Awards and Scholarships

Outstanding Contributions to the Archives Profession

Sister M. Claude Lane, O.P., Memorial Award

Mark J. Duffy, the Canonical Archivist and Director of the Archives of the Episcopal Church, is the 2012 recipient of the Sister M. Claude Lang, O.P., Memorial Award, which honors an individual archivist who has made a significant contribution to the field of religious archives. Over the past three decades, Duffy has made innumerable contributions through his publications, professional service, and institutional dedication. He has demonstrated continued commitment to SAA’s Archivists of Religious Collections Section through his service as chair and web coordinator. As one nominator noted, “Mark has elevated the archives from a traditional, historical manuscript collection to a thriving and visible archives, records, and research program.” In addition to working with the Episcopal Church Archives, Duffy also has consulted with about a dozen other religious bodies in establishing archives.

Spotlight Award

Cindy Ditzler and Joan Metzger of Northern Illinois University (NIU) are the 2012 recipients of the Spotlight Award, which recognizes the contributions of individuals who work for the good of the profession and archives collections—work that does not typically receive public recognition. Ditzler, NIU’s university archivist, and Metzger, the assistant university archivist, are being recognized for preserving the documentation of a tragic event on NIU’s campus on February 14, 2008, when a gunman killed five students in an auditorium, injured 21, and then shot himself. Despite the overwhelming emotional pain experienced in the aftermath, Ditzler and Metzger immediately went into action to document the unfortunate event as well as the ensuing grieving process and memorials. The Regional History Center worked with an NIU history class and the nonprofit group StoryCorp to collect oral histories. They gathered and preserved hundreds of items from spontaneous memorials that emerged on campus. And they developed a supplementary website to display memorial artifacts, which ultimately became a central place for the campus to share, grieve, and learn.

Emerging Leader Award

Mark A. Matienzo, digital archivist at Manuscript and Archives, Yale University Library, is the 2012 recipient of the Emerging Leader Award, which celebrates and encourages early career archivists who have completed archival work of broad merit, demonstrated significant promise of leadership, performed commendable service to the archives profession, or have accomplished a combination of these requirements. Matienzo has exhibited a remarkable record of achievement in a career that is eight years young. Matienzo played a critical role as the lead digital archivist on the Mellon-funded AIMS project, which developed a framework for the stewardship of born-digital archival materials within collecting repositories. The Award Committee also recognized Matienzo’s significant contributions to the ArchivesSpace project, which, with Mellon support, is integrating two successful archives information management tools—Archon and the Archivists’ Toolkit.

Diversity Award

The Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC) at the University of California, Los Angeles, is the first recipient of the Diversity Award, which recognizes an individual, group, or institution for outstanding contributions to advancing diversity within the archives profession, SAA, or the archival record. For more than 40 years, CSRC has been at the forefront of collecting and providing access to archival material reflecting the rich history of the Chicano population in the Los Angeles and Southern California area. The Chicano Studies Research Center’s significant achievements in activism, education, outreach, publication, and service on pressing issues facing the Chicano and Latino communities are truly exemplary.

Distinguished Service Award

The Archival Education Collaborative is the 2012 recipient of the Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes an archives institution, education program, nonprofit organization, or governmental organization that has given outstanding service to its public and has made an exemplary contribution to the archival profession. The Archival Education Collaborative (AEC) has developed a program and model that warrants special recognition for contributions to the archival field. For 10 years, this graduate initiative has provided access to archival education that would otherwise be geographically out of reach for many students. Through this cross-institutional resource, many students have been able to engage with relevant coursework and instructors while remaining part of their home institutions.

 

Advocacy/Public Awareness

J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award

Freelance writer and New York Times columnist Eve Kahn, choreographer and dance company director Bebe Miller, and author and film sleuth Philip W. Stewart are the 2012 recipients of the J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award, which honors individuals, institutions, or organizations that promote the greater public awareness, appreciation, or support of archives.

Kahn has written for a number of mainstream publications. In articles published in the New York Times—such as “Saving Scrapbooks from the Scrapheap” (08/04/11), “A Museum Isn’t Rebuilt Every Minute” (02/17/11), “Lantern Slides at Getty Museum and American Museum of Natural History” (11/04/10), and “Conservation Efforts for Endangered Papers” (07/06/09)—Kahn time and again presents a vivid illustration of the urgent need for preservation of important and unique artifacts. Kahn’s nominator writes, “When Kahn brings these stories to the world through mainstream media publications such as the New York Times [and International Design], she shines a spotlight on the multitudes of dedicated archives staff across the country who work so hard to preserve these original materials. Most importantly, she reminds us that these treasures, and the responsibilities for their safekeeping, belong to us all.”

Miller has shown commitment to the archival preservation of dance through many avenues, such as advocacy within the dance community, organizing workshops on dance archives and documentation, initiating an archives model to be used by artists, and by being a bridge between archivists and dance creators on how to best meet the preservation needs of the field. Miller has collaborated with the OSU Department of Dance in producing several digital documented works, a software template for choreographic documentation, and with the OSU Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design in exploring the use of motion capture technology for creative and archival purposes.

Stewart has published eight books that are designed to assist writers, researchers, historians, film and video makers, content producers, and the public in finding historically rich, celluloid-based moving images preserved in the motion picture holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). From the broad overview (what’s in the vault and how do you find it), to the specific (story titles of the Universal Newsreels), and the detailed (scene-by-scene descriptions of 36 WWI aviation titles), Stewart’s publications inform and invite others to explore America’s film vault. Stewart’s titles include America’s Film Vault, A Reference Guide to the Motion Pictures held by the U.S. Archives; Battlefilm, U.S. Army Signal Corps Motion Pictures of the Great War; and Aerial Aces of the Universal Newsreel, A Researcher’s Guide to the Aviation Related Stories Released Nationally by Universal Pictures, 1929–1931.

Philip M. Hamer and Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Award

The Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota is the 2012 recipient of the Philip M. Hamer–Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Award, which recognizes individuals or institutions that have increased public awareness of archives documents. The Immigration History Research Center is honored for its efforts to promote the knowledge and use of documentation of the immigrant experience through the Digitizing Immigrant Letters Project. The Award Committee expressed its high regard for the team’s efforts to promote access to immigrant letters through an inviting and useful website. The web access, together with the project’s sponsorship of scholars, public talks, and exhibits, increases public awareness of American immigrant history for scholars, family historians, and the general public.

 

Writing/Publishing Excellence

Waldo Gifford Leland Award

Francis X. Blouin Jr. and William G. Rosenberg, professors at the University of Michigan, are the 2012 recipients of the Waldo Gifford Leland Award for their book Processing the Past: Contesting Authority in History and the Archives. The award is given for writing of superior excellence and usefulness in the fields of archival history, theory, and practice. Processing the Past, published by Oxford University Press in 2011, provides a fresh perspective and contemporary interpretation to the modern fields of Archival Science and History.

Preservation Publication Award

Geospatial Multistate Archive and Preservation Partnership (GeoMAPP) Best Practices for Archival Processing for Geospatial Datasets by the GeoMAPP project is the 2012 recipient of the Preservation Publication Award. Best Practices for Archival Processing for Geospatial Datasets, published on the GeoMAPP website in November 2011, provides a detailed and practical guide to the geospatial archival processing workflow, including useful guides such as key questions to ask at each step of the workflow to make sure essential factors are not overlooked. The publication is a valuable contribution to the field of digital preservation for a common but complex type of electronic record.

Fellows’ Ernst Posner Award

Douglas Cox, associate law library professor and the international law librarian at the City University of New York School of Law, is the 2012 recipient of the Fellows’ Ernst Posner Award, which recognizes an outstanding essay dealing with some facet of archival administration, history, theory, and/or methodology that was published during the preceding year in The American Archivist. Cox was honored for his article “National Archives and International Conflicts,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2011 issue of The American Archivist (vol. 74, no. 2). In the essay, Cox addresses the archival community at large, offering an extremely thought-provoking analysis of the significance of archives as factors for good and ill in times of dramatic international conflict.

Theodore Calvin Pease Award

Pam Mayer, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Information and Library Science, is the 2012 recipient of the Theodore Calvin Pease Award, which recognizes superior writing achievements by students of archival studies. Mayer’s nominator noted that her paper, “Like a Box of Chocolates: A Case Study of User-Contributed Content at Footnote,” “reports on a thoughtful and well-executed study of an issue that is very relevant to contemporary archivists: user-generated information related to primary sources. Her arguments, evidence, and conclusions are well-reasoned, informative, and grounded in appropriate archival literature.”

 

Travel Awards

Oliver Wendell Holmes Travel Award

Lara Mancuso, a first-year student from Brazil, and Georgia Barlaoura, a first-year student from Greece, are the 2012 recipients of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Travel Award, which enables overseas archivists who are already in the United States or Canada for training to build upon their experience by traveling to SAA’s Annual Meeting. Both are students enrolled in the Master of Archival Studies program at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

Prior to attending UBC, Mancuso earned a Master of Arts and a PhD in history and has 20 years’ experience as an educator and researcher. Her goal is to apply her previous knowledge and her professional research and teaching experience to the development of archival repositories with holdings related to Latin America and the Caribbean. She is particularly interested in digitization and online publications to facilitate access to records and resources concerning Latin America.

While in Greece, Barlaoura accumulated five years of experience as an archivist, working at the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation, Historical Archive; the AMS Archive filing Systems LTD; and as archivist/librarian at the University of Crete Rethymnon. As a result of Barloura’s solid understanding of archival science and archival history, she was invited to work on the International Council on Archives Multilingual Terminological Database and is responsible for the Greek language. This requires a profound understanding of archival concepts as they are articulated in English terms and definitions.

Harold T. Pinkett Minority Student Award

Kapena Shim, a student in the Library and Information Science Program of the University of Hawai’i Manoa, is the 2012 recipient of the Harold T. Pinkett Minority Student Award, which recognizes minority graduate students of African, Asian, Latino, or Native American descent who, through scholastic achievement, manifest an interest in becoming professional archivists and active members of SAA. As a student, Shim mobilized a group of 10 members of the University of Hawai’i SAA Student Chapter to raise funds to attend the annual conference of the Association of Hawai’i Archivists. Shim has also presented posters and appeared on panels at multiple conferences, volunteers in his community, and belongs to many other professional groups.

Donald Peterson Student Scholarship Award

Amanda Strauss, a graduate student at Simmons College, is the 2012 recipient of the Donald Peterson Student Travel Award, which supports students and recent graduates from graduate archival programs within North America to attend SAA’s Annual Meeting. Strauss is pursuing Master of Arts in History and Master of Science in Library and Information Science, Archives Management, degrees. During SAA’s Annual Meeting, Strauss will be presenting “Treading the Ground of Contested Memory: Archivists, Memory, and the Human Rights Movement in Chile,” which is part of the In Pursuit of Moral Imperative: Exploring Social Justice and Archives session.

 

Scholarships

Mosaic Scholarship

Aditi Sharma Worcester, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, is the 2012 recipient of the Mosaic Scholarship, which provides $5,000 to students who demonstrate potential for scholastic and personal achievement and who manifest a commitment both to the archival profession and to advancing diversity concerns within it. Drawing from her previous career in print and broadcast media, Worcester started Save Their Story in Austin, providing workshops to minority communities on using video biographies to preserve family and community history.

F. Gerald Ham Scholarship

Nathan Sowry, a graduate student in the Library and Information Studies program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Jarrett M. Drake, a graduate student at the University of Michigan School of Information, are the 2012 recipients of the F. Gerald Ham Scholarship, which offers $7,500 in financial support to graduate students in their second year of archival studies at a U.S. university. Scholarship selection criteria include the applicants’ past performance in their graduate programs in archival studies as well as faculty members’ assessment of the students’ prospects for contributing to the archives profession.

In awarding the scholarship to Sowry, the Award Committee was impressed by his solid and extensive archival experience, his excellent academic record, and the high quality of his essay, “Silence, Accessibility, and Reading Against the Grain: Examining Voices of the Marginalized in the India Office Records,” with its eloquent and effective navigation between colonial records and archival theory.

In recommending Drake for the award, the selection committee noted the outstanding quality of his writing, analytical skills, and thoughtfulness displayed in his paper “Remembering the Impossible: Collective Memory and the Narrative of Freedom.” The committee also cited his dedication to the archival profession as demonstrated by his diverse archival work experience and his professional archival activities, including presenting and publishing.

Josephine Forman Scholarship

Nathasha Alvarez is the 2012 recipient of the Josephine Forman Scholarship sponsored by the General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church, in cooperation with the Society of American Archivists (SAA). The $10,000 scholarship provides financial support to minority students pursuing graduate education in archival science, encourages students to pursue careers as archivists, and promotes the diversification of the American archives profession. Alvarez is a student in the double master’s program at New York University and Long Island University and is studying to receive degrees in history and archives and library and information science. Alvarez’s goals and academic achievements match well with the intention of the Josephine Forman Scholarship to support persons “who demonstrate excellent potential for scholastic and personal achievement and who manifest a commitment both to the archives profession and to advancing diversity concerns within it.”