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Thank you to all of our excellent candidates for standing in the 2024 User Experience Section Election. Please take some time to review their candidate statements and get to know them so you can make an informed choice.
You will be voting for:
Ballots will be managed by SAA staff through Survey Monkey; keep an eye on your inbox for when the ballot opens!
Candidates:
Theresa Berger, Head of Digital Library Services, University of Minnesota Libraries
Theresa Berger holds nearly a decade of experience in Archives and Special Collections across academic, non-profit, and government settings. She specializes in digital collections development, with an emphasis on community-generated metadata and collaborative digital design. Previously, she has held positions at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University, California Revealed at the California State Library, and the National Security Research Center at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Currently, she is Head of Digital Library Services at the University of Minnesota Libraries, where she leads the Libraries’ Strategic Digitization program, serves on the Reparative Description Leadership Team in Archives and Special Collections, and manages the Library’s digital collections platform, UMedia. She holds a BA in American Studies (summa cum laude) from the University of California, Berkeley as well as an MLIS (emphasis in Archival Studies and Records Management) from San Jose State University. Theresa is a Certified Archivist with the Academy of Certified Archivists as well as Digital Archives Specialist with the Society of American Archivists.
Hello, and thanks for reading!
I was thrilled when I learned about the creation of the SAA UX Section. If one of our core values as archivists is to “expand access and usage opportunities for users, and potential users, of archival records,” what better way to do this than incorporating principles, tenants, and strategies of User Experience? I am specifically interested in UX and its role in digital collections platforms /digital collections web design but appreciate UX in all its capacities and iterations in archives. Currently, I am pursuing a certificate with Library Juice Academy in User Experience for Libraries (expected completion Fall 2024) in addition to co-leading a UX study on strategies and recommendations for content notices on digital collections websites (expected publication Spring 2025). I have enjoyed serving on the UX Steering Committee thus far and discussing with other members how the UX Section can best help our community. As chair-elect, I would continue to create a safe space and platform for members to explore the role of UX in their work and to learn from each other. This includes launching subgroups of interest; hosting webinars and info sessions on relevant topics; working with publications such as Archival Outlook and the American Archivist to create publication opportunities to share our work; and building connections with others exploring UX in Archives. In addition to general access, I believe UX also has a role in shaping how we describe, preserve, and promote access to materials representing histories of marginalized communities. As such, this section is an important step in the direction of upholding commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion in our work. Here’s to an exciting time for UX and for us as a profession.
Laura Bell, Associate Archivist, American University
Laura Bell has been working in archives and libraries since 2014 and has experience working in academic, business and consulting, government, and museum settings. She has also worked as a freelance user experience research and design consultant for a public library. In her current and various past positions she has been responsible for collections management and collections processing, project management, archival accessioning, creating online finding aids, digitization and metadata creation, developing digital exhibits and outreach, managing students and staff, and digital preservation initiatives. Currently, Laura is the Associate Archivist at American University, where she leads collections management activities including analog and digital collections processing, collections access and discovery, and public services, among other responsibilities. She holds an MLS with a Specialization in Archives and Records Management from Indiana University, Bloomington, a Graduate Certificate in User Experience (UX) Design from the University of Baltimore, and a BA in English from St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Laura is a Certified Archivist through the ACA and a Digital Archives Specialist (DAS) through the Society of American Archivists. She has been a member of SAA since 2016 and most recently served as Chair of the Manuscripts Repository Section.
I was very excited when I learned about the formation of the SAA UX Section. I was first drawn to the archives profession because of its dedication to providing and improving access to unique collections for all users. I was first excited by this idea when I was improving collections access by creating digital collections and online tools for patrons, and later again when I began processing collections to ensure they were preserved, and well described and arranged for researchers to navigate. Whether we are processing a completely analog collection and creating an online finding aid, or digitizing materials and managing digital assets, archivists are increasing access and use opportunities for current and new users all the time. All of these functions also include UX. Creating a finding aid, a digital exhibit, or database all utilize information architecture similarly to building websites and other digital tools. User experience research and design will only help us make these tools more useful and usable for our current and potential patrons in archives. While in a previous position I earned a graduate certificate in UX Design and as a result had the opportunity to work with a public library conducting UX research and developing designs for their new website. Implementing UX design tools and research processes showed how needed UX research already is in the libraries and archives fields. It only makes sense for us, as archivists dedicated to increasing collections access, to also implement UX research in our work. Not only can UX research help us to improve our finding aids and evaluate and improve our digital collections platforms and website, but I think UX research and the overall design process can help direct collections and description work when we are processing collections. Archival collections management (analog or digital) is already a very iterative process, and so is UX, which is why the two processes go well together! If elected as a member-at-large, I would be very excited to contribute to and support the Section's initiatives, particularly the UX research toolkit and in helping to build a community of practice through shared knowledge, in addition to contributing to the Section's publication endeavors to share with the larger archives community. I'm also excited for the opportunities this section has to connect with and learn from User Experience Researchers and Designers in other fields. If elected, I would be interested in working in the section to increase our knowledge of UX research and design practices through collaborations with UX practitioners and with other SAA Sections. I think this section is an important step toward making sure that archives are useful and usable for everyone and I hope to be able to contribute to its work.
