Diversity Award: Joan Krizack

Joan Krizack is a 2013 recipient of the Diversity Award. The award recognizes an individual, group, or institution for outstanding contributions in advancing diversity within the archives profession, SAA, or the archival record.

Krizack has worked tirelessly to advance diversity throughout her lengthy career. As Northeastern University’s first professional archivist, she focused on documenting underrepresented social justice organizations and activists in Boston’s African American, Chinese, Latino, and GLBTQ communities. When Krizack came to Northeastern, the University Archives held just one collection documenting a social justice organization; eighteen years later, that number has increased to about 120 collections, of which 95 have been processed with collection guides available online.

Currently working as a consulting archivist, Krizack recently appraised and accessioned for Northeastern the records of the Hispanic Office of Planning and Evaluation (HOPE), a community-based organization that provides educational, health and human services, and community development programs for the Hispanic/Latino community of Massachusetts.

A colleague described Krizack as an “agent of empowerment and positive social change,” and as a person who has worked tirelessly to ensure that underrepresented communities might be remembered, in their own words, for their aspirations, achievements, and struggles.