Guest Post: Alexis Bhagat on Hay Library’s new “Voices of Mass Incarceration in the United States” collection

Today’s post comes from Alexis Bhagat, a student at SUNY University of Albany, currently studying for a Master of Science in Information Science, with a concentration in Archives & Records Management. If you would like to write a guest post, please use the guidelines here. It has been edited for brevity and length before publication on the I&A Blog by the current blog coordinator, Burkely Hermann.

Promotional image for symposium discussed in this post. The Artwork: “Change Our Worlds” by Shyama Kuver in collaboration with The People’s Paper Co-op, which was created for the 2023 Black Mama’s Bail Out

During Brown University’s announcement of their acquisition of the papers of the celebrated, and long-incarcerated, writer Mumia Abu-Jamal, Amanda E. Strauss, director of the John Hay Library, remarked that “the carceral system touches millions of Americans’ lives, yet the historical archive has a scarcity of stories of incarcerated people.” This glaring absence of incarcerated voices in the historical record is precisely what the Hay Library seeks to address with their groundbreaking collecting initiative, Voices of Mass Incarceration in the United States. This initiative is aimed at providing researchers with first-person accounts from individuals who have endured the harsh realities of prisons and jails in the era of mass incarceration.

At the heart of this new initiative are the Mumia Abu-Jamal papers. There are “more than 60 boxes of letters, notebooks, manuscripts, pamphlets, personal artifacts, books, and other items.” These invaluable documents, previously in the custody of historian Johanna Fernandez, will be made available to researchers starting September 27, 2023, when the John Hay Library at Brown University officially unveils this collection. The finding aid is currently accessible online through the RIAMCO online inventory, allowing scholars and the public to explore its contents.

To celebrate the inauguration of this vital collection, the Hay Library has organized an exhibition that will span the Brown University campus. The exhibition will be complemented by a three-day symposium that will bring together over two dozen artists and experts, each offering unique perspectives on the multifaceted impacts of mass incarceration, from its effects on health and policing to issues of gender and racial justice. Together, the symposium and exhibition are designed to shed light on the daily realities of incarceration. They offer a catalyst for a broader discussion on American history and culture, as seen through the material records of one man. Thus, the exhibition and symposium both exemplify the power of archives to illuminate history while also exemplifying a historic flaw of the archives profession in collecting the papers of prominent individuals.

Mumia Abu-Jamal occupies a singular place in American history. He is a rallying point for a global movement advocating for his amnesty, the object of organized outrage from the Fraternal Order of Police and their supporters. Given his status, and the controversies around his case, it’s undeniable that Mumia Abu-Jamal is a “prominent individual” whose papers would be coveted by any repository in the United States. The Voices of Mass Incarceration project aims to move beyond collecting the papers of prominent individuals and to collect the papers of incarcerated individuals more broadly. Last year, Mary Murphy of the Hay Library said that her team has identified a mere 25 archival holdings in American libraries related to first-person experiences of incarcerated individuals. The Voices of Mass Incarceration project aims to address this archival silence. I am curious if Murphy has reassessed her statement over the past year. Is the silence of the voices of incarcerated individuals primarily a problem of acquisition? Or is it also not a problem of retrieval?

Consider, for instance, other ways to search: The first newspaper published within a prison by an incarcerated person was “Forlorn Hope,” released in 1800 by William Keteltas (1765–1812) while he was in a New York City debtor’s prison. This occurred two decades before the first surge in American prison construction from 1816 to 1825. There are no “Keteltas Papers” in American repositories, but correspondence between William Keteltas and other individuals can be found in various archives. This includes letters to Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams, from 1801 to 1812, found on the National Archives’ Founders Online website.

By using different frameworks to search, users can uncover writings and artwork created behind bars, which is scattered throughout America’s archives. In this respect, the curation of a digital collection, by the Beinecke Library in 2020, is an exemplary project. It features writings and artwork by incarcerated individuals drawn from the library’s extensive holdings. The collection includes notable pieces such as Austin Reed’s memoir manuscript, poems by Ethridge Knight and Leonard Peltier, and periodicals like “The Shadow” monthly, produced by Oregon prisoners, and “The Angolite,” produced by inmates at Louisiana’s Angola State Penitentiary.

In conclusion, the Voices of Mass Incarceration project, anchored by the Mumia Abu-Jamal papers, represents a pivotal moment in archival collections. It not only seeks to bridge the historical gap by bringing forth the narratives of those incarcerated but also underscores the urgency of acknowledging and addressing the myriad challenges faced by millions of prisoners in America. This initiative serves as a powerful testament to the transformative potential of archives, revealing both the past and present contradictions within the Mumia Abu-Jamal papers and offering a promising path toward a more inclusive historical record.

You can register for the symposium here→ https://www.eventbrite.com/e/voices-of-mass-incarceration-a-symposium-tickets-708797842427?aff=oddtdtcreator

September 15, 2023September 16, 2023 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Guest PostsTags: 19th century, acquisition, amnesty, Angola State Penitentiary, anti-racism, archival processing, archival silences, archives are contested, archives are not neutral, archives profession, Austin Reed, biases, Black history, Black people, Brown University, debt, debtor's prison, Dictionary of Archives Terminology, digital access, digitization, Ethridge Knight, Fraternal Order of Police, gender oppression, Guest Posts, John Hay Library, Leonard Peltier, Louisiana, mass incarceration, Mumia Abu-Jamal, NARA, New York City, police, political prisoners, prison construction, prisons, racial oppression, retrieval, SAA, search methods, social justice, symposiums, traditional founders, U.S. history, university archives, William Keteltas Leave a comment

Archivists on the Issues: Creating Environmentally Sustainable Digital Preservation: A Workshop

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. The following post is from Laura Alagna, Digital Preservation Librarian at Northwestern University; Keith Pendergrass, Digital Archivist at Baker Library Special Collections at Harvard Business School; Walker Sampson, Assistant Professor and Digital Archivist at the University of Colorado Boulder; and Tim Walsh, Software Developer at Artefactual Systems.

Background

In 2017, we  came together due to a shared concern over the increasing environmental impact of digital preservation. Despite some notable recent work calling attention to and investigating the environmental costs of practices in our field,^[1] we observed that most discussion of sustainable digital preservation was still focused on financial and staffing concerns, sustaining practices as a long-term program, or on the large amount of electricity used by digital storage infrastructure. Additionally, we noticed that current frameworks and standards push practitioners toward optimal digital preservation whenever resources allow, instead of providing guidance when lower levels or standards may be sufficient.

In light of these trends, we proposed a paradigm shift in digital preservation practice in our 2019 article, “Toward Environmentally Sustainable Digital Preservation.”^[2] Rather than focusing on strategies that simply reduce the unsustainability of current practice by improving the efficiency of the technological infrastructure we use to do our work, we argue that truly sustainable digital preservation can be achieved only when digital object management, successful use, and environmental sustainability are explicitly balanced and integrated into decision-making criteria. Suggesting a paradigm shift^[3] along these lines, we outline ways for practitioners to critically reevaluate appraisal, permanence, and availability of digital content—providing a framework for integrating environmental sustainability into digital preservation practice.

Workshop Protocol

Throughout our research and writing, we returned again and again to a driving factor behind our work: that the changes we propose can make a difference. The breadth and enormity of the climate crisis should not drive us to despair that our actions are inefficacious. When aggregated, our actions can result in significant positive change. To this end, we want to continue sharing our work in the hope that it will inspire others to implement and advocate for environmental sustainability at their own organizations. To facilitate this, we developed a workshop protocol designed for participants to discuss issues of environmental sustainability in digital preservation, identify and enact change toward sustainable practices in their organizational contexts, and identify and plan further research. The protocol is available at: https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-hxe1-m195.

BitCurator Users Forum 2019: Workshop First Run

We ran the workshop for the first time at the BitCurator Users Forum 2019 on October 24, 2019 at Yale University. We briefly introduced our article’s core arguments, set the ground rules for discussion, and split into three discussion groups based on the paradigm shift areas. Groups reported back in two sessions, with participant-created notes available here.

In the first session, we broke into three groups, each lead by a facilitator:

• Appraisal. Discussion in the appraisal group focused on collecting policies, and in particular that many participants feel that they do not have the authority to influence the appraisal process or collecting decisions. There was consensus that the low cost of storage has resulted in an reluctance to invest in staff and technological resources to conduct critical appraisal, and that reappraisal is even more difficult to accomplish.
• Permanence. Participants in this discussion group also discussed digital storage, particularly whether participants’ organizations accounted for environmental factors when implementing new (or refreshed) on-premises or cloud storage solutions. On the idea of acceptable loss, participants discussed how much loss would be acceptable at their organizations in different contexts, and how the concept could be communicated with collection curators. Those in the permanence group also compared notes on how each organization approached fixity checking, with a wide variety of practices reported among participants.
• Availability. This discussion group observed that the availability of digital content is tied to reappraisal and permanence decisions. Decisions earlier in a digital object’s life cycle have consequences for access that should be incorporated into organizations’ decision making and transparently explained to researchers. Participants discussed digitization projects in detail, particularly the issue of on-demand digitization versus mass digitization, and the lack of clear guidelines on determining what the critical mass of user need is that would move a collection or group of materials from on-demand to mass digitization.

After the general discussion on each of these areas, the three groups focused on plans for implementation, and the facilitators encouraged participants to think about actionable steps that they could take at their own organizations. A sample of these action items follows:

• Appraisal
  • Develop and implement policies for regular reappraisal.
  • Ensure that curatorial and collecting guidelines cover digital content.
  • Write preservation policies that include tiered levels of preservation so that organizations can consistently select the most appropriate level during acquisition (and communicate this to donors).
• Permanence
  • Promote collaboration with those responsible for appraisal to ensure implementations of tiered preservation solutions are meeting donor/organizational/user expectations.
  • Implement a lower tier of preservation commitment for digitized content that has a stable analog original.
  • Enact file format policies that do not migrate stable file formats.
• Availability
  • Document demand for digitization to inform preservation approaches in line with the tiers advocated for in OCLC’s 2011 Scan and Deliver
  • Develop criteria for shifting collections or groups of materials from on-demand to mass digitization, especially for audiovisual materials.
  • Investigate central or interoperable discovery systems, to avoid duplicating digitization efforts across organizations.

When the groups reported out, it became clear that there were some implementation ideas common across all three areas. Foremost among these was advocating for environmental sustainability: all three groups brainstormed ways to advocate at their own organizations, from demonstrating the need for environmentally sustainable practice to working with existing environmental initiatives. Additionally, some participants noted that having more quantifiable data on the environmental impact of digital preservation, and the positive correlation between environmentally sustainable actions with staffing and financial sustainability, would help them make the case for their action plans to their organizations’ administrators.

Next Steps

We are making the workshop protocol available so that others can run this workshop at conferences and in their local organizations and communities. Conducting the workshop at BUF2019 made it clear that participants had many areas of shared interest, and significant enthusiasm for the subject. There is ample further opportunity to learn from each other and work together to implement specific actions across organizations.

We hope that individuals and existing or newly-formed working groups will take on investigating subjects such as:

• Data and metrics on the impact of digital preservation at cultural heritage organizations.
• Strategies for advocating for sustainable digital preservation practices.
• Frameworks for gathering use statistics or user demand for digitization.
• Guidelines and policies for implementing tiered preservation approaches.

We are excited to continue working with the digital preservation community on moving toward environmentally sustainable digital preservation and look forward to seeing new research on this topic from others.

^[1] See for example Eira Tansey, “Archival Adaptation to Climate Change,” Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy 11, no. 2 (2015), https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2015.11908146; Benjamin Goldman, “It’s Not Easy Being Green(e): Digital Preservation in the Age of Climate Change,” in Archival Values: Essays in Honor of Mark Greene (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2019); and Linda Tadic, “The Environmental Impact of Digital Preservation” (presentation, Association of Moving Image Archivists conference, Portland, OR, November 18–21, 2015), updated December 2018, https://www.digitalbedrock.com/resources-2.

^[2] Keith Pendergrass, Walker Sampson, Tim Walsh, and Laura Alagna, “Toward Environmentally Sustainable Digital Preservation,” American Archivist 82, no. 1 (2019), https://doi.org/10.17723/0360-9081-82.1.165, open access via Harvard DASH: https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/40741399.

^[3] See Donella Meadows, Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System (Hartland, VT: The Sustainability Institute, 1999), open access via the Academy for Systems Change: http://donellameadows.org/wp-content/userfiles/Leverage_Points.pdf; and John R. Ehrenfeld, Sustainability by Design: A Subversive Strategy for Transforming Our Consumer Culture (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008).

April 2, 2020November 29, 2023 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: acquisition, climate change, curators, data analysis, digital access, digital preservation, digitization, discovery, donors, Eira Tansey, environmental sustainability, Google Workspace, preservation, record storage, statistics Leave a comment

Archivists on the Issues: More than a warehouse: why the closure of Seattle’s National Archives facility matters

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. The following is from Burkely Hermann, recent graduate of the University of Maryland – College Park’s graduate program in Library and Information Science, with a concentration in Archives and Digital Curation.

On January 26, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved the sale of the 157,000 square foot National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Seattle facility, which holds permanent federal records for Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. This decision raises the question: which is more important, access to historic records or selling a public facility in a high-value real estate market? There has been fierce opposition from historical societies in Alaska and Seattle, historical researchers, genealogical groups, indigenous leaders, university professors, archivists, and historians. They were joined by a bipartisan group of eight Alaskan state legislators and 16 Congress members. The latter, comprising Washingtonian, Alaskan, Idahoan, and Montanan politicians, was also bipartisan. Washington Governor Jay Inslee also opposed the decision, as did Washington’s Secretary of State Kim Wyman. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson is considering suing the federal government over the closure. He reportedly submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the five-person Public Buildings Reform Board (PBRB), OMB, NARA, and the General Services Administration (GSA) regarding the closure. The Washington State Archives even created a page about the topic.

History Associates Incorporated, which cautioned their clients to plan ahead for the facility’s closure, noted the process would take 18 months. They also included the estimate from Susan Karren, NARA’s Seattle director that only “.001% of the facility’s 56,000 cubic feet of records are digitized and available online,” and stated that permanent records may be inaccessible when transferred between facilities. According to NARA, no actions are being taken imminently which affect users of the facility, and NARA has requested to stay in the facility for three years following the sale. With such hullabaloo on this topic, one question is relevant: why does this closure matter to us, as fellow archivists?

NARA’s Seattle facility in Sand Point is more than a “giant U.S. government warehouse” or “excess property” as described in bureaucratic language. This facility holds records on indigenous people in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. It also holds: Chinese Exclusion Act case files which have been diligently indexed by local volunteers for the past 28 years; Forest Service teletypes about the Mount St. Helens explosion in 1980; federal case records from the early 1900s; and other important local documents. Such records make the NARA facility part of the “historical ecosystem” in the Northwestern United States, providing the public “direct access to government documents, from genealogical records to court files.” These aspects make the facility a “high value” federal property (or “asset”) which has a “deferred maintenance backlog of $2.5 million.” Additionally, no public PBRB meeting transcripts showed discussion of the closure. In one meeting, “warehouse[s]” used by NARA for “long-term storage” was touched on and at another there was a passing mention of Seattle.

Some may point to existing digitization efforts. Sure, some of Alaska’s records have been digitized, but record series are often digitized by FamilySearch and the project is only five years old. For instance, some records relating to Alaska have been digitized like crew lists, immigrant lists, draft cards, and naturalization records, as is the case with Washington and Idaho. But these are primarily 20th century records, with very few 19th century records. The letter from congress members criticizing the decision also called this out, stating that “NARA’s partnership with FamilySearch to digitize records has…not resulted in actual access to records that have been prioritized by stakeholders,” a unique and rare criticism of the NARA-FamilySearch partnership. The limitations of existing digitization undermines NARA’s reasoning that some of their “popular records” are already digitized or available online, asserting that public access to their archival records will stay in place.

Access to “archived knowledge” is vital and inherent to archival ethics. Moving records away from those who can use it, dividing it between two existing facilities in Riverside, California, and Kansas City, Missouri, is an act of cruel inaccessibility. Furthermore, splitting the records between two locations, regardless of the reason, leads to a strain on those facilities, which need additional storage space. NARA itself admits that the closure will negatively affect those who use the facility. They pledge to engage with researchers in a “smooth” transition when the facility is shuttered, even though this change will undoubtedly disadvantage various stakeholders, whether state archivists, government employees, scientists, students, or others. In a recent invitation-only meeting, they showed their commitment to the closure of the facility, pledging to work with indigenous groups.

The PBRB’s executive director Adam Bodner claimed that the closure of the facility was a decision by NARA staff. If true, this would put them at odds with users and stakeholders who want the facility to remain open. On pages A-68 to A-71 of their report, the PBRB concluded that NARA wanted to move to a more modern facility and that the 10 acres the facility sat on would be great for residential housing, apparently worth tens of millions of dollars as one article claimed. The PBRB also stated that NARA could only fulfill its storage needs at another facility because the current facility does not meet NARA’s “long-term storage needs.” In the process, some records will be moved to a temporary facility. Reportedly, NARA justified the closure by the fact that the facility is the third-least visited NARA site in the country and has “high operating costs.” Such arguments don’t consider the fact that the 73-year-old building could be retrofitted for the agency’s needs or records could be moved closer rather than split between two locations. This closure also stands against NARA’s stated goal that public access is part of its core mission and violates the Society of American Archivists’ Code of Ethics, stating that archivists “promote and provide the widest accessibility of materials.”

In coming days, NARA will be submitting a Report of Excess to the GSA, headed by Administrator Emily Murphy, which will collaborate with the PBRB and OMB to help “offload” properties like this facility. As such, to speak out against the closure, you could email Emily Murphy at emily.murphy@gsa.gov, the GSA’s Deputy Administrator at Allison Brigati at allison.brigati@gsa.gov, call 1-844-GSA-4111 or contact the GSA’s Office of Real Property Utilization and Disposal at 202-501-0084 and at realestate.buildingdisposal@gsa.gov. Alternatively, you could contact the OMB’s Russell Vought at Russell.t.vought@omb.eop.gov or Archivist David Ferriero at David.Ferriero@nara.gov.

February 18, 2020September 3, 2023 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: accessibility, archives closure, digital access, FamilySearch, federal records, genealogy, government archives, immigration, intellectual access, Mormons, NARA, National Archives at Seattle, patrons, physical access, record storage, SAA Code of Ethics, volunteering 8 Comments

Steering Share: Chair, Courtney Dean

Steering Shares are an opportunity to find out more about the I&A Steering Committee. This kick-off post comes from I&A Chair Courtney Dean, Head of the Center for Primary Research and Training in UCLA Library Special Collections.

I&A Chair, Courtney Dean, at the “Archives on the Hill” event

How did you first get involved in archives?

My undergraduate degree was in History but strangely enough I never visited my university’s Special Collections (where, incidentally, I now work!). After school I worked for a number of years in community mental health where I dealt a lot with documentation compliance, record retention schedules, and record requests- things I now know are fundamental to records management. At the time, I was considering pursuing a PhD in History but serendipitously kept meeting people who had gone through MLIS programs. Their jobs sounded so cool! This was also around the same time I learned about community archiving efforts such as the Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) and about nascent institutional efforts to document subcultures like Riot Grrrl. When I discovered that the UCLA Information Studies program had a strong social justice focus, I was completely sold.

What made you want to join the I&A Steering Committee?

Last year I served as Vice-Chair of the I&A Section and I’m really proud of the work we did, including serving as a platform to amplify discussions of inclusivity, barriers to access, and labor issues. Former Chair, Rachel Mandell, and I even got to take our advocacy efforts to D.C., where we participated in the “Archives on the Hill” initiative, sponsored by SAA-CoSA-NAGARA-RAAC. While I’m of the opinion that change can start close to home, I also strongly believe we can and should leverage our national professional organizations to engage in community and coalition building, and to provide a space to have the conversations we need to be having as a profession. I’m really looking forward to the work we have planned for the coming year, and all of our potential collaborations both inside and outside of SAA.

What is an archival issue that means a lot to you?

If you know me, you know that I’m currently devoting a lot of energy towards increasing the visibility of the proliferation of temporary and contract labor in GLAM organizations, and the resulting deleterious effects on individuals, institutions, donors, researchers, and the profession as a whole. It’s encouraging that conversations are becoming less siloed- there was a mention of temp labor in OCLC’s 2017 report entitled Research and Learning Agenda for Archives, Special, and Distinctive Collections in Research Libraries; in SAA President Tanya Zanish Belcher’s recent Off the Record blog post on invisible labor; and there were excellent discussions in several of the section meetings at SAA in August including Issues and Advocacy, the SNAP and Manuscripts Sections joint meeting, and the College and University Archives Section. Stay tuned for a forthcoming I&A survey that we hope will ground the conversation in current data.

October 1, 2018November 24, 2023 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Interviews, Steering ShareTags: archival labor, archives profession, digital access, donors, GLAM institutions, inclusion, intellectual access, Interviews, library school, mental health, physical access, RAAC, SAA, temporary labor 1 Comment

Archivists on the Issues: Restrictions and the Case of the University of Michigan

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post comes from Steering Committee member Samantha Brown, an Assistant Archivist at the New-York Historical Society.

As archivists, we are constantly weighing the rights of record creators and donors against the needs of researchers. Sometimes balancing these differing needs can lead to a struggle that puts archives and libraries in the middle. We can find an example of this in a recent news story involving the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library.

The Bentley Historical Library’s story begins with the John Tanton Papers. The finding aid for the collection describes Dr. Tanton as an environmental, population control, and immigration reform advocate who has held leadership positions with the Sierra Club, Michigan Natural Areas Council, Wilderness and Natural Areas Advisory Board, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore Advisory Commission, Little Traverse Conservancy, and the Environmental Fund [1]. What makes him a controversial figure was his work with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and NumbersUSA. While working with these organization, Dr. Tanton worked to reduce both legal and illegal immigration and opposed bilingualism in public schools and government agencies [2,3]. In addition to this work, Dr. Tanton also created a publishing company called The Social Contract Press which notably published The Turner Diaries which was a race war fantasy novel that is seen as a key work for members of the American white supremacist movement [2].  

Part of what makes this collection newsworthy is the fact that half of the collection is sealed. While boxes 1 through 14 are open to researchers without any special restrictions, boxes 15 through 25 are sealed until April 6, 2035 [3]. This presents a problem for Hassan Ahmad, a Virginia-based immigration attorney, who is trying to gain access to the whole collection. Mr. Ahmed believes that the collection could contain materials that show the relationship between anti-immigration groups and white nationalists as well as the influence that some of groups that Dr. Tanton has worked with are having on the White House [4]. The link between Dr. Tanton and the White House may very well exist. President Trump’s senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, transition aid Lou Barletta, policy adviser Julie Kirchner, and immigration advisor Kris Kobach all have ties to FAIR, an organization that Dr. Tanton founded and was a chairman of [1,4].

Believing that the sealed parts of the collection could hold important information and should be part of the public debate, Mr. Ahmed filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the University of Michigan in December 2016 but the request was denied as was the request to appeal the decision [3,5]. Both the original request and the appeal were denied on the basis of Dr. Tanton’s donor agreement with the library [3]. After being denied his FOIA request, Mr. Ahmed sued the University of Michigan to gain access to the restricted parts of the collection [3]. When the case was brought before a judge, the University of Michigan filed for a motion to dismiss the lawsuit based on the fact that parts of the collection were sealed due to the collection’s donor agreement [5]. While information about the donor agreement was disclosed in court, information about the donor agreement was not included in the collections finding aid [1,5]. The judge, Stephen Borello, ruled that since the collection was a private donation and not being used for a public purpose, the University of Michigan could not be compelled to open the collection [3]. Mr. Ahmed proceeded to appeal this ruling as well and is arguing that the university can’t use donor agreements to keep documents sealed. As of right now, he is scheduled to appear in court again in late September or early October when a ruling on his appeal will be made [3].

If Mr. Ahmed wins his appeal, the results could have a massive impact on archives and researchers. Without the ability to guarantee that parts of a collection can remain restricted, archivists may not be able to persuade people to donate or house their collections in an archive which will make it harder for the materials to be preserved and accessed. Access doesn’t just mean that someone can use the materials for their research but also that they can find the materials. A private person may have a collection that is helpful to someone’s research but a person looking for those materials may never be able to find it if an archive can’t create a way for those materials to be found. The work of archivists to arrange and describe collections plays a crucial role in a collection’s findability. If donors are too worried about giving their materials to archives because archivists can’t provide the donors with any guarantees then researchers lose out as well.

While this case holds risks for archives and archivists, it also teaches us something as well. Finding Aids need to be more than just a list of items and folder titles, they need to give researchers a preview of what the collection holds. One of the reasons that Mr. Ahmed wants to access the restricted materials is because he doesn’t know what is there. The finding aid’s description for the restricted materials only includes series and subseries titles with very little other information. If there was a way to know what could be found in the unrestricted  parts of the collection as compared to the restricted parts and what differentiated those parts of the collection then maybe there could be a way to work with Mr. Ahmed so that he could find what he is looking for in a different way. Other members of the organizations that Mr. Ahmed is interested in may have unrestricted collections at other institutions. Otis L. Graham Jr., another founding member of FAIR, for example, has some his collections housed at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The best result for both the researcher and archive, in my opinion, would be to find a way to help the researcher with their request without breaking the donor agreement. If this isn’t possible then I wonder why a box and folder list is even provided for the restricted materials. Why tell people that you have something if you’re unwilling to tell them about it? Without more information in the finding aid or speaking to the staff at the Bentley Historical Library and investigating their policies around arrangement and description, it’s difficult to know why the collection has been handled in this particular way. For now, we, as archivists, can look at this situation and use it to change how we both deal with collections and researchers.

 

Works Cited

1. John Tanton Papers Finding Aid. University of Michigan, Bentley Historical Library, 14 Jun 2013, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/bhlead/umich-bhl-861056?view=text
2. “John Tanton” Southern Poverty Law Center, www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/john-tanton
3. Peet, Lisa. “Attorney Sues for Access to Tanton Papers in Closed Archive.” Library Journal, 18 Sept. 2018, https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=180918-Tanton-Papers
4. Frazen, Rachel. “Why Is the University of Michigan Fighting to Keep an Anti-Immigration Leader’s Papers Secret?” The Daily Beast, 3 Sept. 2018, https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-is-university-of-michigan-fighting-to-keep-anti-immigration-leaders-papers-secret
5. Warikoo, Niraj. “University of Michigan Oct.  Blocks Release of Hot-Button Records of Anti-Immigrant Leader.” Detroit Free Press, 28 Oct. 2017, https://www.freep.com/story/news/2017/10/17/university-michigan-blocks-release-anti-immigrant-records/732133001/

 

September 24, 2018December 5, 2022 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: archival description, arrangement, classified records, court cases, declassification, digital access, donors, FOIA, immigration, immigration policy, intellectual access, physical access, record restrictions, U.S. history, White supremacy, Whiteness 4 Comments

Archivists on the Issues: Intellectual Access to Archives

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post comes from regular writer for I&A’s blog, Lindy Smith, Reference Archivist at Bowling Green State University’s Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives.

In my final post on access and accessibility in archives, I am examining intellectual access. By this, I mean the language, theory, practices, and other non-physical barriers that exist in archives. Once a patron has navigated the obstacles of digital access and physical access that I discussed in my previous posts, they finally make it to our reading rooms either in person or virtually and want to use our collections. What gets in the way of this process?

Description can often get in the way, sometimes through its absence and sometimes through its presence. When description is non-existent or not online or not accessible or too minimal to be useful, it is detrimental to access. This is not news to anyone. But sometimes seemingly great description can also be a barrier to access. Say you have an important, highly used collection and you decide to write a DACs-compliant EAD finding aid at the item level, post it online with excellent SEO and cross list it in all appropriate union catalogs. It is a thing of beauty. It has extensive notes, a detailed inventory, and follows archival standards. It is easy to find. If you know where to look.

But then you have an ESL patron who speaks limited English and cannot read it all. Or a seventh grader working on a History Day project who has a middle school reading level and does not understand some of the terminology. Or a patron who is completely unfamiliar with archival description and does not understand the complicated series structure or how to use the detailed information you have painstakingly input. Based on my experience in various reading rooms, these kinds of casual patrons make up a significant portion of our users.

There’s something to be said for gaining familiarity with the systems in place, but for the patron who only wants to make one visit to see something for personal reasons or the student using it for one class, or the patron who is frustrated by a first visit and never comes back, our systems are exclusionary. We cannot write description for everyone, but it is important to recognize that language, reading level, structure, jargon, and many other factors can hinder access for some users.

Many of these issues can be mitigated with good reference help, but this leads to another question I think about often: how do we determine an appropriate balance of labor between patrons and archivists? How much do we require them to do and how much are we willing to do for them? What is policy mandated and what is grey area? What can we change to improve the patron experience? Obviously, patrons need to take the first step to make contact. They need to provide information about the subject of their interest or the items they’d like to request. They need to adhere to any established policies regarding registration information, payment for reproduction, collection handling, etc. Archivists have to respond to requests, pull requested materials, and explain necessary paperwork and policies.

But between this is a whole world of negotiation, personal preference, and available resources. How much time do (can) we spend with a single patron? Where do we draw the line? I like to think that we should be willing to take more on ourselves as the gatekeepers to make things easier and more pleasant for our patrons, but that is not fair when so many of us are already overloaded with work. On the other hand, it is not fair to put all of the work on our users, especially when it is our policies that are creating extra work for everyone.

Many archives have policies regarding remote research time, but what about patrons who require additional assistance with finding aids or computers or microfilm readers or handling fragile collections or the photocopier? How do we ensure smooth hand offs to other archivists when schedules require that multiple staff members be involved? How do we enforce policies that require official ID cards when we are trying to reach out to user groups that may not possess them? How do we respond to concerns about patron confidentiality when we are storing information about patrons and their research topics? How do we reassure patrons who feel targeted by security policies that require surveillance?

How might we rethink our policies and procedures to make things easier for everyone involved? While it is not a magic bullet or a possibility for everyone, there is something to be said for tapping into aspects of industry or libraries that are already familiar to our patrons. Along these lines, there are some technological solutions to help streamline the reading room experience. The biggest and best known in Aeon, which is a great product, but prohibitively expensive for most of us. Other archives have come up with in-house solutions using existing free products, like Trello or Google Forms.

At my institution, we have been working with our web developer, access services department, and catalogers to come up with a solution that allows us to treat special collections materials like ordinary library materials. Briefly, our web developer came up with a button that is enabled in our catalog on materials that have the Lib[rary] Use Only status that allows users to request items for future use. It generates a form that collects name and contact information as well as the date they would like to use the item(s) that is emailed to the appropriate collection. Patrons can also request items on site without scheduling them ahead of time. We use the emails as pull slips and place the items on our hold shelf. When the patrons arrive, we set up a courtesy card in our ILS (Integrated Library System- we use Sierra) that allows them to use only special collections materials (a proper courtesy card with ordinary borrowing privileges has an associated fee but a special collections card is free). We then check the materials out to their account while they’re using it on site and check it back in once they’ve finished. We explain at the time of checkout that they are not allowed to leave our floor with the items and we have not had any issues with this. The one drawback is that we do not yet have all of our special collections in the catalog, which is where our fabulous catalogers come in to create records. We are also in the process of implementing ArchivesSpace and are hoping that our developer will be able to create a similar request feature for use there. All special collections will eventually be represented in both places.

Obviously, a solution like this is only available to archives with access to an ILS and some developer time. If you are interested, our web developer has made the request button code available on GitHub. But if you think outside the box, you may be able to come up with your won solution with the resources available to you. Libraries have been using similar systems for decades to track use and it is past time for archives to do the same.

My posts here have been much more question-based than answer-filled, but these are important issues with lots of room for discussion. I look forward to continuing that discussion with any of you who are interested and hope you will take the opportunity to use some of these questions to help examine your own work.

August 8, 2018June 24, 2022 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: archival description, archival theory, archives security, digital access, digitization, emails, gatekeeping, Googlization, intellectual access, patrons, physical access, reproduction, surveillance, technology, terminology Leave a comment

Steering Share: The Year in Review

Steering Shares  provide an opportunity to learn more about the I&A Steering Committee and the issues that the committee members care about. This post comes courtesy of committee member Steve Duckworth, University Archivist at Oregon Health & Science University.

For my last Steering Share this year, I’m taking a bit of a look back at the past year or so of my professional life. It’s my first year as a Steering Committee member, but it also marks roughly my first year as a University Archivist and of being actually in charge of stuff. (It also marks the near-end of considering myself a “new professional” even though I still very much feel like a newbie.) I’ve actually been here a year and a half, but the first 6 to 8 months were a muddle of trying to figure out where I was and what I was doing. My experience before coming into this position was all in processing collections and I absolutely loved doing that. But there are some perks to being a more responsible type of archivist, too.

I love the work of processing collections – learning about a person’s life and work, learning in-depth history about an organization, creating order from what often appears to be a sea of mismatched paper documents, crafting well-written findings aids that help people access those collections. And while I do miss being so immersed in that work (and having less overall responsibility in general – and fewer meetings), what I enjoy about this job is still related to that first archival love.

I manage a small team of people that do most of our processing work. I get to choose what collections are next in the processing queue. I meet with donors and learn about their lives, or their parents’ lives. I get to work on improving description and access for collections, and try to standardize the work we’re doing across all of our holdings. Possibly my favorite aspect of this job is training and mentoring library school students. I’ve always enjoyed teaching, and though I’m not teaching in an LIS program (anybody need an adjunct?), I am getting to impart my knowledge of how archival processing can work and of how it can be better. I also have the pleasure of learning from those students and having their knowledge and new ideas keep my perspective fresh.

While managing the archives here, I’ve also gotten to implement some major changes in my short time in this position. Since I’ve started, we’ve implemented web archiving with Archive-It, migrated from Archivists’ Toolkit to ArchivesSpace, and sorted out a processing workflow for born digital records with the help of the extraordinary training from a Digital POWRR Institute. I’ve published a peer-reviewed journal article and served as a peer reviewer myself, presented at a regional conference and at two national conferences, and I’m about to present a paper at an international conference. I curated my first exhibit. And I’ve started to learn the limits of my ability to manage multiple projects and committee requirements, while still keeping open the ability to say YES to exciting opportunities that pop up from time to time.

As the next year unfurls, I’m hoping to work more on incorporating teaching from and with the archives at my institution (which has never been much of a focus here), enhancing our digital holdings in a new digital repository structure, wrangling in our large medical artifacts collection, planning out the space of our (potential) new reading room, and helping the employees of the University get a better grasp on records management (even though that is emphatically not my job). So, while it’s been a whirlwind of sorts – moving from Processing Archivist to University Archivist – and I admittedly miss the pleasures of the former roles, there is enjoyment to be found amidst the higher stress level, including the increased ability to help make positive changes at my institution and in the archives profession.

May 30, 2018June 22, 2022 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Steering ShareTags: archival description, archival processing, archives profession, born-digital records, digital access, donors, intellectual access, library school, mentoring, physical access, redescription, students, web archiving Leave a comment

News Highlights, 2018 April

The I&A News Monitoring Research Team has compiled this list of recent news stories relating to archives, archivists, archival issues, and archival representations. This list was curated by SAA Issues & Advocacy News Monitoring Team, which includes Dana Bronson, Rachel Cohen, Samantha Cross, Shaun Hayes, and Beth Nevarez; it is managed by Steve Duckworth. More links and information are available in this month’s Google doc.

Acquisition, Preservation, & Access

• How Photographer Dustin Pittman Built a Historical Pop Archive You’ve Never Seen https://www.forbes.com/sites/roytelmontero/2018/04/30/how-photographer-dustin-pittman-built-a-historical-pop-archive-youve-never-seen/#88d218e74d60
• Archive Rewinds Home Movies to Illustrate South Side History https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/archive-rewinds-home-movies-to-illuminate-south-side-history/99be96e9-2527-4c90-b1fd-99d8ab5bdd8d

Archival Finds & Stories

• The Secret Archive that Documented Life in the Warsaw Ghetto https://www.history.com/news/holocaust-warsaw-ghetto-uprising-ringelblum-archive
• Nazi Plans for Total Destruction of Warsaw Found on Ebay https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/12/nazi-plans-total-destruction-warsaw-found-ebay/
• Scenes Unseen: The Summer of ’78 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/27/nyregion/newyork-parks-photos.html
• Rediscovered memories on forgotten rolls of film: The Lost Rolls America project displays its trove http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-cm-lost-rolls-america20180409-story.html

Digital Archives, Technology, & the Web

• Kilgore digitizing city cemeteries with Longview’s help https://www.news-journal.com/news/local/kilgore-digitizing-city-cemeteries-with-longview-s-help/article_0560d30a-4a56-11e8-a9fe-87177973cf9f.html
• Billionaire Peter Thiel Agrees to Not Buy Gawker After Funding Site’s Demise https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/billionaire-peter-thiel-agrees-not-to-buy-gawker_us_5ae099d7e4b07560f397fff5

Exhibits & Museums

• The Power of Pictures: Viewing History Through America’s Library https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/lens/viewing-history-through-pictures-america-library-congress.html
• How Latin America was Built, Before Modernism Came Along https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/18/arts/design/metropolis-in-latin-america-review-americas-society.html
• U.K. Museum Offers Ethiopia Long-Term Loan of Looted Treasures https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/arts/design/v-and-a-ethiopian-treasure.html
• French Museum Discovers More than Half Its Collection is Forged https://www.npr.org/2018/04/29/606919098/french-museum-discovers-more-than-half-its-collection-is-forged; https://www.cnn.com/style/article/french-museum-half-paintings-fake-intl/index.html

Human & Civil Rights, Equality, & Health

• They thought Georgetown University’s missing slaves Were ‘lost’. The truth was closer to home than anyone knew https://wapo.st/2r7ZGmj?tid=ss_mail&utm_term=.00448d5dc6a6
• The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which honors over 4,000 victims of lynching in America, opened on April 26, 2018 in Montgomery, Alabama (multiple reports, see full news list for more)
  • A Lynching Museum Is Opening. The Country Has Never Seen Anything Like It https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/us/lynching-memorial-alabama.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
  • Memorial to Victims of Lynching Forces Reckoning On America’s Racist Legacies https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/memorial-lynching-reckoning_us_5ae22f8fe4b04aa23f212c2e
  • Fearless Ida B. Wells honored by new lynching museum for fighting racial terror https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/04/26/fearless-ida-b-wells-honored-by-new-lynching-memorial-for-fighting-racial-terror/?utm_term=.26e94605e913
• Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 11, 2018 (multiple related reports, see full news list for more):
  • As American Awareness Fades, Holocaust Museum Refreshes the Story https://www.npr.org/2018/04/23/604398292/as-american-awareness-fades-holocaust-museum-refreshes-the-story
  • Holocaust museum project debunks myth that Americans weren’t aware of the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany https://www.dallasnews.com/news/from-the-archives/2018/04/25/notion-americans-didnt-understand-threat-hitler-posed-myth
• Building Museum Exhibit Chronicles Scourge of Evictions, Homelessness https://www.npr.org/2018/04/23/604854312/building-museum-exhibit-chronicles-scourge-of-evictions-homelessness

Security & Privacy

• Those ancient artifacts that were illegally smuggled to Hobby Lobby are headed home to Iraq https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/02/us/iraq-artifacts-return-hobby-lobby/index.html
• Lost and found: Incredible works discovered https://www.cnn.com/style/gallery/lost-and-found-paintings/index.html

May 21, 2018December 5, 2022 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Research PostTags: Black history, digital access, digitization, films, genealogy, Google Workspace, Googlization, Holocaust history, human rights, Iraqi history, memorials, museums, News Highlights, photography, repatriation, Research Teams, stolen artifacts, U.S. history Leave a comment

News Highlights, 2018 March

The I&A News Monitoring Research Team has compiled this list of recent news stories relating to archives, archivists, archival issues, and archival representations. This list was curated by SAA Issues & Advocacy News Monitoring Team, which includes Dana Bronson, Rachel Cohen, Samantha Cross, Shaun Hayes, and Beth Nevarez; it is managed by Steve Duckworth.

View the full list of news stories online.

Acquisition, Preservation, & Access

• A grim task: Preserving mementos from the Florida shooting, https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/a-grim-task-preserving-mementos-from-the-florida-shooting-2/
• Shining a Cleansing Light on China’s Dark Secrets, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/world/asia/shen-zhihua-china-history-north-korea.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur

Archival Finds & Stories

• How Photographs Printed on Paper Changed 19th-Century America, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-paper-photography-shaped-19th-century-america
• 41 Photos of Presidential Pets Over Time, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/41-photos-of-presidential-pets-over-time_us_5a8f2750e4b0664343557492

Digital Archives, Technology, & the Web

• Twitter finds name and history of trailblazing black female scientist, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/twitter-found-the-name-and-history-of-this-trailblazing-black-female-scientist_us_5ab003b5e4b00549ac7e28f3 and https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/health/woman-scientist-1971-twitter-mystery-trnd/index.html
• The Quest for a Universal Translator for Old, Obsolete Computer Files, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-to-open-old-computer-files
• Why the PDF is Secretly the World’s Most Important File Format, https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pam43n/why-the-pdf-is-secretly-the-worlds-most-important-file-format

Exhibits & Museums

• There’s Finally a Museum Devoted to Telling the Story of HBCUs, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hbcu-museum-washington-dc_us_5ab143b0e4b0decad0449410
• Museums Fight the Isolation and Pain of Dementia, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/11/arts/dementia-national-museums-liverpool.html
• Art Museums in Puerto Rico Face a Long and Expensive Recovery, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/arts/puerto-rico-museums-hurricane-maria-recovery.html
• Women in the Spotlight at Museums, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/arts/women-in-the-spotlight-at-museums.html

Human & Civil Rights, Equality, & Health

• Overlooked (“Since 1851, obituaries in The New York Times have been dominated by white men. Now, we’re adding the stories of other remarkable people”), https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked.html
• National Geographic Reckons with Its Past: “For Decades, Our Coverage Was Racist,” https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/12/592982327/national-geographic-reckons-with-its-past-for-decades-our-coverage-was-racist (more links in the full news list)

• People Want to Know Why Brooklyn Museum’s New African Art Curator is White, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/brooklyn-museum-white-curator-african-art_us_5abc09e6e4b06409775cd2d7
• U.S. Holocaust Museum Revokes Human Rights Award Given to Aung San Suu Kyi, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-holocaust-museum-aung-san-suu-kyi_us_5aa022f4e4b0d4f5b66cd500

Security & Privacy

• Facebook’s Defense for Sucking Up Your Call and Text Data Entirely Misses the Point, https://gizmodo.com/facebook-s-defense-for-sucking-up-your-call-and-text-da-1824072352

The Profession

• The Libraries that Preserve the History of Small Islands, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/local-history-of-islands

April 13, 2018December 5, 2022 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Research PostTags: archives profession, Black history, China, curators, digital access, genealogy, Google Workspace, internet, libraries, museums, News Highlights, photography, preservation, Research Teams, social media, surveillance, Whiteness, women's history Leave a comment

News Highlights 2018 February

The I&A News Monitoring Research Team has compiled this list of recent news stories regarding topics of relevance to archives and archivists. This list was curated by SAA Issues & Advocacy News Monitoring Team, which includes Dana Bronson, Rachel Cohen, Samantha Cross, Shaun Hayes, Ryan Leimkuehler, Beth Nevarez, and Chloé Pascual; it is managed by Steve Duckworth.

View the full list of news stories online.

Acquisition, Preservation, & Access

1. Sir Isaac Newton’s groundbreaking papers to become UNESCO heritage, https://www.zmescience.com/science/physics/isaac-newton-unesco-heritage-01122017/
2. Trump Officials Want to Charge More Money to Access Public Records—Despite Fewer Requests, https://gizmodo.com/trump-officials-want-to-charge-more-money-to-access-pub-1822974323
3. UC Berkeley Uses Optical Scanning to Recover Indigenous Voices from Wax Cylinders, https://hyperallergic.com/397995/wax-cylinder-optical-scanning-uc-berkeley/

Archival Finds & Stories

1. George Washington’s hair found inside New York library book, https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2018/02/15/George-Washingtons-hair-found-inside-New-York-library-book/4491518717744/
2. In Switzerland, dismay as papers on secret Cold War army vanish, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-paramilitary/in-switzerland-dismay-as-papers-on-secret-cold-war-army-vanish-idUSKBN1FR1OQ
3. Oldest ‘tattoo art’ discovered on Ancient Egyptian mummies, https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/02/health/egyptian-mummy-tattoos-duplicate-2/index.html

Climate & Emergency Preparedness

1. Vermont Agency Denies Environmentalists Access to Runoff Rules Draft, https://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2018/02/13/vermont-agency-denies-environmentalists-access-to-runoff-rules-draft

Digital Archives, Technology, & the Web

1. How Google Has Quietly Revolutionized Document Editing, https://slate.com/technology/2018/02/google-docs-have-quietly-revolutionized-document-editing.html

Exhibits & Museums

1. ‘Access+Ability’ exhibit showcases designs for, and by, those with disabilities, https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/health/disability-design-cooper-hewitt-new-york/index.html
2. ‘Blank Panther’ raises difficult questions in museum community, http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/movies/bs-fe-black-panther-museums-20180227-story.html

Human & Civil Rights, Equality, & Health

1. 10 lesser-known Black History Month sites across America, https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/black-history-month-sites-america/index.html
2. One Syrian’s brave moment, https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2018/02/03/one-syrians-brave-moment.cnn
3. Polish minister backs call for ‘Polocaust’ museum, https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/europe/poland-minister-backs-polocaust-museum-intl/index.html
4. Rewriting Canada’s Memory Banks: Archivists ‘Decolonize’ Collections, http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/rewriting-canadas-memory-banks-archivists-decolonize-collections

Security & Privacy

1. Lost and found: Incredible works discovered, https://www.cnn.com/style/gallery/lost-and-found-art-gallery/index.html
2. Stolen work by famed painter Degas found in bus, https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/23/world/stolen-degas-painting-found-bus-intl/index.html
3. Man Accused of Breaking Off Terra-Cotta Warrior’s Thumb for Souvenir, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michael-rohana-terra-cotta-warrior-thumb_us_5a8b2fd9e4b0117adf70ea06

March 13, 2018June 24, 2022 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Research PostTags: accessibility, climate change, decolonizing archives, digital access, digitization, disabilities, Egyptian history, Google Workspace, Googlization, Holocaust history, Indigenous people, internet, libraries, memory institutions, memory work, military history, museum security, museums, News Highlights, privacy, public records laws, record restrictions, Research Teams, stolen artifacts, technology, U.S. history 1 Comment