Fellows

SARA S. “SUE” HODSON is Curator of Literary Manuscripts at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. In summarizing her distinguished 30-year career, nominators wrote the following:

“She is a distinguished and consummate professional, a thoughtful scholar with keen intelligence and deep-rooted integrity, and a thoroughly warm and compassionate person.”

“Sue is passionate about what she does and how it makes a difference to people’s lives.”

“Even more than her particular accomplishments and contributions, Sue has been remarkable for the warmth, generosity, and enthusiasm with which she has infused the projects and organizations she serves. She does not seek the limelight, and is apt to redirect praise aimed at her toward those with whom she worked.”

“Her experience, her thoughtfulness, and her unflinching ability to argue and yet leave no doubt for an instant that she respects the views of her opponent, have made her a trusted and widely admired colleague.”

Hodson has served on the Huntington Library staff in increasingly responsible positions since 1973. She has published extensively on the Huntington’s literary collections and is particularly known as a scholar of the 20th-century novelist Jack London. Two forthcoming books reflect the breadth of her scholarly and curatorial accomplishments: Poems in Manuscript, to be published by the Huntington, and Human Documents: Photographs by Jack London, written in collaboration with Jeanne Campbell Reesman. Reflecting her scholarly interests, Hodson is currently president of the Jack London Society.

Hodson is best known to her SAA colleagues as an expert on issues of privacy and confidentiality, and it is in this area that her most enduring contributions to the profession may lie. She helped to found and has long been a leader of the Privacy and Confidentiality Roundtable, serving as chair from 1996 to 1998, and her paper on privacy in the papers of authors and celebrities is forthcoming in the Privacy Reader scheduled for publication by SAA this year. She has spoken and published on these issues many, many times. More praise from her colleagues: “Sue’s fervor for both privacy rights and access, coupled with an innate sense of justice and fairness towards all parties … make her ideally suited to consider and resolve these often difficult issues.”

Hodson has generously served as chair or member of numerous other SAA groups over the years, including a term as chair of the Manuscript Repositories Section. She has been a member of the Academy of Certified Archivists since 1990. She has also contributed in many ways to the Society of California Archivists, for which she was honored with the SCA Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. A nominator described her as one of the most “knowledgeable, energetic, and eminently collegial forces in the California archival community.”

— Jackie Dooley, University of California, Irvine

GREGORY S. HUNTER is Professor in the Palmer School of Library and Information Science of Long Island University. In summarizing his distinguished 27-year career, nominators wrote that, “He embodies all the qualities that SAA seeks to honor with selection as a Fellow. He is a committed archivist, records manager, teacher, writer, presenter, and consultant.” Hunter bridges a variety of communities and is known to be “broad and versatile” and “a high-energy, tireless contributor to, supporter of, and champion of the archival field.”

A long-time New Yorker, Hunter received his undergraduate degree from St. John’s and his master’s and doctoral degrees from New York University. He began his professional career as a business archivist with Chase Manhattan Bank and was later Manager of Corporate Records for ITT. He also spent six years as Director of Archival Programs for the United Negro College Fund. From this background, he learned archival and records management practice from the ground up.

With the completion of his doctoral studies, Hunter took his teaching from workshops and adjunct assignments to being a full-time educator. In addition to his current post at the Palmer School of Library and Information Science, he has taught at Columbia, St. John’s, the University of Puerto Rico, and the Georgia Archives Institute, and has made more than 200 presentations at professional meetings, workshops, and seminars. One of his supporters noted that, “His approach has been a rare combination of the theoretical and practical. He investigates archival questions with rigorous methodology, but passes on his knowledge in a practical, down-to-earth manner.”

This clearly comes through in his publications as well. His more than 25 articles and seven books cover a variety of topics, but his two best-known works, the award-winning Preserving Digital Information and Developing and Maintaining Practical Archives, now in its second edition, are standouts. Many archival educators use the latter title as a textbook in their own archives courses, as well as referring to it in day-to-day work.

Hunter’s dedication to his profession has been evident at all levels as he has provided leadership and service to the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York, the Long Island Archivists Conference, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference, and the Academy of Certified Archivists, for which he was a charter member and the group’s first president. Within SAA, he has chaired the Committee on Education and Professional Development and the Publications Board, served on Annual Meeting program committees, and been an officer of the Business Archives Section, editing the online version of the Directory of Business Archives in the United States and Canada.

— Lee J. Stout, Pennsylvania State University

KAREN JEFFERSON is Head of Archives and Special Collections at the Atlanta University Center. In nominating Jefferson for her exemplary professional achievements, supporters noted that, “In her work as a practicing archivist, she has built and managed distinctive programs and collections. As a dedicated member of SAA for 21 years, Karen has filled many important roles. Perhaps most importantly, she has made SAA a better organization for African American professionals, and has made SAA a better organization as a result. As a kind and caring guide and teacher, she has served as a mentor and a model for young African American information professionals. As a leader in SAA, she has been a wise and forceful presence in the governance of our Society.”

Jefferson received a BA in history from Howard University in 1974 and an MS in library science in 1975 from Atlanta University. She soon joined the staff of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University in Washington, DC. From her start as a Library Technician in 1975, she remained there for 18 years, serving as Curator of Manuscripts from 1987 to 1993, supervising a staff of twelve and managing a collection of 6,000 linear feet. During her time there, Jefferson did much to create the archival professionalism that now characterizes the Research Center. Though dating its origin to 1914, the University had only in 1973 begun to provide support for a professionally staffed manuscript program.

In 1993, Jefferson joined the staff of the National Endowment for the Humanities as a Program Officer in the Division of Preservation and Access. During her three years at NEH, she advised prospective applicants and monitored active grants, devoting particular attention to encouraging and advising in the development of strong proposals by Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Jefferson then moved to Duke University, where she worked with the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American Documentation, focusing on identifying and acquiring materials and encouraging their use. After two years at Duke, she moved to the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center as Head of Archives and Special Collections, where she has responsibility for the archives that supports Clark Atlanta University, the Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse College, and Spelman College. Since moving there, she has done much to revitalize a struggling program and to make its collections a valued element in the life of the colleges.

In SAA, Jefferson was a founding member of the Archives and Archivists of Color Roundtable, serving as co-editor of its newsletter and compiling the Archivists of Color Directory. She has served on the Awards Subcommittees for the Colonial Dames Scholarship and for the Harold Pinkett Award. She served on the SAA Task Force on Diversity, is currently a member of the Publications Board, and served on the Society’s Council from 1997 to 2000.

Jefferson also has been active in the work of other archival and library organizations as a committee member, instructor, author, and editor, including the Association of Certified Archivists, SOLINET, the Society of Georgia Archivists, and the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Archives Institute. She has served as a valued consultant to national and regional archival programs. In 2003 she was honored by the University of Maryland with the James Partridge Outstanding African American Information Professional Award.

— H. Thomas Hickerson, Cornell University

ALDEN N. MONROE is Head of Collections Management at the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery. Monroe has been a leader in developing and promulgating descriptive standards regarding archival control within bibliographic networks, moving the profession forward in a critical area at a critical time. As a member of the RLG Archives, Manuscripts, and Special Collections Program Committee, he introduced the concept of controlled vocabulary and a thesaurus of function for government records described in the RLIN database.

In reviewing his contributions to the profession and to SAA, one of several nominators cited “his dedication to archival work and the profession, his archival sense, calm presence, and sound judgment.” He has been a prolific contributor to many Society of American Archivists committees and task forces.

Known for his capabilities as “a great archivist, mentor, and colleague who takes his profession rather than himself seriously,” Monroe was honored by his nominators as follows: “Alden is one of those very special people who do the essential yet often unsung work of our profession—the work that others defer in doing because it is hard, time-consuming, and does not always earn great recognition. He is the backup singer; the person who does all the essential work of providing the constant rhythm, the depth and the harmony necessary to support and sustain the music, doing the difficult and unheralded work that makes everything come together.”

— Waverly Lowell, University of California, Berkeley

DANIEL PITTI is Associate Director of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. While at the University of California, Berkeley, Pitti started the Berkeley Finding Aid Project in 1993 as a platform to explore the application of markup technologies to archival description. Through Pitti’s brilliant conception and collaboration with leading archival descriptive experts, the project evolved into a tool known as Encoded Archival Description (EAD), now widely recognized as the international standard for providing access to archives and manuscripts via the Internet.

As one nominator noted: “The road to becoming a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists has many forks. Some attain it through long and outstanding work in the archival trenches and in professional service. Others arrive through scholarly achievement and intellectual accomplishment by adding to and stretching the theoretical boundaries of what used to be called ‘archival economy.’ And then there are those few who erupt upon the scene like some cosmic event, who so dramatically change the very landscape of what we do, how we do it, and, indeed, even who we are. Daniel Pitti is such a person.”

Pitti has been tireless in his efforts to promulgate EAD by conducting workshops and seminars and giving talks and presentations in countless national and international forums. As one of his supporters noted, “… acceptance of EAD did [not] fall from the skies like manna. It required a lot of explaining, educating, exhorting, and just plain politicking to convey its merits…. The international acceptance of EAD is due in good measure to Daniels’s work as promoter, teacher, writer, and all-around evangelist.” He has helped to elevate the archives profession into a position as a leader in information technology.

As another supporter pointed out: “EAD is significant not only for enhancing archival description and increasing access to primary sources, but for providing a framework that is now being used in a wide variety of settings.”

— Steven Hensen, Duke University