News & announcements

Moving Image Preservation of Puget Sound is delighted to be hosting the second annual archival screening night at the 2020 Western Archivists Meeting in San Francisco! We're soliciting submissions for moving image content on the theme of the immigrant experience. For more information, including how to submit your material, please visit: https://mipops.tumblr.com/post/190571144346/call-for-submissions-for-2020-screening-night

The Society of California Archivists is excited to announce that registration for the 2020 Western Archivists Meeting is now open! 

Join us April 22-25 at the InterContinental Hotel in San Francisco, California, for the Western Archivists Meeting (WAM) of the Society of California Archivists, Conference of Intermountain Archivists, Northwest Archivists, and Society of Rocky Mountain Archivists.

The Western Archivists Meeting happens only once every five years, so don’t miss this chance to interact with archives colleagues from across the western United States in the spectacular City by the Bay. This year’s meeting includes a full program of over 30 sessions centered on the theme of Labor, Power, and Privilege; poster sessions; an opening reception on the hotel’s heated Pacific Terrace; a film night; and numerous opportunities to meet and mingle on local tours, vendor exhibits, Gourmet Night, and a Mission District Taco Tour.

Three pre-conference workshops will also be offered: Protocols 101: A Case-study Intensive on How to Start the Conversation at Your Institution; What Can I Do With This?: Enabling Ethical Re-Use of your Content; and The Community Archiving Workshop: Audiovisual Collections Care and Management.

Registrants will be treated to a plenary address on Thursday by Mark Matienzo, and Friday’s All-Attendee Luncheon will feature Wendy Giddens Teeter, Curator of Archaeology of the Fowler Museum at UCLA, in conversation with Liza Posas, Head, Research Services & Archives at the Autry Museum and L.A. as Subject.

To view this year’s full schedule please visit https://wam2020.sched.com/    

Registration: https://calarchivists.org/WAM2020Registration 

Early bird registration is available until April 1, 2020. Discounted rates are available for students and for members of the Society of California Archivists (SCA), Northwest Archivists (NWA), Society of Rocky Mountain Archivists (SRMA), and Conference of Intermountain Archivists (CIMA).

Question about registration? Please contact the WAM Local Arrangements Committee (localarrangements@calarchivists.org)

WAM Hashtag: #WAM2020

We look forward to seeing you there!

WAM 2020 Local Arrangements Committee

Call for Nominations: 2020 SAA Waldo Gifford Leland Award 

Please help us to recognize the best in our profession!

Have you read a great new book about archives? Encountered a new documentary publication that is head and shoulders above the rest? Has a new web publication really stood out to you?

If you have, please consider nominating it for the Society of American Archivists Waldo Gifford Leland Award. Nomination forms, a list of previous winners, and more information are at http://www2.archivists.org/governance/handbook/section12-leland. The deadline for nominations is February 28, 2020.  

The annual Leland Award – a cash prize and certificate – recognizes “writing of superior excellence and usefulness in the field of archival history, theory, and practice.”  (Please note that periodicals are not eligible.)  

Established in 1959, this award honors American archival pioneer Waldo Gifford Leland (1879-1966), president of the Society of American Archivists in the1940s and one of the driving forces behind the founding of the National Archives.

Announcing Guidelines for Developing and Supporting Grant-Funded Positions in LAM

Members of the DLF Labor Working Group's subgroup on Contingency and Precarity are pleased to announce our recommendation document: "Do Better" - Love(,) Us: Guidelines for Developing and Supporting Grant-Funded Positions in Digital Libraries, Archives, and Museums

You can read it on https://dobetterlabor.com/ 

or download the PDF at https://dobetterlabor.com/download/Do-Better-Love-Us-Grant-Guidelines.pdf 

We are grateful to the community members who provided feedback during our open comment period and those who joined the group for the final revisions.

In solidarity,

Ruth Tillman

As you might know, the Society of American Archivists runs a Mentoring Program for its members. Information about the program can be found here:
http://www2.archivists.org/membership/mentoring 

SAA's Mentoring Program is designed to bring together members with shared interest in different aspects of the archival profession. The goal is to cultivate career development and communication between members with areas of expertise and members who want to build their knowledge within those areas.

In addition to seeking general career advice, we currently have someone waiting for a mentor in Seattle, specifically.

If you feel you have something to offer our newest colleagues, please consider signing up to be a mentor. You can submit an application to the program here:
http://www2.archivists.org/membership/mentoring/application (click on "Apply to be a mentor").

For those of you who have been mentors or proteges, thank you for participating in the program!

Thank you for your consideration,
Alison Clemens
SAA Mentoring Program
alison.clemens@gmail.com 

The NAGARA Internship Program provides a $1,500 stipend to each of two students enrolled in archival and/or records management graduate programs. The internships will occur during the Summer of 2020 at one of two locations:

In addition to providing institutions and students opportunities for collaboration, the Internship Program seeks to create good will with institutions and students where both parties can learn from each other and from the experience. Descriptions of the internship projects, student requirements, and application forms can be found here on the NAGARA website.

Applications are being accepted now through February 28, 2020 and winners will be announced April 1, 2020. We invite you to forward this e-mail, or share the attached flyer, with students you know who might be interested in such an opportunity!

Dear colleagues,

We’re planning an edit-a-thon of SNAC records related to North American anthropology and archaeology for the spring of 2020. We welcome individuals working with archival material in these fields, and anyone else interested, to participate. You do not need to have any prior knowledge of SNAC.

For more information, and to fill out a brief survey about participating, visit: https://forms.gle/m61N8CHBCJTpoLGn7 

Goals of this edit-a-thon

1. Facilitate access to archival material that has been dispersed to multiple repositories.

2. Create more and fuller records for Indigenous people and any other historically unrecognized individuals in these fields.

3. Facilitate knowledge sharing of related archival material through a community effort.

What is SNAC?

From the SNAC website: “SNAC is a free, online resource that helps users discover biographical and historical information about persons, families, and organizations that created or are documented in historical resources (primary source documents) and their connections to one another. Users can locate archival collections and related resources held at cultural heritage institutions around the world.”

Project structure and participation options

The edit-a-thon will be in Spring 2020 (exact dates TBD). Participants will have SNAC training sometime in January-March 2020. Both the training and edit-a-thon can be done remotely.

For those not able or interested in doing SNAC training or the edit-a-thon, contributing to a list of records to be edited or enhanced by others would be equally valuable. Please fill out this brief survey if you are interested in participating at any level: https://forms.gle/m61N8CHBCJTpoLGn7

Participating in any capacity is unpaid - if this represents a hardship for you, or makes it impossible for you to participate, let us know in the survey feedback section so we can address it in further planning stages.

About us

Katherine Meyers Satriano is the Associate Archivist at the Harvard Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Irene Gates was formerly the Temporary Archivist at the Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology, and is now a project archivist at the Harvard Law School Library.

Archie Motley Memorial Scholarship Applications Solicited

MAC is soliciting applications for the 2020 Archie Motley Memorial Scholarship for Students of Color (http://www.midwestarchives.org/motley). The scholarship is designed to provide financial assistance to students of color pursuing graduate education in archival administration and to encourage ethnic diversification of the MAC membership and of the archival profession as a whole. Two $750 scholarships, accompanied by one-year memberships to MAC, will be awarded. 

In order to be eligible for a scholarship, the applicant must be of African, American Indian, Asian or Pacific Islander, or Latinx decent; must be a student currently enrolled in or accepted in a graduate, multicourse program in archival administration; and must have a grade point average of at least 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale) in their academic program. If the program is not listed in the SAA Directory of Archival Education, http://www2.archivists.org/dae, the applicant must provide proof of the multicourse standard by submitting copies of course descriptions from the institution’s current departmental catalog. The applicant must also be either a resident of the MAC region or registered in a qualified program, onsite or online, that is based in the MAC region.

Applications are due March 1, 2020 and must include the following documents:

• Completed Application Form (pdf), available at http://www.midwestarchives.org/motley 

• Transcript from the applicant's most recent academic program (unofficial transcript is acceptable)

• Essay of not more than 500 words outlining the applicant's interests and future goals in archival administration

• Two letters of recommendation.

Completed applications should be sent to:

Lara Friedman-Shedlov

Description and Access Archivist

Kautz Family YMCA Archives

University of Minnesota Libraries

318 Elemer L. Andersen Library

222 21st Ave S, Ste 318

Minneapolis, MN 55405

Telephone: 612-626-7972

Email: Ldfs@umn.edu 

Applications must be emailed or postmarked by March 1, 2020. 

Awards will be announced no later than June 1, 2020.

It seems like we just elected a new group of officers and yet we're already looking for the next batch.  Are you interested in running?  Or if that's too much to commitment at this point: do you think you might be interested in running, maybe?  If so, nominate yourself.  If you know someone who you think would be a good candidate then please nominate them too.

Elections typically occur around March so you still have lots of time to consider running, think of great candidates, and even change your mind a couple of times.

Officers in the next election will be:

• Vice-President / President-Elect
• Idaho Representative
• Oregon Representative
• Montana Representative

I sincerely hope you will be one of them!

The following link goes to the survey which is anonymous and can be submitted multiple times https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NWA2020Nominations.  Should you have any issues with it or any questions about running for office or about this year's elections in general do not hesitate to reach out and let me know.

Thank you for your assistance,
Bryce Henry (bhenry@pdx.edu)
2020 Nominating Committee Chair & Past-President

The DLF Labor Working Group has just posted an extensive list of groups and campaigns working on labor issues in and around LAM, as well as key resources and publications. You can find it on the Labor WG wiki as a table or as a list. 

NWA is on the list for our job policy requiring salary, the Archivist-in-Residence program, and the salary survey conducted last spring.

To recommend a group or campaign for the list, use this form.