Dominique Luster, Teenie Harris archivist at the Carnegie Museum of Art, discusses her TED Talk and her role in building community to better steward a large photographic collection documenting African American life in mid-twentieth century Pittsburgh. Her experiences in cleaning up “dirty data” and her thoughts on archivists’ understanding of professionalism round out the conversation.

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Watch Dominique’s TEDx Talk in Pittsburgh, given in June 2018, titled “Archives Have the Power to Boost Marginalized Voices,” and read her article on the same topic in the November/December 2018 issue of Archival Outlook.

Anthony Cocciolo, dean of the Pratt Institute School of Information, speaks about his award-winning book, Moving Image and Sound Collections for Archivists. He discusses his inspiration for the book and explains how his recommendations can be realized even in small archival programs. He also shares his thoughts on archival outreach for audiovisual and other archival collections.

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Most archivists encounter and most archives contain some form of moving image and sound material. This book offers practical guidance on how to preserve and make accessible the moving image and sound record, from the most relevant legacy formats to born-digital formats. Cocciolo won the SAA Waldo Gifford Leland Award for best publication in 2017 and the Arline Custer Memorial Award from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference in 2018. The book is available from the Society of American Archivists.

Karen Trivette, head of special collections and archives at the Fashion Institute of Technology, provides a behind-the-scenes look at An Archivist’s Tale (a podcast produced by Karen and her husband, archivist Geof Huth), tells her own archival origin story, and talks about her passion for sharing archival and special collections materials.

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Check out An Archivists’s Tale podcast, in which archivists discuss their work and passions and how they care for the historical record and present the storied past.

Listen to four compelling stories from the archives in this selection from A Finding Aid to My Soul, the open-mic storytelling event at ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2018, sponsored by SAA’s Committee on Public Awareness (COPA) and emceed by COPA member Chris Burns, University of Vermont.

Storytellers are Petrina Jackson, head of Special Collections and University Archives, Iowa State University; Elizabeth Myers, director of Smith College Libraries; Geof Huth, chief records officer and law librarian, New York State Unified Court System; and Mary Rubin, senior archivist, University of Central Florida.

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Check out two of the spookier stories from A Finding to My Soul by Jennifer Overstreet, graduate student at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Terry Baxter, archivist at Multnomah County Archives.

Follow ArchivesAWARE! to stay up-to-date on the Committee on Public Awareness’s (COPA) activities.

Michelle Caswell, associate professor of Archival Studies in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the cofounder of the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), discusses her research and writing process for her book, Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia, in an interview in July 2018.

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In Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia, Michelle Caswell traces the history of the bureaucratic recordkeeping regime of the Khmer Rouge and examines the ways in which these photographs are testaments of archival silence and agency. The book received the SAA Waldo Gifford Leland Award for best publication in 2015 and was a finalist for the ICAS Book Prize, given by the International Convention of Asia Scholars. The book is available from the University of Wisconsin Press.

Christopher (Cal) Lee, professor at the University of North Carolina School of Information and Library Science, talks about his role as editor of American Archivist and his vision for the journal’s immediate future. He also shares tips for aspiring authors interested in writing for SAA’s professional journal.

American Archivist is the leading publication in the archives field. Published semi-annually by the Society of American Archivists, this peer-reviewed journal features research articles, case studies, perspectives, and international scene pieces as well as reviews of professional literature, archival technologies, and resources. Browse current and past issues. 

Learn how to submit to the journal.

Kären M. Mason, curator of the Louise Noun-Mary Louise Smith Iowa Women’s Archives, University of Iowa Libraries, discusses her experiences stewarding women’s collections, the role of women’s archives in contemporary archival practice, and SAA’s One Book, One Profession selection, Perspectives on Women’s Archives.

Perspectives on Women’s Archives, edited by Tanya Zanish-Belcher with Anke Voss, features eighteen essays written by noted archivists and historians (including Kären Mason!) that illustrate the origins of a women-centered history, the urgent need to locate records that highlight the diverse experiences of women, and the effort to document women’s experiences.

Kären contributed the chapter, “‘A Grand Manuscripts Search’:  The Women’s History Sources Survey at The University of Minnesota, 1975–1979.” The book is available from the Society of American Archivists.