Archivists on the Issues: The Collector, Indigenous repatriation, and archival ethics

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post comes from Burkely Hermann, Metadata Librarian for the National Security Archive and current I&A Blog Coordinator. There will be spoilers for The Owl House Season 3.

Camila, Gus, Hunter, Willow, and Amity stand in so-called “archives” in the series finale of The Owl House “Watching and Dreaming”, with those around them as those possessed by The Collector.

Earlier this year, I was intrigued when protagonists of the acclaimed (and recently-ended) young adult animated series, The Owl House, talked about saving their friends from The Collector, a mysterious antagonist who takes over the Boiling Isles and treats everyone he touches as his toys. The Collector keeps people/beings in a huge castle called “The Archive” or “The Archive House” which is shaped like a giant crescent moon, floats in the air, and looks a bit like a tiara, making me think of Sailor Moon. While this castle is not equivalent of an archives in reality, the actions of The Collector, who appears childlike on the surface, but is actually heartless, cruel, and casually indifferent, connect to the issue of ethical collection by archival institutions in the real world. As Holly Rose McGee, a new I&A Steering Committee member, noted in her Steering Share back in January, it is important to ask the questions: “what are we documenting and why? Who is the author of this history? What voices are silenced by it? How do we ensure that all aspects are represented, especially to people of the future, who will be in a different context? What will they want to know about us?” Those questions, and others, are related to the ongoing issue of ethical archival practices, particularly when on the issue of institutions retaining human remains and repatriating artifacts from Indigenous cultures.

In early January, ProPublica began The Repatriation Project which lists museums and other institutions in the U.S. which hold remains of over 100,000 Indigenous people and hundreds of funerary objects, despite the fact this violates the 1990 law, Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which says these remains and artifacts need to be returned to tribes in an expeditious manner. The database created by ProPublica specifically notes human remains held by 600 federally-funded institutions, including those held by the Mississippi and Alabama state archives. [1] As ProPublica notes, these institutions face “little to no consequences” for violating NAGPRA, since they often claim that the human remains they hold are “culturally unidentifiable”, meaning that a federally recognized tribe isn’t affiliated with them.

These human remains of Indigenous people ended up in hands of these institutions as a result of archaeologists and museum collectors looting Indigenous graves, homes, and religious places, along with government and military officials that harvested remains. Despite the fact NAGRA was passed in 1990, institutions have worked to thwart the law in whatever way possible, with estimates that repatriation of such remains, and artifacts, will take at “least another 70 years to complete” at its current pace. Even so, current leaders in museums and tribes stated their optimism that new archaeologists, museum and institutional leaders, will want to “better comply with the law”, which is being relatively optimistic. This is coupled by a proposed regulation in October 2022 by the Secretary of Interior to remove the “culturally unidentifiable” designation for human remains, and other changes.

The archives field does not have a good history on this topic. In fact, the Society of American Archivists, the premier professional association of archivists, demurred in supporting the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials, aimed at guiding archives and libraries in “culturally responsive care of Native American archival materials and…culturally appropriate service to communities,” despite pressure to do so from the SAA’s Native American Archives Section. The Protocols, proposed in 2006, were endorsed by many Indigenous groups and professional associations. [2] In a dramatic statement in August 2018, the SAA admitted that the reason the Protocols were not endorsed was because of lingering prejudices:

On August 13, 2018, the SAA Council endorsed Protocols for Native American Archival Materials as an external standard of the organization…During the past 12 years, many archivists, including and especially members of SAA’s Native American Archives Section, have continued to champion the Protocols, to encourage their use, and to create tools open to all archivists and cultural heritage professionals. The SAA Council commends these individuals…When presented with the Protocols in 2008, the SAA Council declined to endorse them…Many of the original criticisms of the Protocols were based in the language of cultural insensitivity and white supremacy. After this period of member feedback, the Council again declined to endorse the Protocols in 2012. The SAA Council acknowledges that endorsement of these Protocols is long overdue. We regret and apologize that SAA did not take action to endorse the Protocols sooner and engage in more appropriate discussion.

This is not unique to the SAA. As Liz Woolcott and Anna Neatrour stated in August 2016 on this very blog, many cataloging elements in the Library of Congress Subject Headings, and similar other classification schemes, are Eurocentric and “do not recognize many Native American tribal designations, languages, or customs”. This was reinforced by the long history of Indigenous dispossession in the U.S., and other similar societies with colonial pasts, and the current reality of those living on reservations, created following genocidal actions which pushed Indigenous people in the U.S. to the margins of society.

There have been some efforts to engage in restitution, with archival records and cultural history used to return “remains, artifacts, memory, and culture to people who have been wronged…and perhaps even provide some healing to the wronged” as then I&A Steering Committee member Steve Duckworth stated in June 2018. In addition, some archivists, like Raymond Frogner, Director of Archives at University of Manitoba’s National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, have spoken about the “impact of Indigenous thinkers” such as George Hunt on archival theory and practices, at the Archives Association of Ontario conference in May 2017. There were discussions about digital outreach, acquisition, and archival management which interlinked with talk about the colonial past and present of Canada and social justice issues. Such actions by these archivists, and others, are in-line with SAA ethical guidelines, which state that archivists should strive to “respect the diversity found in humanity and advocate for archival collections to reflect that rich complexity.”

Otherwise, other archivists have worked to decolonize their collections or recover Indigenous voices within their vast collections, or proposed ways to empower Indigenous communities through inclusion. In fact, when I wrote about the proposed closure of the Federal Records Center in the Seattle Area, I noted that Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson made filings in federal court, including “almost 600 pages from indigenous peoples…which attest to the value of the Seattle facility and materials which are held there.” Even so, as Jarrett M. Drake noted, no legislation similar to NAGPRA “governs the transfer of materials to descendants of enslaved Africans,” meaning that institutions can keep such remains and artifacts indefinitely. [3] More recently, a present candidate for the SAA Council, Ryan S. Flahive, said that he supports “proactive repatriation of cultural patrimony” to their original communities. He further argued that the SAA should urge predominantly White institutions (PWI) should “reappraise holdings for potential voluntary repatriation”, a stance supported by the Native American Archives Section and the Archival Repatriation Committee.

With this, I am reminded by the line in the 2001 film Atlantis: The Lost Empire by self-defined adventure capitalist Lyle Tiberius Rourke (voiced by James Garner), commander of a group of mercenaries who come to steal a crystal which gives Atlantis, and its people, a life force. He defends his actions to the film’s hero, Milo James Thatch (voiced by Michael J. Fox), a cartographer and linguist cast aside by the Smithsonian Institution for his supposed “hairbrained idea”. Rourke infamously declares that “academics, you never want to get your hands dirty. If you gave back every stolen artifact from a museum, you’d be left with an empty building”. He follows this up by boasting that stealing the crystal would provide a “necessary service to the archaeological community”. Apart from drawing possible parallels to a museum heist scene in Black Panther, with similar themes about stolen artifacts, what Rourke talks about relates more to the interconnectedness of stolen artifacts and the lack of repatriation. Archivists and others in GLAM institutions should not try and become Indiana Jones, taking valuable artifacts and “returning” them to a museum, as they should remain in their places of origin instead.

Coming back to The Owl House, in the final episode, Luz’s friends are “collected”, captured, and manipulated by the Collector, stepping Luz and her friends from their attempt to save Eda and King from the so-called archives. As the episode goes on, it is revealed that archivists were scared of the power of the baby Titans, so the Collector was left alone, and ultimately the Collector becomes their ally-of-convenience. In the end, everyone is safely released from the archives by The Collector, reuniting with their families or anyone who is waiting for them, and everyone gets their happy ending of sorts.The release of people (and beings) from the control of The Collector has some parallels to institutions repatriating their artifacts to their original owners and the Diamonds in Steven Universe dismantling their empires. Neither of these characters is forgiven, but has engage in some penance for their misdeeds instead.

Just as the “collections” of The Collector were returned in The Owl House, allowing them to live out happy lives, repatriation of the thousands Indigenous artifacts and human remains held by renowned institutions should be a top priority, as should be efforts to strengthen NAGPRA so that any institution which does not comply with the law’s terms is penalized with severity.

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Notes

[1] The page notes over 9,000 human remains held by University of California, Berkeley, over 6,100 human remains held by Harvard University, over 1,800 human remains held by the American Museum of Natural History, over 2,900 human remains held by the U.S. Department of the Interior, over 7,500 human remains held by the Illinois State Museum, and over 3,500 human remains held by the Tennessee Valley Authority, to name a few institutions.

[2] This page lists the following organizations: American Association for State and Local History, First Archivist Circle, Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs Resource Centre, Native American Archives Section [SAA], Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums,  Association of College and Research Libraries, Society of Southwest Archivists, and Cline Library [Northern Arizona University].

[3] Drake, Jarrett Martin (2021). “Blood at the Root,” Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies, Vol. 8, p. 12.

May 8, 2023April 9, 2023 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: animation, anime, archival silences, decolonizing archives, Eurocentric, human remains, Indigenous people, Library of Congress, NAGPRA, National Archives at Seattle, National Security Archive, Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, popular culture, predominantly White institution, Protocols for Native American Archival Materials, PWI, repatriation, SAA, SAA Code of Ethics, SAA Core Values of Archivists, Sailor Moon, stolen artifacts, The Owl House, underrepresented communities 2 Comments

Archivists on the Issues: Mass document shredding in “Kiff” and the reality of record destruction

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post comes from Burkely Hermann, Metadata Librarian for the National Security Archive and current I&A Blog Coordinator. There will be spoilers for Kiff and other animated series he will be discussing in this post.

Kiff and Barry are shown the so-called “archive” by Mr. Glarbin in episode 3b of Kiff. which is stereotypically portrayed here as disorganized stack of boxes with no order or organization, which does not reflect reality of archives.

In a recently-aired episode of Kiff, an animated musical comedy series, entitled “Career Fair”, the two protagonists, Barry Buns and Kiff Chatterley (voiced by H. Michael Croner and Kimiko Glenn respectfully), are given a summer job at Table Town’s city hall. They find it boring, believing they are just “pencil-pushers”. In order to achieve quicker results, they cut corners and shred the necessary forms in order to cut through the red tape, completing tasks to help those in the Table Town, such as installing a traffic light and marrying a couple. At the end of their first day, their boss, Glarbin Gloobin (voiced by Steve Little), city manager of Table Town, tells them they are “so good” at filing paperwork that all the forms they “completed” will be filed the next day in the “archive”. The latter is stereotypically portrayed as a somewhat disorganized stack of boxes in another room, which Gloobin describes as “beautiful”. After he leaves for the day, Kiff and Barry try and cover their tracks, deciding, without much thought, to shred every box and piece of paper in the archive with the shredder, resulting in massive record destruction, including vital records, like the town constitution. Eventually, Kiff comes to her senses, realizes they did a bad thing, but instead of confessing, she, and Barry, lie, statig they were robbed. Predictably, this does not work as the shredder explodes, and Gloobin realizes they shredded all the documents. As the episode comes to close, the townspeople thank Kiff and Barry, while Kiff says that city hall is about helping people, instead of “mindless” paperwork, the former employees (who had quit their jobs) come back to work, and the shredded paper continues to rein down like confetti.

Unfortunately, the episode has a bad lesson: repercussions for Kiff and Barry are slim, apart from Gloobin firing them, as there is no accountability for their mass destruction of the city’s paper records. Furthermore, those at city hall clean-up their mess, having the time-consuming job of piecing together the shredded papers, which has become confetti. As a result, the episode’s plot necessitates a focus on the value of preservation, record management, current practices, history of record destruction, and other pop culture depictions which are diametrically opposed to what is shown in Kiff.

Records management in archives, and other institutions, often involves identification, storage, retrieval, and circulation of records. This also necessitates record disposal, defined as records transfer, primarily of noncurrent records, to their final location at an archives or resulting in destruction. It is usually determined on a records retention schedule. Disposal contrasts with record destruction, which the Society of American Archivists (SAA)’ Dictionary of Archives Terminology defines as a disposal process which “results in the obliteration of records.” Kiff and Barry did not follow any process, meaning there was no maceration, but shredding, pain and simple, a form of destruction without abandon. Furthermore, shredding, apart from limits to what can be destroyed and maintenance of secure records storage, has the additional issue of creating paper which cannot be “easily recycled”. Preserving records is important, especially in legal cases. Some even discourage do-it-yourself document shredding. [1]

Historically, shredding of documents has been criticized, especially during ongoing litigation, including accusations of shredding by organizations which push for stronger records retention, like the ACLU, or by elections officials, accused of destroying ballots. Some politicians have even used shredders in order to illustrate their desire to “destroy” a policy of their political opponents. [2] One historical example that sticks out is explained within A People’s History of American Empire: Iranian women piecing together documents shredded by U.S. Embassy employees, prior to Iranian take-over of the embassy in Tehran in November 1979. The takeover began the Iran hostage crisis. The documents found in the embassy revealed information about U.S. foreign policy of supporting the repressive Shah, and published by the Iranian government in 77 volumes entitled Documents from the U.S. Espionage Den. [3]

There have also been some recent examples. For instance, in October 2022, the U.S. Army noted, in a now-deleted post, the destruction of over 19,000 boxes of “expired records…at relatively no cost” in Kasierslautern, Germany, with the records changed into toilet paper. In addition, in April 2022, the OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) admitted to shredding documents in a coal ash legal case. Advocates, like Tom Blanton of the National Security Archive, have argued that the administration of the former president, who has been called a “paper-shredding present”, had a major problem with record preservation. In Blanton’s view, it went beyond improper shredding, with a “deliberate failure” to create necessary records.

Previously, in 2008, Treasury Department officials shredded FOIA requests improperly (while delaying those same requests), the Bush Administration shredded hard drives in the early 2000s, and thousands of United Nations documents, including those about the Oil-for-Food programme in Iraq, were shredded. Other notable examples include destruction of evidence by the Union Bank of Switzerland showing the company owned stolen property once owned by Jews during the Holocaust, and reported “shredding parties” during the Iran-Contra scandal. [4] The latter included “stacks of memoranda and messages” destroyed by Oliver North as part of the cover-up during the scandal. At present, many municipalities host and/or support paper shredding events for their residents.

 

Kiff is not alone in having characters engage in record destruction. Hermes Conrad, the resident bureaucrat in Futurama for the Planet Express crew, did so in the Season Six episode “Lethal Inspection”, burning his own former employee file. Hera programmed data destruction in an episode of Star Wars Rebels, “Double Agent Droid,” to prevent the “wrong” people from getting the data (the Empire). In the comics, Jocasta Nu, the stereotypical archivist in Attack of the Clones, purged the files of the Jedi temple archives/library, to prevent the Empire from getting their hands on the records. At the same time,  destruction was only implied infamously in Attack of the Clones, requested by Marceline the Vampire Queen in an episode of Adventure Time (it never transpired), and in an episode of The Crown, it is noted that the German Nazis destroyed many of their records so people wouldn’t be unaware of their misdeeds.

This differs from R2-D2 in the Star Wars franchise who is an unintentional archivist of sorts, as he is never memory wiped. As a result, he remembers all the events through the entire series, which he  witnessed, despite the fact he was destroyed at least once. Kiff is diametrically opposed to the emphasis on records preservation in Hilda. Alfur repeatedly explains the value of rules, regulations, and proper filing. Perhaps he would sing the bureaucrat song along with Hermes, who mainly follows the book, apart from record destruction in “Lethal Inspection”. Coming back to Kiff, neither Kiff nor Barry are following the SAA’s core values which encourage expansion of access and usage opportunities for records, promotion of transparency, mitigation of harm, implementing environmentally sustainable techniques for preserving records, and other suggestions. These values further state that archival materials should provide “digital and physical surrogates for human memory”, something which Kiff and Barry  blatantly ignored and stamped upon.

Kiff glosses over one of the worst results of document shredding: it is said to be one of the “most effective ways” to protect businesses, individuals, or other organizations by extension, from “its extremely negative effects”. Even so, the episode may have roots in historical reality. The series was created by Lucy Heavens and Nic Smal, who grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. The episode could be referencing burning of tens of thousands of books by the apartheid government in South Africa from 1955 to 1971 in Iscor furnaces, and further shredding, and burning, of “hundreds of archival documents and public records” in the same furnaces in the early 1990s. [5] As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission put it in Volume 1 of their report, the story of apartheid is, “amongst other things, the story of the systematic elimination of thousands of voices that should have been part of the nation’s memory”, which included censorship, banning, confiscation, and other actions.

Even if the episode is based on the the above-mentioned historical reality, the fact that Kiff and Barry are barely punished, with few consequences for their actions, does not send a positive message about the value of record preservation. Furthermore, the stereotype of a dusty, dirty, and unorganized archive is perpetrated, something which harms the profession, its institutions, and archivists themselves. Neither is the value of retention, i.e. the specific amount of time a record is kept, emphasized, since Kiff nor Barry follow any guidance on how to properly shred documents. Hopefully, future series, animated or not, emphasize the vitality of preserving and retaining records instead of what is depicted in Kiff.

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Notes

[1] “Why shredding is not a good idea?,” Super What, Jan. 17, 2023; “A Document Retention Guide from Shred-it,” Shred-it, Dec. 27, 2017; Kennedy, Charles H. “Secure Records Disposal: Is Not Shredding Ever A Good Idea?,” Iron Mountain, accessed Mar. 14, 2023; Zuckerman Law Whistleblower Practice Group, “Shredding The Documents? Evidence Preservation Issues Highlighted in employment discrimination case,” National Law Review, Nov. 8, 2017; “Delete At Your Peril: Preserving Electronic Evidence During The Litigation Process,” FindLaw, Sept. 25, 2018; “Document Destruction Should Not Be Left to Chance,” Shred-it, Apr. 12, 2021; “Part 1. Organization, Finance, and Management, Chapter 15. Records and Information Management, Section 3. Disposing of Records,” Internal Revenue Manuals, Internal Revenue Service, accessed Mar. 14, 2023, see 1.15.3.1.1 (08-04-2017) (1), for mention of shredding. Also, the book Records Management for Dummies states that some companies have a “shred-all policy” for their records.

[2] Strom, Stephanie. “Concerns at A.C.L.U. Over Document Shredding,” New York Times, Jun. 5, 2005; Jay, David. “Carbon County resident says video shows ballot shredding; state investigating,” Q2, Feb. 20, 2023; Todd L. Nunn, Michael Goodfried, and Ted Webber, “Chapter 2: Preservation of Electronically Stored Information“, accessed Mar. 14, 2023, p. 20-21, 31, 40; Garrity, Kelly. “GOP senator: Only way to improve Biden’s budget ‘is with a shredder’,” Politico, Mar. 12, 2023. Also of note is part of Texas Local Government Code Title 6 which states that any records with restricted public access can only be destroyed by “burning, pulping, or shredding” them.

[3] Konopacki, Mike and Paul Buhle. A People’s History of American Empire: A Graphic Adaptation (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2008), 232-233.

[4] Blanton, Tom and Nate Jones. “Spy Chief James Clapper Wins Rosemary Award,” National Security Archive, Mar. 24, 2014; Blanton, Tom and Lauren Harper. “White House Failure to Document Heads of State Meetings Violates Records Law,” National Security Archive, May 7, 2019; Blanton, Tom and Nate Jones. “Justice Department Wins Rosemary Award for Worst Open Government Performance in 2011,” National Security Archive, Feb. 14, 2012; Blanton, Tom and Lauren Harper. “Federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council Wins Rosemary Award,” National Security Archive, Mar. 18, 2015; Blanton, Tom. “2010 Rosemary Award for Worst Open Government Performance Goes to Federal Chief Information Officers’ Council,” National Security Archive, Mar. 12, 2010; Blanton, Tom, Meredith Fuchs, Kristin Adair, Catherine Nielsen. “Treasury Wins 2008 “Rosemary Award” as Worst FOIA Agency,” National Security Archive, Mar. 14, 2008; “Iran-Contra Revisited,” National Security Archive, Sept. 5, 2014; Fuchs, Meredith. “Ruling on Preservation of White House E-Mails Awaited; New Law Proposed to Address Destruction of Electronic Records,” National Security Archive, Apr. 17, 2008; Blanton, Tom and Lauren Harper. “Federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council Wins Rosemary Award,” National Security Archive, Mar. 18, 2015; Sanger, David E. “Swiss Bank ‘Regrets’ Shredding Wartime Documents.” New York Times, Jan. 15, 1997.

[5] Dick, Archie. “How the apartheid regime burnt books in their tens of thousands,” Quartz, Oct. 25, 2018; Bell, Terry. “Apartheid-era secrets now in ashes,” IOL, Jul. 30, 2007; “Op-Ed: How (and why) the apartheid regime destroyed tens of thousands of books,” University of Pretoria, Oct. 31, 2008; “Apartheid’s history in shreds,” Mail & Guardian, Oct. 23, 1998.

April 8, 2023March 15, 2023 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: A People's History, animation, apartheid, archival silences, Futurama, Holocaust history, Iran, Iran-Contra Scandal, Jewish people, Kiff, National Security Archive, popular culture, record destruction, SAA, SAA Core Values of Archivists, shredding, South Africa, Star Wars, stereotypes 1 Comment

Archivists on the Issues: Fictional Archivists Out in the Open

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post comes from Burkely Hermann, Metadata Librarian for the National Security Archive and current I&A Blog Coordinator. There will be spoilers for each of the books, animated series, films, and other media he will be discussing.

Eight archivists-of-sorts in fiction. Top row, from left to right: Archie the Archivist (Regular Show), Jocasta Nu (Star Wars), Sunati (Always Human), Russ (Be Cool, Scooby Doo!). Bottom row from left to right: Unnamed archivist / records clerk (My Dictator Boyfriend), Atropos (Lore Olympus), Clotho (Lore Olympus), and Clark (Joker)

In January 2018, Cate Peebles wrote about examples of archives in popular culture, specifically in true crime documentaries. In her post, on this blog, she argued that archivists are missing in “moments of recognition” and said that representations of actual archivists are “few and far between”. She concluded that no popular image of an archivist exists, but that archivists are “more present than ever” even if unseen, adding that “without records and their keepers, there are no stories to tell.” In this article, I’d like to highlight some examples of fictional archivists that I’ve come across through the years, especially since starting my WordPress blog on the subject.

For one, there are some characters who who merge characters of archivists and librarians. This includes a reference librarian who manages a Yale University Library room which combines elements of archives and libraries into one institution in Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018) and a character who is almost an archivist, named Archie the Archivist (voiced by John Cygan) in Regular Show. In the latter case, Archie works in a library and becomes a guardian to protect analog data, which could have some parallels to archivists as keepers of information.

Similarly, there’s Madame Jocasta Nu in Star Wars, specifically in Attack of the Clones and the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series. She is played by Alethea McGrath in the film and voiced by Flo Di Re in the animated series. Madame Nu is described as a librarian and archivist, but seems to manage a library-archives hybrid known as the Jedi Archives, within the Jedi Temple. She is best-known for declaring, in Attack of the Clones, that “if an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist,” an arrogant and untrue statement which ignores reality of archives as memory institutions and their role in society. Madame Nu differs fundamentally from the unnamed librarian in the dark, haunting Thatcher Memorial Library shown in a scene of Citizen Kane (1941). The librarian in the latter has been described as one of the world’s meanest archivists. Played by Georgia Backus, she has her hair tied up in a bun and has “an intimidating stare on her face”, acting as a “real dragon lady at the gates of knowledge.” This is not the type of archives you want to go to! It is not the image which should be projected.

There are various archivists, of sorts, in other media. For instance, in the webcomic, Always Human, Rae, a friend of the protagonist, Sunati, dreams of becoming an archivist and fulfills this dream during the run of the comic. More directly, an episode of Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!, entitled “Silver Scream”, features Russ, a young film archivist who works in a film archive room and is a bit eccentric. Other archivists appear in issues of the popular webcomic Lore Olympus in 1980s style dress, helping characters who request records about their past memories, or in the webcomic My Dictator Boyfriend. In the latter case, the archivist/records clerk is manipulated to write a birth form for the ruler’s wife, Anna, even though the son isn’t even born! [1]

There are other prominent depictions. For one, there is a records clerk, named Clark (played by by Brian Tyree Henry), who brings out a medical hospital record for Arthur Fleck in Joker (2019). However, Fleck, who later becomes the Joker, steals the record from the clerk because he hasn’t filled out the appropriate paperwork to take the file with him. Then there’s the well-known depiction of a classy archivist named Abigail Chase (played by Diane Kruger) who appears in National Treasure (2004) and National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007). It is a depiction which has been oft discussed by archivists. Archivists also make an appearance in former webcomics like Power Ballad, and currently running ones like Brimstone and Roses.

There are many more examples, like supposed newspaper archivist (and former newspaper reporter) in the animated series, Stretch Armstrong, who has a newspaper archives in his basement. He declares in one episode, “some say I’m packrat, archivist I say!” Even The Simpsons has a character who runs the Springfield Historical Society, in the episode “Lisa the Iconoclast” which could be called an archivist. Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure, otherwise known as Tangled: The Series, features, along with other archivy themes, a keeper of a museum, known as The Spire, named Calliope (voiced by Natalie Palamides). She is a scholar who does magic tricks and has a messy library. Most recently, a character named Arizal (voiced by Christine Marine Cabanos) is the protagonist of Recorded by Arizal. She puts together vlogs explaining why she wants to be a record keeper, often another name for an archivist.

However, very few, if any, of these archivists have any professional training. Furthermore, some are archivists in name only, or are confused with librarians. Current fictional depiction of archivists is not very positive. After all, there are even books that depict archivists are villains, or others in which archivists which rarely appear. [2] While there are recent webcomics like Vowrune, Fluidium, and Don’t Look at the Sky which feature archives, none of them depict archivists. There has not been, that I’m aware of, any characters which accurately depict an archivist. Surely, there is prevalence of archival source material in “popular recent true crime docuseries” like The Keepers, The Jinx, and Making a Murderer as Cate Peebles noted in 2018, but no archivists.

Often scholars have focused on the role of Star Wars when it comes to depictions of archives, and archivists. [3] Others, such as Gianni Penzo Doria, director of State Archives of Venice, have gone broader, noting archival themes in many films, such as Brazil (1985), Blade (1998), Julie & Julia (2009), Fail Safe (1964), Philadelphia (1993), and Erin Brockovitch (2000). Doria further argued that role of the archivist is lost in common perceptions, with “boring old stereotypes” and “poor visibility” of archives, with archivists becoming caricatures, rather than protagonists. He also states that in film archives are only respected when they are seen as a “sacred place” which preserves “memory of its creator and guarantees accountability and citizens’ rights”, but that archivists are not shown in those films. [4] In the preface to Doria’s book, Micaela Procaccia, president of National Association of Italian Archives (ANAI), urged archivists to make an effort to “spread awareness of the central role of their work and their professional skills in society.” His words ring true.

Others have rightly noted that many of the depictions of archivists “reinforce stereotypes that surround the profession”, including in National Treasure. Nuances in the archival field are often lost in popular depictions. Kyle Neill, a Senior Archivist at the Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives, has focused on this in his posts on such depictions over the years, as have others. [5] Additional scholars have focused on reel archivists and themes of records, and archives, in espionage fiction. In the case of the former, this included arguments that film images of archivists can be negative to archivists and a risk to the profession, causing negative effects on archival professional identity and may result in potential researchers having “negative connotations about archives and archivists.” For the latter, in such fiction, information is power, with stories often stating that documentation can reconstruct someone’s personal identity and career, and compiling a large amount of information to learn about their enemy, while events and personal information are intertwined. Unsurprisingly, in such stories, archives are shown as repositories of institutional memory, even if they do not focus on the dilemmas that archivists face when torn between their duty to their employer and their duty to society. [6]

Additional scholars have reviewed films, novels, and TV series, finding common themes. Karen Buckley, in fall 2008, argued that these popular culture medium had stories, with archives and records, which equated protection of truth to protection of a record, made archival experiences interior and archival spaces closed, had lost or buried archives, or stated that information within records centers around “the search for self or truth.” This inevitably leads into a strong division between real and fictional archives. [7] Arlene Schumland went further, studying images of archives and archivists “based on a reading of 128 novels”, examining how these novels disseminate and perpetuate “many stereotypes of the archival profession.” Others followed suit, examining issues surrounding the “image and stereotypes of archivists as presented in films”, and arguing that archivists in those films “follow generally accepted stereotypes.”

While archives, and archivists, continue to be portrayed poorly, and inaccurately, in fiction, in Star Wars and beyond, it remains important for archivists to tell the truth about the profession. This can, and should, go hand-in-hand with fights for unionization, better working conditions, and recognition, in order to make clear that archival work remains vital in this day and age.

Notes

[1] Hermann, Burkely. “Libraries, records, and Kore: Archives on Mount Olympus.” Wading Through the Cultural Stacks, Nov. 28, 2020; Hermann, Burkely. “Popular culture and the duties of archivists.” Wading Through the Cultural Stacks, Feb. 27, 2021; Hermann, Burkely. “Evil Anna and How I Learned to Love Archival Manipulation.” Wading Through the Cultural Stacks, Apr. 3, 2021.

[2] This includes archivists in the webcomics Heirs of the Veil and Leif & Thorn. There’s also a librarian named Emily Quackfaster who appears in an episode of DuckTales but works in a library. If you squinted, you could see Theoda and Pothina, who are two researchers who work at the Savior Institute, in Cleopatra in Space, as archivists, or George and Lance in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. There’s also Mystique, otherwise known as Raven Darkhölme, who lost contact with her friend Destiny (also known as Irene Adler), who she found “working as an archivist in the Alamogordo nuclear research facilities in New Mexico.” Additionally, a solo archivist / lone arranger named Filis appears in bonus material for the live-action TV series, Ultraman Taiga, while multiple episodes of Vatican Miracle Examiner feature an archivist.

[3] Personally, I have been focusing on Star Wars more myself, with recent posts positing that R2-D2 may be an accidental archivist, restricted records and record seizure in Star Wars Rebels, and an upcoming post about an archivist, in name only, in Star Wars Crimson Reign. There were also category on Wookieepedia for “archivists” in Star Wars, although it is hard to know how many are actually archivists.

[4] Doria, Gianna Penzo. Asterix, the Others, and the Archives: The Cinema perception of the archival profession (Bolgana, Italy: Filodiritto, 2022), 7, 16, 30, 32-39, 46-47, 52-58, 76.

[5] “Archivists in the Movies.” Dispatches from the Field, Aug. 4, 2006; “Thankful Archivist.” New Archivist, Nov. 24, 2009; Eagan, Daniel. “Film vs. Digital: Archivists Speak Out.” Smithsonian, May 2, 2012; “Badass Archivists in Television and Movies: a Really Short List.” The Society of American Archivists – UW Madison Student Chapter, Oct. 27, 2013; Lucy, Catherine. “A Critical Response to The Archivist (2015).” Solo, May 3, 2018. There are additional archivists who focused on archival themes in Paddington (2014) and use of archival records in comic books.

[6] Anne Daniel and Amanda Oliver. “Seeking an Identity: The Portrayal of Archivists in Film.” Archives Society of Alberta Conference, Spring 2014; Gillis, Peter. “Of Plots, Secrets, Borrowers, and Moles: Archives in Espionage Fiction.” Archivaria 9 (1979-80): 1, 5-8, 12-13. On page 13, Gillis writes that archivists have to temper a desire for secrecy and suppression with “the needs of research and scholarship”.

[7] Buckley, Karen. “‘The Truth is in the Red Files’: An Overview of Archives in Popular Culture.” Archivaria 66 (2008): 95-123.

March 8, 2023March 14, 2023 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: animation, anime, archives profession, Brazil (film), CIA, Citizen Kane, classified records, comic books, films, lone arrangers, National Security Archive, National Treasure, popular culture, spies, Star Wars, Tangled, television, TV series, webcomics 1 Comment

Archivists on the Issues: Classified Records, Archives, and Fictional Depictions

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post comes from Burkely Hermann, Metadata Librarian for the National Security Archive and current I&A Blog Coordinator. There will be spoilers for each of the books, animated series, films, and other media he will be discussing.

High-level overview of National Declassification Center processes, as shown in a post on the NDC blog in 2019

Previously on this blog, Rachel Mattson examined whether police body camera footage is public record or is classified, arguing that it should be a public record. Other blogposts on this blog have examined whether the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture is a Federal or Congressional Record, noted selective declassification by the French government, which declassified over 200,000 records about Vichy government’s collaboration with the Nazis but none about France’s occupation of Algeria, and noted the tendency of politicians to avoid documenting their activities and stonewall FOIA requests.

In January 2022, the Director of National Intelligence April Haines argued, in a letter to U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jerry Moran that there are “deficiencies” in the current declassification system, and notes the burden of mandatory declassification requirements while the amount of classified material expands. My colleague from National Security Archive, Lauren Harper, noted that Haines, many months later, said that overclassification is a national security threat. Some of these classified records are in the hands of the National Archives, otherwise known as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), organized into Top Secret, Secret, and Confidential. Other records are deemed unclassified if they do not meet the existing requirements for classification.

Classification of records in the U.S. has often been outlined in presidential executive orders, beginning with President Truman in 1951. National security generally described as the primary reason for classification. Over the years, rules changed and the role of NARA increased. This has even resulted in a part of the agency dedicated to declassification, the National Declassification Center (NDC), which was established in 2009, in accordance with Executive Order 13526. This went beyond the agency’s representation on the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), or the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), which oversees the security classification programs in “both Government and industry“, and reports to the President annually. The ISOO, role on ISCAP, and NDC, most recently, have given NARA an important position in the entire classified information management process. [1]

Unsurprisingly, NARA has been in the public focus, especially for storing presidential records from the Obama Administration, and afterward. Some politicians have claimed the agency is an “enemy” and have wanted to dismantle it because of NARA’s push to return classified records to the public, rather than having the records stored in shoddy locations or controlled by presidents as their personal property. [2] This makes reports, in past years, like in May 2012, that boxes of classified government records disappeared from Washington National Records Center all the more concerning, as it could be representative of a larger trend.

Currently, there are measures in place for declassification of government records, either enshrined in executive orders or provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). However, the FOIA system is currently flawed, especially with existence of various exemptions which can be used to redact documents or reject records requests. [3] There are similar issues with Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) requests. As one government report put it, storage of classified materials is “widespread” across the U.S. government, with NARA storing records from all agencies at central facilities. Even so, some have argued that politicians have neglected the National Archives and failed to “control official secrecy”, belaying assumptions about government transparency, and resulting in the crisis which will make it harder for researchers to examine the “state’s inner workings”. Recent developments, such as a drop in the annual budget of NARA, attrition, and loss of institutional memory have resulted in the agency having one of the lowest levels of job satisfaction in the federal government. All the while, funding for declassification has decreased and backlogs for declassification have increased. [4]

NARA is not the only archives which handles and processes classified records. There are established procedures for classification of records held by the New South Wales Archives in Australia, British Public Record Office, Taiwanese government, Israeli Defense Force, State Archives of Poland, National Archives of Brazil, South African State Archives Service (later renamed National Archives and Records Service), National Archives of Korea, and National Archives of France. Even the archives of the United Nations has a classification level of Strictly Confidential, necessitating declassification requests, while archival materials over 20 years old are “generally open to the public for research”. [5]

As Electronic Records Archivist Amy Wickner argued, archivists have the “power to name and classify,” a power which has “material effects on the world“. This power can be used to make records more accessible or to make them harder to access. The latter is the case if access is only “granted or refused on an individual basis“. At times, more restrictions are imposed because of compliance with professional standards or data within in a record rather than the document itself. This includes including personal data. On the other hand, records which should be publicly available, like agreements between carceral facilities and FamilySearch for indexing of historical records, have a possibility of redaction, despite the lack of personal or sensitive information. [6]

In the episode “The Underground Tennis Tournament: The Campbelldon”, Loid examines a file of his target, a man named Cavi Campbell, who has a painting in the basement of his mansion. As the story goes, the painting was originally owned by a general who had compiled a dossier of explosive top secret information which could tip the scales and cause possible cause military conflict if revealed, and the painting has a code revealing the dossier’s location.

Classified records have often been depicted in popular culture. For instance, there is an episode of The Crown about classified records showing Duke Edward VIII collaborating with Nazis. Such records are also major part of the Spy x Family series. The protagonist, Twilight (voiced by Takuya Eguchi), poses as a father named Loid Forger, with a wife and child. He is tasked with a secret mission  to keep two countries from beginning a war. As a result, he is often passed information through a network of informants, spies, and others, or is given mission briefings by dedicated agents. The information he receives often includes classified records. Another pertinent example is the 13-episode anime, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet. In one episode, “Deep Sea Secret”, the protagonist, Ledo (voiced by Kaito Ishikawa), demands declassification of the record. What he learns causes an epiphany. It results in him questioning what he thought about the world and his life’s purpose, causing a mental breakdown of sorts.

There are other examples, apart from the tongue-and-cheek U.S. Navy recording studio named “Classified Records” in The Simpsons, which included subliminal messages in their songs which encouraged people to join the Navy. For instance, classified archives of the CIA are shown in an episode of the TV series, Alias. Furthermore, classified, and restricted, records are a major part of the animated adventure series, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, which has many archivy themes. In one episode, Mara, the previous She-Ra, learns that the Heart of Etheria project is classified, with Light Hope worrying about information being accidentally shared with Madame Razz. In many others, records are only accessible when specific words are spoken, or specific people are detected by computer systems. The same could be said about the records inside the data archives of the World Organization Of Human Protection which is shown in the Totally Spies! episode “The Yuck Factor”, or the “healing center” for Pearls known as The Reef, which is a structure used to create, repair, or modify Pearls, shown in the Steven Universe Future episode “Volleyball”. Both undoubtedly contain restricted or classified records.

In Star Wars Rebels and Star Wars: The Clone Wars, two animated series, there are records which can only be accessed through magic or other means. As such, they are classified, as a result. Accessing secret, and classified, records is a major plot point for live-action films such as Sneakers (1992), The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (2005), and My Fellow Americans (1996). In other cases, like in Joker (2009), the records are even stolen. In the latter film, the records clerk is implied as an impediment to protagonist Arthur Fleck, as are the bureaucratic requirements which require a signature from Fleck’s mother, before he can take the file.

Samantha “Sam” Cross, a certified archivist who was part of the SAA Issues & Advocacy News Monitoring Team in 2018, has highlighted this on her blog, Pop Archives. She notes Carol Danvers (later becoming Captain Marvel) examining likely classified information in Captain Marvel and Loki trying to use his manipulation and charm in the Loki TV series to get classified files from a female character credited as an archivist. She also writes about a character in the Danganronpa game, Byakuya, who “read and study the classified information” in an archives-like room and states that many of the documents shown in Federal Bureau of Control, in the video game Control, are redacted, and classified. [7]

Other pop cultural critics in the library and information field note other examples. For instance, librarian Jennifer Snoek-Brown, known as the creator of the site Reel Librarians and real-life librarian at Tacoma Community College, noted classified records featured in Rollerball (1975), Soylent Green (1973), and likely ones in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011). [8] Elsewhere on her blog, she pointed out similar themes in Mercury Rising (1998) and WarGames (1983).

The over twenty popular culture examples described in this post only scratch the surface. There are as undoubtedly many more films, comics, and series which featured classified or restricted records. The examples noted in this article do not always feature archives, however, as some creators confuse archives with libraries. To add insult to injury, archivists are often not present, resulting in the characters, who have no archival training, to go through the records themselves. Very few depictions in popular culture reflect the current reality of classified records within archives. Hopefully, this changes in the future.

Notes

[1] Čtvrtník, Mikuláš. “Classified records and the archives.” Archival Science 22 (2022): https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-021-09370-3.

[2] O’Rourke, Ciara. “Claims about Obama Foundation keeping classified records in an abandoned warehouse are wrong.” Poynter, Oct. 7, 2022; Caputo, Marc. “Barr suggests Trump ‘deceived’ the government over classified records.” NBC News, Sept. 2, 2022; Suebsaeng, Asawin and Adam Rawnsley. “Trump Tells His Lawyers: Get ‘My’ Top Secret Documents Back.” Rolling Stone, Aug. 23, 2022; Alemany, Jacqueline, Isaac Arnsdorf, and Josh Dawsey. “Inside Trump’s war on the National Archives.” Washington Post, Aug. 27, 2022; Legare, Robert. “Archives found 100+ documents with classified marking in first 15 Trump boxes.” Yahoo! News, CBS News. Aug. 23, 2022; Kochi, Sudiksha. “Fact check: Archives agency transferred 30 million unclassified Obama records to Chicago.” USA Today, Oct. 3, 2022; Derysh, Igor. “‘He has the right to remain silent’: Legal experts say Trump’s Truth Social post may be ‘evidence’.” Salon, Nov. 29, 2022; “Press Statements in Response to Media Queries About Presidential Records.” National Archives and Records Administration, Nov. 9, 2022; Reilly, Steve. “What the government’s former top classified records overseer sees in the Mar-a-Lago search.” Grid, Aug. 10, 2022; Wood, Jennifer. “Donald Trump Just Couldn’t Keep His Mouth Shut And Went Ahead And Confessed: ‘I Did’ Steal Classified Documents From The White House.” Uproxx, Nov. 29, 2022; “Fact Check-National Archives and Records Administration says they manage all of Obama’s Presidential records, contrary to claims online.” Reuters, Sept. 30, 2022. There have also been cases, like a lawsuit by the conservative legal group, Judicial Watch, against NARA, aiming to declassify Clinton Administration efforts, but their efforts were dismissed by the courts.

[3] “Freedom of Information Act flaws need fixing, experts say.” American Bar Association, Aug. 4, 2018; “The media’s problems with FOIA.” Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press, Winter 2007; Goos, Christian. “Seeking Access to Classified Records: Requesting Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) versus Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).” ISOO Overview, Oct. 1, 2021.Also of note are pages like the “Overview” webpage on the Records Management Directorate and Army Declassification Directorate, the NSA’s page on supposed declassification/transparency initiatives, and a press release about ZL Tech’s support of a  “records management platform with DOD classified technology”.

[4] “Appendix V: Central Storage, Declassification and Destruction” in Classified Information: Costs of Protection are Integrated with Other Security Costs: Report to the Chairman, Information, Justice, Transportation, and Agriculture Subcommittee, Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives (United States General Accounting Office, 1993), 26;  Connelly, Matthew. “State Secrecy, Archival Negligence, and the End of History as We Know It.” Knight First Amendment Institute, Sept. 21, 2018. The latter article also says that state secrecy and state archiving began at the same time, around the establishment of NARA and into World War II.

[5] “Standard on the physical storage of State records.” New South Wales Archives in Australia, Feb. 2019; Wittner, Laurence. “What I Learned About Governments from Researching Classified Documents.” History News Network, Sept. 4, 2022; “The Management Regulations for Classified Archives.” Law & Regulations Database of the Republic of China (Taiwan), May 10, 2005; Peterson, Terrence. “The French Archives and the Coming Fight for Declassification.” War on the Rocks, Mar. 6, 2020; Makleff, Ron. “Sovereignty and Silence: The Creation of a Myth of Archival Destruction, Liège, 1408.” Archive Journal, Aug. 2017; “Public Reference Services.” United Nations Archives and Records Management Section, accessed Dec. 5, 2022; Franco, Shirley. “Transparência e opacidade do estado no Brasil: Usos e desusos da informação governamental.” The American Archivist 84, no. 1 (2021): 196; Sromek, Teresa. “Teoria i praktyka archiwistyki USA.” The American Archivist 83, no. 1 (2020): 177; Harris, Verne and Christopher Merrett. “Toward a Culture of Transparency: Public Rights of Access to Official Records in South Africa.” The American Archivist 57, no. 4 (1994): 681-2, 684, 688, 691; Lee, Kyong. “Political Democracy and Archival Development in the Management of Presidential Records in the Republic of Korea.” The American Archivist 69, no. 1 (2006): 119-120,129, 134-135, 137-138.

[6] Wickner, Amy. “Recognizing Co-Creators in Four Configurations: Critical Questions for Web Archiving.” Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies 8 (2019): 4; Geraci, Noah and Michelle Caswell. “Developing a Typology of Human Rights Records.” Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies 3 (2016): 18; Taylor, Claire, Lucia Brandi, Cecilia A. Acosta Sánchez, and Marcelo Díaz Vallejo, “Archives of Human Rights and Historical Memory: An Analysis of Archival Practices ‘From Below’ in Four NGOs in Colombia Archival Practices ‘From Below’ in Four NGOs in Colombia.” Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies 8 (2021): 11, 16; Rinn, Meghan R. “Review of The Future of Literary Archives.” Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies 7 (2020): 4; Szekely, Ivan. “Do Archives Have a Future in the Digital Age?” Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies 4 (2017): 4; Jansson, Jenny, Katrin Uba, Jaanus Karo, “Labor Gone Digital (DigiFacket)! Experiences from Creating a Web Archive for Swedish Trade UnionsArchive for Swedish Trade Unions.” Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies 7 (2020): 5; Windon, Katrina and Lydia M. Tang. “Archival discretion: a survey on the theory and practice of archival restrictions.” Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies 9 (2022): 8.

[7] Cross, Samantha. “Archives in the Movies: Captain Marvel.” Pop Archives, Aug. 20, 2021; Cross, Samantha. “Archives in Video Games: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.” Pop Archives, Jan. 19, 2021; Cross, Samantha. “Archives on TV: Loki.” Pop Archives, Jun. 24, 2022; Cross, Samantha. “Archives in Video Games: Control.” Pop Archives, Aug. 20, 2021.

[8] Snoek-Brown, Jennifer. “A round-up of library, archives, and reel librarian scenes in MCU’s Phase Four TV series (so far).” Reel Librarians, Aug. 24, 2022; Snoek-Brown, Jennifer. “Reel librarians and archivists in 16 sci-fi films.” Reel Librarians, Mar. 11, 2020; Snoek-Brown, Jennifer. “Reel librarians in ‘Rollerball’ | Analyzing the 1975 original film and 2002 remake.” Reel Librarians, Feb. 1, 2017; Snoek-Brown, Jennifer. “Reader poll of runner-ups, Fall 2016: ‘Soylent Green’ and the Books.” Reel Librarians, Nov. 30, 2016; Snoek-Brown, Jennifer. “First impressions: ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’.” Reel Librarians, Jan. 23, 2012.

February 7, 2023September 3, 2023 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: CIA, classified records, declassification, FamilySearch, FOIA, Gargantia, genealogy, Mormons, NARA, National Security Archive, Pop Archives, popular culture, record restrictions, Reel Librarians, Spy x Family, Star Wars, The Crown, The Simpsons 2 Comments

Steering Share: Holly Rose McGee

Steering Shares are an opportunity to find out more about the I&A Steering Committee. This post comes courtesy of our newest Steering Committee member, Holly Rose McGee. Other members currently on the I&A Steering Committee include: Danielle Simpkins, Burkely Hermann, Caitlin Rizzo, Sheridan Sayles, Liz Call, and Claire Gordon.

1) What was your first experience working with archives?

Growing up in my house, with all of my mom’s research files and genealogy documents! Professionally, though, I first got the spark for archives while I was working as a Production Designer’s image researcher on movies in Hollywood. I spent a lot of time with image files in Los Angeles Public Library, which gave me a window into the concept of Visual Resource Collections. But a turning-point magic moment arrived during a visit to the Santa Anita Racetrack archives while working on the film Seabiscuit. They showed me the original ticket you would buy if you were betting on Seabiscuit to win in 1937, and I felt like I was holding pure gold. Shortly after that experience, my old college friend, with whom I’d worked at the music library for workstudy in college, contacted me and started urging me to go back to school for an MLIS. She insisted that we both needed to join this exciting and growing profession in 2006. And she was right!

 

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

There are so many! I think the most important, and one of the first “archivist” thoughts I had before I knew I would end up as one, is that archives and all forms of information (even antelopes, if there are any Briet fans out there) document our existence to the future, even when it is compromised today. In Suzan-Lori Parks’s play The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, one of the characters repeats variations on a theme throughout the play that touched me deeply. Paraphrased, the character Yes and Greens Black-Eyed Peas Cornbread tells others to write anything important down and put it under a rock, so in the future, they will know we were here, even though they try to make us invisible now. And they will not know who they are unless they know they came from us. [1] When I studied the play as a theater student in college, this concept stung me, and I found my mind wandering back to it again and again, like it was some blaring truth that I needed to follow. Decades later when I went back to school for library and information studies, those words returned to me as an “aha moment” wherein I realized all that I had learned and done in the past was leading me to this profession, where I could be a part of the process to document and preserve the past and the present for the future, whomever and whatever that may be. It always spurs me to ask the questions what are we documenting and why? Who is the author of this history? What voices are silenced by it? How do we ensure that all aspects are represented, especially to people of the future, who will be in a different context? What will they want to know about us?

 

3) What do you hope to gain by being on the I&A Steering Committee?

I hope to give something back to the profession and to learn to step into the mindset of mid-level professional. Being an archivist is a second career for me, so I’m really passionate about it. I gained immense insight and confidence from my mentors, and I’d like to be part of that next level of professional where I can help be a resource of information, advocacy, and guidance. Our profession is endangered by ignorance of the general public as to what we do and who we are. I’d like to help make “archivist” as much of a household word as “librarian” and to help define the profession away from what Gmail does with your old messages.

 

4) What can we find you doing outside of the archival profession?  

I am always up for a hike and I go crazy for classic cars, so Southern California is a great place for me to live! But I spend the majority of my free time gardening, knitting, crocheting, or doing vintage crossword puzzles. My latest personal craze is making miniature afghan blankets that can either be a dust cover for your turntable or a cozy bed for a cat. I love playing with color and physical crafts, especially now that most of my days are spent with digital spreadsheets!

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Notes

[1] Suzan Lori-Parks, “The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World,” in The Bedford Introduction to Drama, Third Edition, ed. Lee A. Jacobus (Boston: Bedford Books, a division of St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 1592.

January 24, 2023November 24, 2023 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Interviews, Steering ShareTags: archival silences, crafts, emails, films, horses, library degrees, Los Angeles Public Library, plays, popular culture, preservation, puzzles, spreadsheets 7 Comments

Archivists on the Issues: Popular Culture and the Presence of Archival Limits

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post comes from Burkely Hermann, Metadata Librarian for the National Security Archive and current I&A Blog Coordinator. There will be spoilers for each of the animated series, films, and other media he will be discussing.

Lord Theodore dissuades Elianna from entering the royal archives in the first episode of Bibliophile Princess

At the end of the first episode of the currently airing fantasy romance anime, Bibliophile Princess, the protagonist, Princess Elianna Bernstein (voiced by Reina Ueda) is physically blocked and dissuaded from entering the royal archives. When combined with other events, she breaks down and cries, feeling she has lost it all. Her ban from the royal archives later turns out to be a measure to protect her from a nefarious plot. Her vast knowledge of the archives’ holdings is praised for its positive effects on society. This depiction of archival limits is not unique, however. It is widespread across popular culture, across what could be called “the cultural stacks”. In this post, I’ll note other examples of archival limits in popular culture, connect the depictions to the SAA’s Code of Ethics and Core Values, and other issues in the archival field.

Scholars, such as Sue McKemmish, Michael Piggott, Barbara Reed, Frank Upward, Jocelyn Fenton Stitt, and Sarah Tyson, define archival limits as barriers created when documents pass into hands of archival institutions from their creators. These limits inhibit attempts to use those records to tell family stories while circumscribing any efforts to reclaim archival records about enslaved people or utilize these records to fulfill other useful purposes. One of the most pertinent examples of archival limits in popular culture is the 1996 mockumentary by Cheryl Dunye, The Watermelon Woman. The film has been regarded by scholars, like Jolie Braun, as critiquing how archives and libraries control access to records, and revealing power relations that undergird research in these spaces.

In the eighty-six-minute film, the protagonist, played by (and embodying) Cheryl, is dismissed by a White male reference librarian (played by David Rakoff). He tells her to check reference books in the “Black”, “film”, and “women” categories to learn about a Black female actress in a 1930s film set on a plantation who is only credited as “The Watermelon Woman”. Later, he begrudgingly searches his computer and finds information, directing her to records about the film’s director. The latter is unsuccessful, as it doesn’t have the information she is looking for. As I noted in my review of the film for The American Archivist Reviews Portal, this librarian represents collections which reinforce cultural bias through marginalizing views that are not White, heteronormative, and male. The same is the case in archives, since they are, like museums, libraries, and galleries, not neutral spaces. Rather, they are contested ones.

Later in the film, Cheryl travels to a collective feminist lesbian archive known as Center for Lesbian Information & Technology (C.L.I.T.) Archive, where she meets a White female archivist (played by Sarah Schulman). Although she finds documents and photographs of the Black female actress, who she has identified as Fae Richards, the archivist is protective of the records. She doesn’t even let Cheryl, or her friend, film what she found. She also declares that all White people in the records have their faces crossed out to make the archive more “inclusive”. In this way, Cheryl becomes alienated in a lesbian archive, even though she is a lesbian herself. In actual archives, guidance on what to do with “offensive items” does not always exist, even in established codes of conduct or ethics. Sometimes it is only confronted when working with patrons, donors, or others.This is undoubtedly the case in the film, with photographs of White lesbians seen as offensive by CLIT. Measures were taken to counter White values by the archive, even though the methods used run afoul of existing archival codes of ethics.

There are many examples in popular culture of archival limits beyond those in Bibliophile Princess and The Watermelon Woman. In a pivotal scene of the sci-fi comedy film, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the archival record from the Magrathean Public Archive, published by the Commercial Council of Magrethea, cuts off before revealing the name of the supercomputer that Deep Thought created to reveal this ultimate question. A message states that the information has been deleted. It is an example of an archival limit. It is never revealed why the information was deleted or who removed the information. This deletion, which implies that the original record remains untouched and is intact, rather than completely unreadable (i.e. erased), violate the stated principles within the SAA Core Values. These values state that archivists should strive to expand usage and access to collections for potential and current users of archival records, while serving the broad range of people who “seek to locate and use the information found in evidentiary records.” Deleting important information reduces access to records and does a disservice to users who wish to access the records.

Hermes’ file, proving he was the inspector who approved Bender, despite his defect, burns in a fire at the end of the Futurama episode, “Lethal Inspection”

Destruction of archival records, especially those with important informational, historical, continuing, enduring, and evidential value, can constitute an archival limit. It creates a barrier for those wanting to learn more about their family roots, reclaim records about enslaved people, or employ records for other useful purposes. For instance, in an episode of Futurama, the resident bureaucrat, Hermes Conrad (voiced by Phil LaMarr) burns a file from the Physical File Archive, a records center with semi-active records as noted by Brad Houston, Document Services Manager for the City of Milwaukee. The file proves he was the inspector who approved Bender (voiced by John DiMaggio) even though he is defective, since Bender was missing a backup unit.

While Hermes has a logical reason to destroy the records, since he wants to move on with his life and give Bender confidence, his action stands against principles stated in the SAA’s stated core values which emphasize access, use, and accessibility. These values also state that archivists are stewards of primary sources, with archival materials providing “digital and physical surrogates for human memory”. Even though Hermes is not an archivist, his action runs afoul of promoting “professional excellence” which The American Society for Public Administration encourages in their current code of ethics.

In some ways, when no archivists as present to organize the records, manifested by abandoned archives shown in well-known animated series like Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure or less-known ones like The Bravest Knight, is an example of an archival limit shown in popular media. However, this is unlikely to happen in reality, as even understaffed archives have at least one person managing the records. After all, preservation of records, responsible stewardship, selection of records, service toward “numerous constituencies and stakeholders”, social responsibility, and sustainability are emphasized in the SAA’s stated core values.

In the end, while archives are often shown stereotypically or confused with libraries in popular media, there is something that can be learned from these depictions, lessons which can inform and improve the archival field as a whole.

December 6, 2022March 14, 2023 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: archival limits, Bibliophile Princess, Futurama, LGBTQ+, National Security Archive, physical access, popular culture, SAA, SAA Core Values of Archivists, stereotypes, Tangled, The Bravest Knight, The Hitchhhikers Guide to the Galaxy 4 Comments

Steering Share: Danielle Simpkins

Steering Shares are an opportunity to find out more about the I&A Steering Committee. This post comes courtesy of our newest Steering Committee member, Danielle Simpkins, volunteer with the Veterans History Project, and a soon-to-be MLIS graduate. Other members currently on the I&A Steering Committee include: Burkely Hermann, Caitlin Rizzo, Sheridan Sayles, Liz Call, Holly Rose McGee, and Claire Gordon.

1) What was your first experience working with archives?

My first experience with archives was at my undergraduate, Stockton University in New Jersey.  After taking a class in the history of World War 2, it inspired my passion for working with historical documents, my specific passion is in military history. I also am interested in the 1920 prohibition era in Atlantic City, as that is where my undergraduate school resides. I interned in archives and special collections there for two semesters. My mentor and the director of special collections was a historical consultant on the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire.”

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

As much as archives tell the story of us, they also represent the stories that are not told, the voices that were not carried forward. That is what means a lot to me.

3) What do you hope to gain by being on the I&A Steering Committee? 

Gain the ability to share experiences and insights with the public, and learn to become a resourceful advocate for the Committee. I also hope to network with as many people as I can, as I will be finished with my MLIS this summer.

4) What can we find you doing outside of the archival profession? 

Outside the archival profession, I spend my time with my husband and two children, Samantha (7) and Jonathan Jr (6). My son has special needs so being a good advocate is a quality close to my heart. I enjoy going to estate sales on weekends to search for more pieces for my personal collection, that includes 1920s memorabilia, antique books/manuscripts. I also volunteer as much time as I can with the Veterans History Project through the Library of Congress. To date, I have conducted over twenty oral histories with several different veterans.

November 6, 2022November 24, 2023 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Interviews, Steering ShareTags: 1920s, disabilities, estate sales, library degrees, Library of Congress, oral history, popular culture, U.S. history, veterans, Veterans History Project 6 Comments

Steering Share: Meet Burkely Hermann

Steering Shares are an opportunity to find out more about the I&A Steering Committee. This post comes courtesy of Steering Committee member, Burkely Hermann, National Security Archive, and current I&A Blog Coordinator. Other members currently on the I&A Steering Committee include Danielle Simpkins, Caitlin Rizzo, Sheridan Sayles, Liz Call, Holly Rose McGee, and Claire Gordon.

1) What was your first experience working with archives?

I first worked in an archives after graduating from college with my B.A. in Political Science and History, as a researcher at the Maryland State Archives for a project trying to track down the stories of Maryland Revolutionary War soldiers, called the “Finding the Maryland 400” project, having a flexible start and end time, often either working with a historian on staff or independently. While that job only lasted six months as the grant money from a non-profit ran out, it began my interest in archives, which was rekindled in later years when I started my MLIS degree and worked at NARA’s College Park location as a work study in my last semester.

While I was drawn toward genealogy when working at the Maryland State Archives, I remember digitizing documents, using a push cart to move heavy books from the stacks to my desk, the in-house system I used to input information, or the many databases I used day in and day out. On the other hand, there were mold remediation efforts during the end of my time there. Worst of all, however, was the public transit nightmare I endured to get to the archives. Every day, I went on a light rail train to the end of the line, then a caught bus down to the archives itself. One wrong transfer or traffic would cause delays either by minutes or by hours. One major lesson I learned from the whole experience was to work somewhere that is accessible through public transportation!

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

That is a hard question. I would say precarity in the archives profession is very important, as many of my jobs since graduating have been precarious, whether working at a grant-funded position at the Maryland State Archives, an unpaid internship for NARA, or a graduate assistantship at University of Maryland, where I earned my MLIS degree, focusing on Archives and Digital Curation. Connected to this are those trying to unionize archivists, have fair pay, and safe working conditions, among other efforts to help archival issues.

Currently, I work at a non-profit which relies on grant funding, so in that way, it is a bit of a precarious position, I suppose, as a loss of funding could lead, possibly, to cuts in wages and benefits. I am glad that archival precarity has received a lot of attention in recent years and I hope that it continues to be seen as important by those in the profession, including in the SAA. This seems by the case from what I can gather when filling out the A*Census II.

3) What do you hope to gain by being on the I&A Steering Committee?

I hope to connect with like-minded archivists who are concerned with various archival issues, such as reparative processing, redescription, institutional sustainability, institutional racism, and preserving social media posts. I’ll be using my perspective to positively contribute to the Issues & Advocacy Section (I&A) to continue existing advocacy and outreach efforts, including continuing to promote the value and importance of the archival profession.

4) What can we find you doing outside of the archival profession?

Well, read a lot of webcomics and watch a bunch of animated series. And I write reviews of shows and comics I read, some of which have archivists and librarians! Also, for fun, I write fiction and incorporate some archivists into some of my stories. I occasionally do family history research for both sides of my family and have some blogs about that as well. When I’m not doing all of that, and it’s good weather, I go on hikes and read books.

February 7, 2022November 24, 2023 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Interviews, Steering ShareTags: A*CENSUS, archival description, archival processing, archives profession, born-digital records, databases, genealogy, institutional racism, institutional sustainability, internships, Interviews, job security, library degrees, NARA, National Security Archive, outreach, popular culture, precarity, redescription, reparative processing, social media, unionization, web archiving 7 Comments

Archivists on the Issues: Welcome to the Séance, Voices from the Archives in Contemporary American Poetry, Part 3

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post comes from a regular writer for I&A’s blog, Cate Peebles. Cate is the NDSR Art fellow at the Yale Center for British Art, where she works with permanent-collection-related born-digital records. In this last of three micro-essays, she shares another example of recent books of poetry that exemplify “ripped from the archives” writing, each in its own distinct way. The first is here, and the second is here. 

 

Nox

Anne Carson

New Directions, 2010

 

“When my brother died, I made an epitaph for him in the form of a book,” writes Carson as a caption to Nox (Latin for “night”), which is part artist’s book, part memory box. The physical book is constructed as a box that opens and contains accordion-like pages that could unfold and extend endlessly, it would seem, like a memory made physical, extending through time. Its construction is similar to a Hollinger box, with each fold representing reproduced pages of the author’s notebook of memories, written after her brother’s death in 2000. Similar to The Work-Shy, reading Nox is séance-like, but is an individualized exploration of private grief. The reader, in effect, is granted permission to riffle through Carson’s private papers and read her loss.

Carson, who is a classicist and poet, begins the book with an elegy in Latin by Catullus (poem 101) and throughout the work she defines each word of the poem with in-depth explorations of the words’ meanings, emphasizing a human urge to find meaning and connection when grieving. Carson has published many books throughout her career, including translations (If Not, Winter, 2004, translations of Sappho’s fragments), novels-in-verse (The Autobiography of Red, 1998, and Red Doc, 2008), and hybrid-form verse essays (Beauty of the Husband, 2001), as well as scholarship (Eros the Bittersweet, 1986). Her writing does not sit easily in any one category, just as an archives’ collections contain various kinds of record types and visual media. Nox is especially “archival” in its form and content, conveying that sometimes-spooky feeling an archivist can get while processing someone else’s personal papers and objects. Some pages of Nox display pasted fragments of letters, black and white photographs, and short memories surrounded by white space.

In an early section, 1.1, Carson writes: “History and elegy are akin. The word “history” comes from the ancient Greek verb…“to ask.” One who asks about things – their dimensions, weight, location, moods, names, holiness, smell – is an historian. It is when you are asking about something that you realize you yourself have survived it, and so you must carry it, or fashion into a thing that carries itself.” In a way, this is what an archive is: a carrier of histories, questions, and answers; this early passage is also a fitting description for this book, which carries the story of Carson’s brother, their estrangement, his death, and her grief. Nox is a moving example of how personal papers can carry and convey universal emotion, whether they are one’s own or belong to a stranger.

Read excerpts here.

There are several other poets whose work could be added to this list, particularly Susan Howe, whose poems and visual artworks draw from archival sources and research, her numerous books include: Spontaneous Particulars: The Telepathy of Archives, 2014; My Emily Dickinson, 1985; The Midnight, 2003; and, most recently, Debths, 2017. Her visual artworks, created from found texts, were included in the 2014 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

You can view Howe’s 2014 lecture at Harvard, Spontaneous Particulars: The Telepathy of Archives.

It is clear that archives are not just the domain of historians and academics. Our collections hold evidence of human creativity and life of all kinds that can be a treasure chest for artists, writers, and readers. In my next post, later this year, I will continue this exploration by looking to the visual arts for examples of archival influence and the wide-reaching impact of archives on culture.

 

Cate Peebles is the NDSR Art fellow at the Yale Center for British Art. She holds a BA in English from Reed College, an MFA in Poetry from the New School, and an MLIS with a concentration in Archives from the University of Pittsburgh. Her first collection of poetry, Thicket, will be published by Lost Roads Press in 2018; previous work has appeared in Boston Review, Tin House, jubilat, and elsewhere.

April 12, 2018December 5, 2022 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: archival processing, genealogy, grieving, personal archives, personal papers, poetry, popular culture, Whiteness 1 Comment

Archivists on the Issues: Welcome to the Séance, Voices from the Archives in Contemporary American Poetry, Part 2

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post comes from a regular writer for I&A’s blog, Cate Peebles. Cate is the NDSR Art fellow at the Yale Center for British Art, where she works with permanent-collection-related born-digital records. In this second of three micro-essays, she shares another example of recent books of poetry that exemplify “ripped from the archives” writing, each in its own distinct way. The first is here. 

 

Voyage of the Sable Venus

Robin Coste Lewis

Alfred A. Knopf, 2015

 

Lewis’s book, winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Poetry, confronts representation and description of the black female body throughout art history, showcasing a central, eponymous long poem that creates a narrative by listing “the titles, catalog entries, or exhibition descriptions of Western art objects in which a black female figure is present, dating from 38,000 BCE to the present” (35). The author explains that none of the tiles have been broken or altered in any way, although she has reversed the re-classifications of historical naming conventions, including “slave, colored, and negro” to “African American” back to their originals. She writes, “I re-corrected the corrected horror in order to allow that original horror to stand”, and she also chose to include work by “black women curators and artists…” and “work by black queer artists of any gender” (35). The poem’s content is pulled directly from museum catalogs as direct commentary and revision of Western descriptive practices. Lewis’s poetry brings contradictory human emotions to what might be considered dry, didactic wall text.

The poem is visceral in its use of material language paired with descriptive titles that amplify historical violence as well as beauty, physicality and imposed aesthetic classifications. Behind the horror, or from it, Lewis shows us beauty and life. In “Catalog 1: Ancient Greece & Ancient Rome” she writes:

 

Statuette of a Woman Reduced

to the shape of a Flat Paddle

 

Statuette of a Black Slave Girl

Right Half of Body and Head Missing

 

Head of a Young Black Woman Fragment

from a Statuette of a Black Dancing Girl

 

Reverse Head of an African Princess

Statuette of a Concubine

(43)

 

This early section reads as a list whose repetitions build upon one another and accumulate ominously; even though the words describe marble and stone figurines, the language is at times similar to a police report and as the images build in the reader’s mind, a horrifying and mythical mass of disembodied heads is speaking. As the poem travels through time, its language shifts, and by the last section the staccato bluntness of the list’s diction transforms into a lyrical stream of blended voices and meditative, natural imagery:

 

What on earth have you done

to this coffee, Black Blossom?

 

Pour vous, Madame,

Paso doble as I am.

 

The Aftermath: underwater

window-shopping, Sunday

 

morning fireflies

on the water, blue shade–

 

Silence,

Poise. Prayer

(107-108)

 

As in The Work-Shy, Lewis’s writing revisits a system of oppression to claim its constraints and correct its erasures, revealing vibrant life and lives within those institutional depictions. Archives, libraries and museums are not neutral spaces, we know, and it is often through art and poetry that we can confront difficult pasts with empathy.

 

Cate Peebles is the NDSR Art fellow at the Yale Center for British Art. She holds a BA in English from Reed College, an MFA in Poetry from the New School, and an MLIS with a concentration in Archives from the University of Pittsburgh. Her first collection of poetry, Thicket, will be published by Lost Roads Press in 2018; previous work has appeared in Boston Review, Tin House, jubilat, and elsewhere.

April 11, 2018June 22, 2022 by issuesandadvocacy Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: Black history, curators, erasure, gender identity, LGBTQ+, poetry, popular culture, racial oppression, redescription 1 Comment