Author: Sereen Suleiman
Attending this conference has been a very rewarding experience, virtual or not! Coming from someone who is undergoing a career change into library sciences, attending the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Archives * Records 2021 Conference was the perfect start to introduce me to the field of archives. All the recordings I viewed were informative and engaging, and I learned something new about archives from each of them. From encouraging diversity and raising awareness of marginalized voices to emphasizing collaboration between archival officials and leaders from other professional sectors, one can tell this conference was designed to cater to archivists of various professional backgrounds with various levels of expertise all over the world.
One of the first recorded sessions I viewed was the presentation, Archive and IT Relationships: Four Elements of Success, hosted by Laura Drake Davis from the Library of Congress, Sarah Dorpinghaus from the University of Kentucky, Jim Duran from Vanderbilt Television News Archive, and Seth Shaw from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In that session, the speakers share the concept of bringing archives, special collections, and information technology departments together in order to store records in institutions more efficiently. The presenters focus on four common areas for collaborative success: documentation, communication, participation, and evaluation. Some key points that were mentioned were keeping others informed of potential and new projects, needs, and changes, analyzing the what, where, why, purpose, cost, level of support, and addressing challenges such as knowledge gaps and when the technology must be updated.
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My favorite recorded presentation is Foundations for Culturally Competent, Racially Conscious Metadata hosted by Sam Winn, a Ph.D. student from the University of Arizona, and Dominique Luster of the Luster Company. Sam speaks in the first half of the presentation, while Dominique speaks during the second half. Winn goes in depth about familiar topics, including white supremacy, whiteness, and white privilege. For example, when it comes to racism, Winn explains the term as an idea that is “systemic or institutionalized [and is] not tied to a single individual or group.”
That introduction serves as the foundation for the base of her presentation, which focuses on how “white normativity manifests in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM for short)” and what questions should be asked when properly representing communities. Questions she asks range from “Who is assumed the authority?”, “Whose interests are sustained?” all the way to “Is the archive a public service?”. I believe it is imperative to ask such questions when representing people in an archive. Dominique’s presentation further convinced me of that fact when she confidently states, “Archives are NOT neutral.” And in a way, that is true. Like she says, having a voice is power, being represented is power, and since archives have the potential to tell a story about a person, a group of people, a company, or whoever or whatever, then yes, archives are NOT neutral. As Luster also mentions, it is crucial to practice cultural competency whenever collecting archival evidence, because it stands for continuous work and emphasizes growth. In other words, a collection doesn’t stop at one photo or one artifact. It keeps on going. This, in my opinion, is what will always make the practice of archival studies relevant in any period. Stories are always being told, and archives play a role in representing and preserving those stories.
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Finally, I would like to quickly note how the conference even offered a video tour presentation of the archives of the Anaheim Public Library. It was so fascinating to see how the famed Orange County city has its origins from the time of the Gold Rush in California. To see the city’s progression–from a simple wine factory, to a city blossoming with orange trees, and finally seeing it as the home of Disneyland we know today–told in the library’s archives has been an incredible educational experience.
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I would like to thank San Jose State University (SJSU) for providing the funds necessary to attend the conference. A special thank you is also in order for the SJSU SAA Student Chapter for coordinating the process. It was a pleasure to attend this year’s SAA Archives * Records Conference, and I hope to do so again in the future.
If you would like to read about conference presentation experience, please check out the blog by Alison Quirion and Sabrina Holecko in which they discuss their poster presentation experience at this year’s SAA conference.