ELECTION 2017

The Visual Materials Cataloging and Access Section will be holding elections electronically and outside of the annual meeting at SAA. Nominees are current members of SAA and VMCAS, and must be present at the annual meeting in July. Sharon Mizota will take over as Chair from Kait Dorsky at the annual meeting in July 2017.

Vice-Chair/ Chair-Elect Candidate: Ashley Levine, Archivist/Digital Resource Manager, Artifex Press (New York, New York)

About Ashley:

I currently serve as the Archivist and Digital Resource Manager for Artifex Press, a New York City-based company dedicated to publishing digital catalogues raisonnés. I hold an MA in Archives and Public History, and a BA in History, from New York University. As a lone arranger at Artifex Press, I work with digital and analogue artwork photography, as well as a growing collection of digital audiovisual material, and am charged with administering a digital asset management system, embedding metadata in digital assets, managing copyright and intellectual property concerns, as well as digitizing, editing, and color correcting physical film photography. I work on multiple digitization projects simultaneously, and maintain multifaceted analog collections, relating to the artists and artworks in Artifex's catalogues. 

As an archivist, I am particularly interested metadata and imaging optimization, and believe I possess a diversity of knowledge of various issues facing archivists working with visual materials in both analogue and digital formats.  As a lone arranger, I've learned to be a problem solver, as well as an advocate for the collections I oversee. I stay abreast of new digital technologies and the implementation of best practices at my institution, and keep an ear to the ground for macro and micro issues facing the archival community, as a the current editor of the Society of America Archivists (SAA) Lone Arranger Section newsletter, SOLO. I’ve also been privileged with speaking about embedded metadata to the Visual Materials and Cataloging and Access Section (VMCAS) at the 2016 SAA annual conference, discussing, “What ‘level’ are archivists/librarians cataloging visual materials? How to best negotiate item level cataloging versus collection level cataloging of visual materials?"

I endeavor to build on past experiences, and forge ahead with new perspectives on the visual resource world, and would be honored to do so as the Chair of the Visual Materials and Cataloging and Access Section.