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I wrote this post for the Human Rights Archives section of SAA. To see this post in its original context, click here.

When it comes to processing collections representing marginalized peoples, archivists must cultivate an understanding of the power of their role without letting that awareness immobilize their work. The session “Beyond Familiar Terms – Repairing Indigenous Collections through Inclusive Processing” at the Society of American Archivists annual conference sought to address this struggle.

Presenters Anna E. Harbine and Tisa Matheson of the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture (MAC) discussed their experiences with indigenous collections, provided an overview of the guidelines framing their work, and introduced case studies for attendees to consider and discuss in small groups. Harbine, the Johnston-Fix Curator of Archives and Special Collections, came to the MAC with no background in indigenous collections and strives to educate herself and learn from others. Matheson works with Tribal Collections at the MAC. In contrast to Harbine, she has over twenty years of experience with these materials. Matheson acts as a bridge of communication between her institution and indigenous governments affected by and represented in the museum’s collections. Together, Harbine and Matheson highlighted several key practices in working with indigenous collections.

Language: The act of describing indigenous collections in English is immediately problematic. Translating concepts from one language to another impacts the meaning and context of the original words. Additionally, due to the history of how indigenous collections have been handled in archives and museums, archivists must work to repair and counteract the impact of colonialist language and dehumanizing terminology that goes beyond simple translation issues.

Organizational Culture: The MAC created an American Indian Culture Committee that includes representatives from tribal governments who help oversee collections and identify needed changes in policies and procedures. Through this committee, the MAC has implemented guidelines for handling objects that acknowledge tribal preferences. These include gender role practices for certain objects and restricting public access to objects as necessary.

Collaboration: Every federally recognized tribe has its own website and culture department. This can help archivists learn about and connect with the tribes represented in our collections. It is also important to keep in mind that not every tribe will be willing to work with the archive. Engaging with indigenous communities is a time commitment, but it is important to invest that time to preserve the potential for building a collaborative relationship. Forging ahead without that relationship can create irreparable breaches in trust.

Additional ideas arising from contemplating case studies included: creating policies and procedures to change future practices, taking responsibility for any harm caused by your institution’s actions, ensuring thorough documentation for the sake of any archivist who might succeed you, and knowing when decisions should be made by someone other than the archivist.

Matheson and Harbine acknowledged that archivists commonly receive indigenous collections we do not have the time to process properly, or are asked to make decisions about indigenous collections we do not have the expertise to make. They encouraged us to ask questions while remembering that there is often more than one correct answer. It has to be acceptable to take things slowly and allow processing to wait while you search for answers.

While completing inventories of donations to the San Francisco Maritime Museum, I have found myself spending a great deal of time reading correspondence written between the late 1800’s and the 1970’s. As I read letters written from ship captain’s wives to children back home, and from sisters to brothers at sea, I am struck by how often the topic of a letter is the mundane goings on of every day life. People share details about the weather, what they have eaten, and purchases they have made or hope to make.

Of course, circumstances make some of these details extraordinary to my eyes in the 21st century. A ship captain’s wife, at sea with her husband, writes home about meals of dolphin chowder, and purchases of fabric in Yokohama, Japan, even including a swatch of fabric folded into the letter’s pages.

A sister writing to her brother while he is overseas with the Navy during World War II describes purchasing the family’s first television set and surprising her children with it.

I am just the right age to have experienced both pen pals and the beginning of chatrooms and email. I have seen my most regular communication with friends transfer from phone calls to text messages. If I want to have phone call with a friend, I now text them to find a good time for both of us, and our calls often happen over an internet video call service. A few years ago I bought a new cell phone and it took me several weeks to discover that the mic component was not functioning; that’s how infrequently I use a phone to have a conversation with anyone.

If I was going to sit down to write a letter today, I would feel like I needed to have something important to say — a story to tell. That is why the mundane correspondence in the archives is so interesting to me. The sea captain’s wife seemed to use her letters home much how we use text messaging or Instagram, even knowing that the messages would not be received for months. There’s a simple “here’s what I’ve been up to” quality to them. And because she saw fit to report her everyday life to her daughter back home, we now have a unique historical record of her unique reality.

I recently completed a research project about sustainable preservation practices for archives. I was initially inspired by an incidental sentence in Jessica Phillips’s 2015 article for The American Archivist, “A Defense of Preservation in the age of MPLP”. In the midst of a criticism of the More Product, Less Process approach, Phillips says, “. . . as more institutions attempt to ‘go green,’ the high energy consumption of the archives’ climate control systems may well come under scrutiny” (page 478).

This made me wonder how archivists were thinking about sustainability, and what opportunities existed for making archives more environmentally friendly. I was spurred onward by a conversation on the topic with archivist Sean Heyliger at the African American Museum and Library of Oakland. He confirmed my suspicion that many archives would hesitate to alter practices due to the potential cost of doing so, and the chronic lack of funding with which too many institutions must cope. I began to wonder what the landscape of sustainable preservation practices really looks like. Is it as costly as imagined? Are there small changes archives can undertake to increase the sustainability of their practices?

I gathered and read multiple articles on the topic, written between 1988 and 2018. From my research, I concluded that sustainable preservation practices have the potential to save money, while also providing more reliable preservation conditions for the materials in the archive’s care.

Large scale opportunities exist in reconsidering building design: The initial costs of building an archive for passive climate control can be high, but in the long term a passive system requires far less maintenance.

Small scale opportunities exist across the board: Simple acts such as keeping archival boxes full and allowing for the movement of air among shelves can stabilize temperature and humidity levels with little to no mechanical intervention.

Cultural practices may provide additional guidance: Materials were preserved for centuries before the use of electricity and fossil fuels. Drawing on the wisdom of traditional preservation practices will point us in the right direction.

I am looking forward to learning more about this topic, especially understanding more about the barriers to enacting sustainable practices.

The Dumbarton Bridge Records, my latest charge at the San Francisco Maritime Museum Research Center, consist of 63 items which pack into approximately two cubic feet. The majority of these items are log books containing the handwritten notes of seven decades of bridgetenders charged with opening and closing this Southern Pacific Railroad-owned bridge to allow vessels to pass as needed.

There is a great deal of potential research value I can imagine for these logs. The data within them reveals ship names, weather conditions, tracking of tides, as well as grittier details such as mechanical failures, collisions, and at least one mention of looking out for a dead body reported to be floating on the current. A researcher could discover the names of bridgetenders, their rate of pay, the hours they worked, and even their addresses and phone numbers. One could speculate on the ethnic groups represented by the last names of the workers, and observe how these change over the years with different waves of immigration and/or shifts in nationalist sentiment. There is also great potential in asking questions about what is not present; while there are several logs missing from the timeline, it is notable that the collection contains only two logs from the 1940’s.

What is most intriguing to me, however, is all of the ways this collection might be utilized that I cannot now imagine. As I clean, log, file, label, and box these items, I experience the thrill of burying something in a time capsule, knowing that sometime in the future, whether near or distant, someone unknown to me will uncover it. I am content that I cannot now know what they will make of what they find.

I have begun an archives technician internship at the San Francisco Maritime Museum, and I am overjoyed to be back in an archival setting. On my first day, my supervisor presented me with two bankers boxes of curling, browning papers, and I couldn’t help but note aloud my immediate excitement at seeing them, even before I had any idea of their contents or significance. My supervisor commented, “You’re in good company.” I suppose it’s not everyone who would look forward to spending several hours sifting through the financial records of 1940s shipbuilders — though even as I type that, it’s difficult for me to imagine why not!

Most of the papers were straightforward business documents, but a few curiosities stood out to my novice eyes: a slip of paper listing lunches for crewmen including twelve liters of milk, a $15 receipt for an accordion player to perform at a landing, a paragraph describing the design of a galley in minute detail, and blueprints of the materials the shipbuilders had ordered.

It never ceases to amaze me what a box of historical documents can reveal. This is why I love working in archives. Today, while performing an initial review that will allow me to write up an inventory, I had hands full of evidence of the amount of manufacturing activity that used to happen in the San Francisco Bay Area. The boxes I reviewed included purchase orders and invoices from steel mills and copper forges in the same cities where we now have tech startups. This adds another piece to the story of how the area I call home has changed over the last several generations. My supervisor also pointed out how much of the manufacturing was driven by the needs of World War II.

All of this from two boxes of curling, browning paper. It is truly a privilege to have access to history in this way. My hope is that as I learn the art and science of this profession, I will discover ways to engage more people with the mind-bending joy of learning through primary source material.

I wrote the following as the Spectrum guest blogger for the ALA 2018 Annual Conference in New Orleans. To see this post in its original context, click here.

Who better to create an engaging presentation than engagement librarians? Each presenter in “We’re All In It Together: Focusing Outreach and Assessment to Your Institution’s Strategic Goals,” a session of the 2018 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans, provided concise and inspiring information about how they use strategic goals in designing outreach and assessing the impact of their programs.

Jason Kruse, undergraduate engagement librarian at Northwestern University; Amy Wainwright, outreach and student engagement librarian at John Carroll University; Kristen Mastel, outreach and instruction librarian at University of Minnesota; and John M. Jackson, head of outreach and communications at Loyola Marymount University, introduced us to their strategies with a level of enthusiasm that made it clear how dedicated they are to the work that they do. The presentations were moderated by Chris Davidson, campus and community engagement librarian at Northwestern.

One piece of advice was to consider where you already are, instead of starting from scratch. Use your university’s existing strategic goals. Map the goals of your current outreach activities to the institutional goals, and consider which you might be addressing better than others. This will allow you to reevaluate the purpose of each of your activities. Once you have aligned your goals, you can assign learning outcomes to each event you hold and begin designing assessments to discover whether the outcomes were achieved and how you might alter the event to create higher levels of impact.

Possible assessment strategies suggested by the presenters included surveys, prize wheels, collecting comments via whiteboards, and hiring student interns to interview event attendees about their experiences. The key is keeping the targeted outcomes straightforward and low in number—Jackson recommends no more than two—and matching the right assessment to the outcomes, which may be the most difficult aspect of this endeavor. For more information on this topic, the Association of Research Libraries provides several SPEC kits related to outreach and assessment.

I wrote the following as the Spectrum guest blogger for the ALA 2018 Annual Conference in New Orleans. To see this post in its original context, click here.

Using a traditional debate format, the Preservation Showdown brought together a panel including Miriam Centeno, collections care coordinator at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Jeremy Suratt, director of product management at Iron Mountain Library Services; Heather Weltin, director of collection management and resource sharing at the libraries of University of Wisconsin, Madison; and Jeremy Linden, principal of Linden Preservation Services, Inc., for a lively debate of the resolution, “Preservation environments are not sustainable.”

The debate was moderated by Kara McClurken, director of preservation services at the University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville. The panel took place as part of the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans Monday, June 25.

As the debate opened, McClurken explained that some of the debaters had been asked to defend a position not their own. After the debate portion they would “take off their hats” and be able to answer questions from their true perspectives, rather than from the roles they had been asked to take. To drive this point home, Centeno distributed actual hats as each team began their opening statements.

Arguing that preservation environments are not sustainable, Centeno and Suratt presented evidence of issues with the current ISO standards. Many collections are housed in old buildings that cannot be easily retrofitted. Also, the standards are too generalized and do not take into account the fact that buildings in different climates might need to approach preservation differently. Centeno also demonstrated the frustration many feel with malfunctioning HVAC equipment, using a handheld misting fan as a prop.

Arguing that preservation environments are sustainable, Weltin and Linden advocated for thinking about sustainability as a balance of competing needs. The goal, in this case, would be the best possible preservation with the least possible amount of energy consumption. Linden cited new studies suggesting that safe relative humidity (RH) ranges are broader than once believed, and discussed the possibility of designing buildings that can control RH without mechanical intervention. He revealed that a new ISO technical report had recently been published that presented these ideas in more detail.

After questions from the audience and closing statements, Weltin and Linden were declared the winners of the debate by audience applause, and the panelists removed their hats to answer our questions and tell us their true opinions on the topic.

One interesting point made during the discussion that followed: The difference between buildings designed to a one-size-fits-all standard, versus those that were specifically built with local climate in mind. Centeno and Linden shared work they have been doing in Puerto Rico since Hurricane Maria left the institutions on the island without electricity. They have had firsthand experience seeing collections in modern air-tight buildings begin growing mold when their HVAC systems cannot run, as well as historical buildings built for the climate that allow air circulation, thus inhibiting the growth of mold. This is something Centeno and Linden, and the people they are working with, are still studying in order to better understand how to help with preservation in Puerto Rico, and how to apply the lessons learned to institutions around the world.

I wrote the following as the Spectrum guest blogger for the ALA 2018 Annual Conference in New Orleans. To see this post in its original context, click here.

The twentieth American Library Association (ALA) Spectrum Leadership Institute came to a close Sunday, June 24, during the ALA’s Annual Meeting and Exhibition in New Orleans. Each Spectrum Scholar received a certificate commemorating completion of the program and shared reflections on what it meant to be part of this community.

The Spectrum Leadership Institute is a a three-day experience that highlights cross-cultural models of leadership and features national library and community leaders. It is open to participants in the ALA Spectrum Scholarship Program, which actively recruits and provides scholarships to American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Middle Eastern and North African, and/or Native Hawaiian/other Pacific Islander students to assist them with obtaining a graduate degree and leadership positions within the profession and ALA.

At this Institute’s close, many of us commented on the connections the program had allowed us to make. We live all across the country as well as in Canada, so this was a rare opportunity to be in one place and get to know one another. For students like me, who study online, there is an added layer of benefit to connecting in the same physical space with fellow students.

As I attempt to write this, I am both compelled to share the powerful, daring, and heartfelt reflections I heard, and hesitant to share the stories of others without their permission. My only solution is to share the parts of my own story that resonated with what others said. This will leave the picture incomplete, so I encourage you to talk to others you meet from the Spectrum program and learn what it means to them.

Some spoke of the financial impact of this scholarship. This is something I felt deeply. Spectrum gave me the freedom to choose the library program that I knew was the best for my learning style and future goals, rather than the program I could most easily afford.

Some talked about the importance of having a community of people of color within the library profession. I come from eleven years as an elementary school teacher—a profession with similar racial and ethnic demographics as librarianship. I experienced the isolation of being the “only one” in a room, as well as the joy of meeting and collaborating with educators of color across the country. It can take time to build a community where you truly feel at home. Spectrum offers a ready-made space to be yourself and look around a room filled with others like you, as well as with mentors you can emulate.

We also reflected on our colleagues of color who were not in the room with us—those who, for one reason or another, had not had access to or knowledge of this opportunity. When I was a teacher, I expected each of my third graders to hold the door open for the student walking in line behind them. I taught them that holding the door did not mean swinging it wide and hoping the next person made it through in time; it meant keeping a hand on the door and watching to make sure the next person had their own hand on the door too before letting go. As Spectrum Scholars, we must use the privilege of this opportunity to create opportunity for others.

More information about the ALA Spectrum Scholarship can be found here.

I wrote the following as the Spectrum guest blogger for the ALA 2018 Annual Conference in New Orleans. To see this post in its original context, click here.

Day two of the Spectrum Institute included a panel on increasing diversity in library leadership, moderated by Tamika Barnes from Georgia State University Library.

Panelists reflected on their paths to their current leadership positions, and shared advice with a room full of current MLIS students and recent graduates. The panel included Anthony Davis from California State University, Fullerton; Nancy Kirkpatrick from Midwest Collaborative for Library Services; Cynthia Hohl from Kansas City (Mo.) Public Library; and Kirk MacLeod from the Open Data team for the Government of Alberta.

Although not everyone has their sights set on leadership positions, panelists encouraged us to recognize that leadership can take different forms. As library professionals, we lead people to information, share our ideas with colleagues, and grow in our professional credibility. With this in mind, we must consider the qualities that make a good leader: seeing problems as opportunities to create a shared vision, having enough self-awareness to know when you need to ask for help, and investing fully in whatever work you are doing with the understanding that it all has the potential to impact the direction of the profession.

Leadership positions, of course, bring new challenges. At times, promotions can prompt resentment among colleagues. As a leader, you must negotiate egos and consider whose perspectives are being represented or privileged, and whose are being silenced. Each of the panelists has experience being the only person of color in leadership, which comes with additional challenges, requiring them to think strategically about building connections. Nancy Kirkpatrick’s advice is to “make people comfortable if you can, but don’t be afraid to make them uncomfortable.”

For those at the beginning of their library careers, on their way into the job market, the panel urged us to remember that interviews go both ways. As we interact with potential future colleagues, we must consider whether we see evidence of the kind of work environment we are seeking. As professionals of color committed to diversity, we must consider whether we see evidence of that same commitment reflected in the current leadership of the institution, as this will deeply impact our day-to-day experiences. We must also go into an interview with a clear understanding of the community the institution serves and their information needs. This demonstrates engagement with the mission of the library and deeper level knowledge of the significance of the position to be filled.

The expertise offered by this panel will be put to good use as this year’s Spectrum Scholars take the next steps in their careers. By sharing their stories and the lessons they learned along the way, Barnes, Davis, Kirkpatrick, Hohl, and MacLeod allowed us to picture ourselves following in their footsteps.

I wrote the following as the Spectrum guest blogger for the ALA 2018 Annual Conference in New Orleans. To see this post in its original context, click here.

Indisputably relevant to our current times, the Saturday session “Fake News or Free Speech: Is There a Right to be Misinformed?” found itself bursting at the seams at the 2018 ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans.

Long before the session was due to begin, every seat was full. Attendees were sitting on the floor and more were standing along the walls. Moderated by Director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom James LaRue, this panel featured Nicole Cooke from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Damaso Reyes from The News Literacy Project, Joyce Valenza from Rutgers University, and Mary Minow from Harvard University. Each speaker offered a piece of the puzzle on how librarians can address the concept of “fake news.”

Mary Minow of Harvard University opened the panel by asking what our legal choices are when it comes to responding to “fake news.” She discussed US libel laws in contrast to free speech protections. The laws protecting free speech continue to expand and strengthen, and they include protection of the right to lie. Essentially, the government does not get to decide what is true or not true. Libel laws stand as the only counterpoint to free speech. To be considered libel, the offending speech must be published, untrue, harmful to your reputation, created with malice, and intended to inflict emotional distress. Only the creator of the content can be sued for libel, not the distributor, e.g. a social media platform. Libel lawsuits are difficult to win, and the burden of proof is on the plaintiff.

Damaso Reyes, director of partnerships at The News Literacy Project, built on Minow’s presentation by suggesting that we cannot sue ourselves out of the problem. Reyes reminded us of the days when, if you wanted to watch the news, you had to turn on your television at a particular time. If something called itself “news,” we could count on it being created by journalists and reviewed by an editor. The speed at which we are being bombarded with stories claiming to be news has created a world in which a person who is unable to differentiate between true and untrue stories is functionally illiterate. This means that media literacy is as vital as it ever was. The News Literacy Project produces a weekly newsletter called  “The Sift” and offers a news literacy curriculum at checkology.org.

Nicole Cooke, assistant professor and MS/LIS program director at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, encouraged us to remember that everything we have always known about evaluating information still applies. The issue of “fake news,” and even the term, first appeared in the 1930s. It is not new and it is not going away. What is new is that we now have thousands of news sources coming to us through our social media feeds. We constantly encounter information that produces high levels of emotion, which can be a barrier to critical thinking and evaluating the reliability of the information we receive. Cooke reminded us that there will always be false information parading as fact. Our teaching needs to focus on how to think, instead of what to think.

Joyce Valenza, assistant teaching professor of Library and Information Science at Rutgers University, concluded the panel with a discussion of negotiating nuance. The prevalence of false information being spread quickly through social media creates an opportunity for librarians to lead. Valenza sited a Pew study showing that a majority of people crave unbiased news. Several companies have attempted to create processes and algorithms for sorting reliable from unreliable sources, but this discernment is not easily automated. Librarians, as professionals highly trained in evaluating information resources, can step up and fill this need. Valenza exhorted us to begin thinking about how we can curate resources for credibility and discovery. She insisted that under current conditions, there will be no prizes for predicting rain, only for building arks.