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You will be voting for:
One (1) Vice Chair/Chair-Elect (two-year term); and
Three (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!
The following candidates are running for the Vice Chair/Chair-Elect (or Co-chair) position (choose one):
Jacqueline Deveraux Asaro
Archives manager, Vanderbilt University
Biographical Information:
My name is Jacqueline (she,her,hers), and I am an early career archivist who is deeply interested in how we describe collections and support each other as colleagues in the profession. In my experiences across institutions in California, Texas, and most recently in Tennessee, I have been able to work in many environments with differing resources, staff numbers, and facilities in the past 3 years. My current work focuses on university archives - and I look forward to moving beyond complications in my own work to see how others in the field handle various obstacles. I have been a member of I&A for the past year.
Statement of Interest:
Before becoming an archivist, I worked in museum collections and curation. With the museum foundation, I see a different perspective in how museum collections are handling work in repatriation and sharing information with the public. I believe that considering how our section can connect outside the profession with other GLAM repositories may provide a richer picture of obstacles facing the cultural memory field. Understanding the daily work realities of our members is important to build on the work for boosting important issues to a larger number of people. With the excellent resources online, I would like to contribute to the Hive Mind series or expand the toolkits to address other concerns. On a personal note, I love using this section’s toolkits on advocacy!…I use the elevator pitch to explain to stakeholders (and my family) what an archivist is all the time! Considering how to best promote the profession as a whole and justify budgets, collection development decisions, and staffing is essential with the looming proliferation of digital born records. Integrating and acknowledging the issues in the profession will assist us in the future to better advocate for ourselves. I am honored to serve in this section and would really enjoy being able to serve as vice-chair and chair.
The following candidates are running for the section steering committee (listed in alpha order – choose three):
Jennifer Gathings
Collection Strategies Archivist, University of Maryland
Biographical Information:
I am the Collection Strategies Archivist at University of Maryland in College Park, MD where I manage the accessioning program, and also play a key role in planning relocation or processing for collections that consist of multiple legacy accessions, are large in size, and complex in nature. My work also supports reparative description and DEI initiatives as demonstrated by my lead role in planning and implementing symposiums in 2023 and 2024 for The 1856 Project’s research as part of the Universities Studying Slavery. For the last three years, I was also heavily involved with a Hidden Collections CLIR grant which partnered with Georgia State University to digitize over 100,000 pages of content from the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department. Most of my 20+ years of experience as a professional archivist has involved accessioning and processing at: the Atlanta History Center, Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project, the David C. Driskell Center at University of Maryland, as well as the AFL-CIO Archive in the Special Collections at University of Maryland.
Statement of Interest:
By working at different types of institutions, I have been able to observe and learn from them over time. For the most part, the archival issues are very similar and actual archivists are not always directly involved with advocacy. Archivists may post on social media or attend an archives conference, but actually connecting with donors depends on the role you have within your archives. As a result, from my point of view from accessioning and processing, I’m interested in planning work around estimated accessioning and processing project times and how that is or is not communicated to donors. I think it is highly important to give realistic information to donors regarding appraisal, accessioning, and resources needed to accomplish that archival work, well before any discussion of digitization, thereby managing donor expectations. In my current job, I am organizing a major revision of our processing manual to which we will be adding guidelines for pre-accessioning steps with donors, as well as reparative description, oral history description, deaccessioning, and many more.
Terri Hatfield
Reference Archivist, Chesney Medical Archives
John Hopkins Medicine, Nursing, and Health
Biographical Information:
Terri Hatfield is a Reference Archivist at the Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives for Johns Hopkins University Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health. She is responsible for assisting patrons with their research requests and facilitating access and use of the collections. She also helps promote the archives collections through outreach and engagement with students and faculty.
Statement of Interest:
I am a new career archivist, having transitioned into archives from a 13-year university public relations and educational public programming career a year and a half ago. I have been looking for ways to engage with other archivists in order to continue my learning and professional development process. Serving on this committee would also provide me with an opportunity to use what I have learned and the transferable skills and experience from my previous career to grow and evolve the archives profession.
Jennie Rankin
Acting Records Manager, Michigan State University Archives and Historical Collections
Biographical Information:
I am the current Acting Records Manager at the Michigan State University Archives and Historical Collections (UAHC). Even though I work with records management, I still perform archival duties such as processing, reference, and outreach. I attended Central Michigan University (BS) and Wayne State University (MLIS) before joining UAHC in 2011. I have served in a variety of professional capacities with service to ARMA International, the Mid-Michigan ARMA chapter, and the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administration. My position as Acting Records Manager is transitioning this year back to an archivist role.
Statement of Interest:
Even though my position has mostly focused on records management, I see the issues and gaps in the archival field, whether it’s lack of funding, inadequate storage, underrepresented/misrepresented people in the collection, harmful language, or an overall misunderstanding about what an archive is and how it can benefit everybody. Despite these gaps, I’m passionate about sharing my archival/records management knowledge with graduate library students and advocating for the profession. As I transition back to an archivist role, I want to be more involved with SAA, and I believe I can help and contribute to the Issues & Advocacy Section while learning from my fellow archivists about ongoing issues and how to better advocate for our profession.