Candidate Statements and Biographies for 2013 Elections

Candidate for Vice Chair

Sarah Quigley 

Sarah Quigley, CA, is a Manuscript Archivist at Emory University's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.  She has a B.A in History and a M.S. in Information Studies, both from the University of Texas at Austin.  From 2007-2009, she was a project archivist at the Jesse Helms Center, focusing on the arrangement of the former Senator's congressional records.  In 2009, she joined the staff at MARBL as a project archivist working with the records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  She recently co-curated an exhibition, "And the Struggle Continues: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Fight for Social Change," based on the collection.  Since 2011, she has been part of the permanent MARBL staff, working with a variety of collection documenting Southern history, African American culture and history, and British and Irish Literature.  She is a member of the Society of Georgia Archivists and is currently serving that organization as Outreach Manager.

I believe that advocacy is one of the most vital aspects of our job as archivists.  Not only must we often advocate for ourselves within our own organizations, but we are asked almost daily to advocate more broadly for our profession. Every time we answer the question, "What's an archivist?" is an opportunity to communicate the value of archives and records that could have wide-ranging consequences.   The unfortunate reality is that archives and other sites of cultural heritage are always under threat when budgets are lean.  Survival depends not only on knowing how to justify your existence to the people who control your budget, but could also hinge on your ability to engage the community in your mission.  Navigating the political process, creating community buy-in, and garnering the support of key stakeholders in your area are all essential elements of strategic advocacy.  It isn't enough to rest quietly on the knowledge that what we do is important and hope that others realize that.  We must teach ourselves to shout out our relevance.   As we learned recently during the Georgia Archives budget crisis, even legal mandates aren't enough to guarantee an archives' survival.  Becoming enthusiastic, passionate and dedicated professional advocates for the cultural record is key to the archives profession thriving into the future.

Candidates for Steering Committee

Alison Stankrauff

I’m Alison Stankrauff, Archivist and Associate Librarian at Indiana University South Bend.  I'm committed to being vigilant for the archival profession and the archival record that we collect, protect, make accessible. When either of those are in danger, I believe it’s my duty to do my part to personally advocate for what’s at stake – and motivate others to do the same – with a collective voice.

Jasmine Jones

Jasmine Jones is currently the project manager for the Los Angeles Aqueduct Digital Platform at UCLA Library Special Collections. She graduated in May 2013 with a dual-degree in Archives Management and History at Simmons College.  Her research and professional interests include community archives, social justice, ethics, and identity politics. In 2012, with her colleagues, Jasmine helped to establish Archivists without Borders, US Chapter, for which she currently serves on its Core Working Group, and is on the committee for the Displaced Archives Project. 

During the past year, I have had the opportunity to work with the co-chairs of the Issues & Advocacy Roundtable in developing a survey devoted to advocacy within the profession, which spoke to how advocacy is defined; the ways in which advocacy forms and informs our professional practice and activities; and the significance of education in guiding one's understanding of advocacy. This collaboration has inspired me to think of advocacy much more deeply and the ways in which IART can support advocacy activities and education for the archival profession. Some of the ways I see IART providing this support is in the continuation of the advocacy survey project; working more closely with the Government Affairs Working Group; and in developing more educational materials/programming for within and outside of the profession, whether it take the form of webinars, white papers, etc. This year, the IART Co-Chairs and Steering Committee have continued to be active and have laid a strong foundation for further advocacy educational and outreach activities. I believe that I would be a strong asset to the IART Steering Committee in continuing to support these projects and the IART mission.

Christine George

Greetings, fellow I&ART members. My name is Christine Anne George and I am asking you to vote for me to become a Steering Committee Member. This Roundtable has done a really good job of highlighting issues affecting the profession, promoting various advocacy efforts, and providing information on how to advocate for yourself and your collections. As a Steering Committee Member, I will keep up that tradition.

At the moment, I have two issues that are particularly important to me. The first is archival privilege, which—if it existed—would offer a special legal protection to collections within archives. You may have heard the term mentioned in connection with the legal situation surrounding the Belfast Project. The second issue is advocacy in the courts, which is very different from legislative advocacy and underrepresented in advocacy training and materials. In the coming years, I hope as archivists, we will be able to advocate for our collections and profession in the courts as effectively as we have in legislatures.

As you may have noticed, my interests are where law and archives meet. I am a law librarian at the Charles B. Sears Law Library at SUNY Buffalo, and I oversee the Law Library’s Archives and Special Collections. The fact that I have a foot in two different worlds gives me a bit of a unique perspective that will benefit the Roundtable. In law, you don’t just advocate—you are trained and ethically required to zealously advocate through your speech and writing. I’d like to find ways to help archivists gain those skills and to get the profession out there so that everyone knows what we do and why it’s so important.

Allison Galloup

Allison H. Galloup is a Processing Archivist at the Atlanta University Center’s Robert W. Woodruff Library.  While at the Woodruff Library, she has processed genealogical collections as well as the papers of noted scholars and professors such as the papers of Asa G. Hilliard, III. As an Archival Assistant, she processed portions of the Voter Education Project organizational records as part of a grant funded project at the Woodruff Library. She has interned at Dublin City Library and Archives (Dublin, Ireland) and the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of South Carolina. She is a Certified Archivist and holds an MLIS from the University of South Carolina. Upon completion of her graduate studies, she served as a Project Archivist at South Carolina Political Collections and as Archivist at Columbia College (both in Columbia, SC). She is a member of the Society of American Archivists and the Society of Georgia Archivists. 

I think it is now more important for archivists to be advocates than at any time in the past. With the economic situation and the ever-increasing amount of research materials available on the internet, archivists have to fight harder for support (monetary and otherwise). As an archivist in the state of Georgia, I have seen firsthand what advocacy can accomplish. While we accomplished a portion of the goal – keeping the state archives open, we still have to continue the fight to restore all of the funding. Advocacy is a never ending process; we have to remain vigilant to protect our heritage.

Erin Lawrimore

Erin Lawrimore is University Archivist at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She also serves as a lecturer in San Jose State University's School of Library and Information Science. Additionally, Erin is an active member of the Society of American Archivists, currently serving as co-chair of the Awards Committee, a member of the Annual Meeting Task Force, and a steering committee member for the Issues and Advocacy Roundtable. She also serves as managing editor of Provenance: The Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists. Erin holds a B.A. in English from Duke University and a Masters in Information Studies from The University of Texas at Austin. She is also a member of the 2013 cohort of the Archives Leadership Institute. She wants to continue working with the I&A Roundtable on its important outreach to others both in and outside of the archival community.

Shawn San Roman

Shawn San Roman has been a member of the Society of American Archivists since 2004 starting as a student member.  He has served on several SAA taskforce committees and section steering committees.  Previously, he was the editor for the Business Archives Section helping to migrate web content to the SAA Drupal site and restarting the Section’s newsletter.  In 2012, Shawn joined the Issues & Advocacy Roundtable Steering Committee as the Internet Communications Director.  Since then, he has helped expand the I&A’s web presence by securing Twitter (@ArchivesIssues) and Facebook (Society of American Archivists – Issues & Advocacy) pages. He is eager to see the I&A Roundtable grow in importance within the SAA.  He has a Master’s in Political Studies from the University of Illinois at Springfield and a MLS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He currently works as the Archivist for the Credit Union National Association, Madison, Wisconsin.