011 at 5pm.
VOTE HERE!
- The Attorney/Archivist Dialogue: Crossing Professional Borders to Provide Access to Legal Records
Legal records created by organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) are essential resources for examining the history of civil rights in the United States. Providing access to these materials, however, poses significant challenges to archivists, due to donor restrictions and federal and state-specific privacy laws that may govern the collections. This session presents the working solutions of two institutions, which share the common goal of providing the broadest access possible to large and significant collections of legal records. Speakers will present practical methods for processing and managing these important records in an efficient manner, and describe how archivists can work directly with attorneys and records creators to develop workflows and guidelines that help provide timely access while still respecting privacy rights.
- Crossing Borders: Barriers to Documenting the Undocumented
Archivists and record keepers who live and work in the Southwest borderlands function in a politically charged environment. It is a place where core archival values can be challenged at any time, any place. Here, the duties of building collections, diversifying holdings and filling in gaps in the historical record can take on a sense of urgency and an element of risk. The barriers to collecting and accessing borderlands materials are many. When documenting under-represented communities, these barriers may converge to create unprecedented challenges. The panelists, ranging from a student intern to a field-tested tribal preservation officer, discuss the issues and describe the strategies used to cross borders. They have solicited materials from and gained access to hostile sources. They have established new archives. They have developed alternative donor networks. In doing so, they have created greater community awareness and involvement in the archival process.
- In Pursuit of the Moral Imperative: Exploring the Borders, Barriers and Boundaries of Social Justice
The recently revised Core Values of Archivists names social responsibility as one of the central principles of the archival profession and a guiding standard for the archivist's daily practice. The ongoing debate about the social roles, responsibilities, and relevance of archives and archivists is of great importance for educators, practitioners, and students who seek to understand the intersection of social activism and archival practice. Underlying this debate is the transformational question of whether or not social justice is or should be the highest pursuit of archivists. By pursuing social justice, archivists take a bold stance in the representation of identity and the construction of memory. In this session, three new voices examine the nature of documentation, "contested memory," and social activism through a brief exploration of theory and two case studies of the Ukrainian émigré community in North America and archives in the post-dictatorial societies of Chile and Argentina.
