Fellows

Philip Bantin and Ian E. Wilson were named Fellows of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) on Aug. 22, 2003, during an awards ceremony at SAA's 67th annual meeting at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Established in 1957 and conferred annually, the distinction of Fellow is the highest honor bestowed on individuals by SAA and is awarded for outstanding contributions to the archival profession. They join 142 current members so honored out of a membership of 3,600.

The Committee for the Selection of SAA Fellows evaluates nominees on the following criteria: appropriate academic education and professional and technical training; a minimum of seven years professional experience in any of the fields encompassed in the archival profession; writing of superior quality and usefulness in advancing SAA objectives; and contributions to the archival profession through work in and for SAA.

As specified by the SAA constitution, election as Fellow is by 75 percent vote of the Committee for the Selection of SAA Fellows. The committee consisted of the five immediate past presidents of SAA—Leon J. Stout (chair), Steven Hensen, H. Thomas Hickerson, Luciana Duranti, William J. Maher—and three Fellows selected by Council—Valerie Gerrard Browne, Megan Desnoyers, and Deborah Skaggs.

Following are citations given by presenters during the awards ceremony.

PHILIP C. BANTIN is university archivist for Indiana University at Bloomington. He has been a leader in tackling the brave new world of electronic records outside of government archives. In 26 years of professional service, he has developed an excellent understanding of the academic environment and its organizational dynamics. His entire career has been spent in universities, first at Marquette in the 1980s, where he was assistant and then associate archivist and conducted a National Endowment for the Humanities grant project to survey Catholic Indian Mission and School Records in the Midwest. At the University of California-Los Angeles he served as university archivist and studied collection development practices in academic archives. At Boston College, he was head of archives and manuscripts, and, for the last decade, he has served Indiana University at Bloomington as university archivist and director of a series of National Historical Publications and Records Commission-funded projects in electronic records.

In each of his posts he has taken on new challenges and educated himself in new fields. His work at Indiana University is the most notable of these efforts. His leadership and knowledge about IT systems design, auditing, and transactional systems have convinced high-level administrators to pay attention to archival issues in systems redesign. The electronic records project is ongoing and built on previous work in other projects in which Bantin has shared widely through his project Web site, award-winning articles in professional journals, and numerous presentations at professional conferences.

Bantin has generously served on a variety of advisory committees, including the University Archivists Group of the Big Ten Schools, where he has assisted his colleagues in moving electronic records issues forward on their own campuses. He has taught archival courses at Bloomington and given many guest lectures in other classrooms. He has been an active professional at all levels, serving SAA on steering committees for both the College and University Archives and the Electronic Records sections, on program and local arrangements committees, and in a variety of posts for regional and state associations.

— Leon J. Stout, Pennsylvania State University

IAN E. WILSON is the National Archivist of Canada and vice president of the International Council on Archives. His career is exemplary and his contributions to archival practice and the archival professions in Canada, the United States, and worldwide have been outstanding. Under his leadership, the National Archives of Canada exercises its archival mandate within the unique concept of “total” archives, in which the national repository is charged with acquiring the full range of the documentary record, ranging from public to private and from historical to artistic. The National Archives also operates the national portrait gallery, and current plans will unite the archives and the national library in achieving a common mission in preserving and providing public access to the cultural heritage of the peoples of Canada.

Wilson began his career in 1966 as an assistant archivist in the university archives of Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, when he was the Provincial Archivist of Saskatchewan, Wilson chaired the work of the Consultative Group on Archives of the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Its report, Canadian Archives, set forth a strategy for a national archival system. This groundbreaking effort was recognized by SAA in 1981, when it was awarded a Waldo Gifford Leland Certificate of Commendation for writing of superior excellence and usefulness in the field of archival history, theory, or practice. This report, combined with another visionary statement, Report of the Advisory Committee on Archives, issued by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in 1985, charted the development of the Canadian Archival System, a network of more than 800 Canadian archival programs linked together for common purposes, including public advocacy, fundraising, and sharing knowledge of their combined holding through the use of common descriptive standards. As a principal author of both reports, Wilson sketched out a vision that, in his succeeding professional assignments, he has been able to exercise a prominent role in realizing. After leaving Saskatchewan, he served for thirteen years as Archivist of Ontario, during which he also managed the Ontario public library system for three years and served as an adjunct associate professor on the faculties of Information Studies and of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto for seven years. He was named National Archivist of Canada in 1999.

Wilson joined SAA in 1967 and has been a continuous member for thirty-five years. He has been a regular speaker at SAA conferences since 1975 and has also spoken at meetings of the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators, regional archival associations, and university forums in the United States. He has served on SAA’s Techniques for the Control and Description of Archives and Manuscripts Committee, Program Committee, and Task Force on Goals and Priorities, which set a strategic course for SAA during the mid-1980s. His extensive writings have appeared in a broad range of historical, archival, library, and museum publications.

His appointments to Canadian public and professional boards and committees are numerous and his awards include being named a Member of the Order of Canada in 2002; receiving an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from York University in 2001; and, in 1983, receiving the W. Kaye Lamb Prize for the best article published in Archivaria, the journal of the Association of Canadian Archivists.

His record of contributions to the work of archivists and archival agencies in North America is remarkable. Wilson has also addressed his attention to archives worldwide. Principally through the International Council on Archives (ICA), he has devoted his abilities and his time to efforts seeking to strengthen archival programs and improve the quality of archival practice globally. In addition to his current service as ICA vice president, he also serves on the Executive Committee and chairs the International Conference of the Round Table on Archives. In the complexities of the international arena, he exhibits the same organizational and political intelligence that has brought him such success in many other endeavors. Wilson truly is a world leader in the archival profession.

— H. Thomas Hickerson, Cornell University