The Los Angeles Archives Bazaar is coming soon. This virtual event will be held on Saturday, October 17, 2020 from 8am-8pm. Check the Archives Bazaar website to see program details (with more to be announced). Also learn how you can participate by creating virtual exhibitor booth videos about your L.A. collections, submitting your homespun sound and audiovisual recordings to Home Movie Day and Basement Tapes Day, and volunteering in the Reference Room. Thanks to this virtual platform, the event will also feature special guests from Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Toronto! So invite your colleagues, family, and friends far and wide— national and international— to celebrate the 15^th annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar as well as the 25^th Anniversary of L.A. as Subject. Although the environment will be different than past years, the spirit of showcasing L.A. archives “all day, all in one place” will be ever present.

Hope to see you there,

The 2020 Archives Bazaar Planning Committee

The Tell Us How UC It: A Living Archive project is a grassroots effort created by a diverse group of four women at the UC San Diego Library as an alternative way to highlight awareness, provide a space for dialogue, preserve and document the events related to student activism at UC San Diego. The project includes a timeline of campus student activism, student creative work and real-time feedback from the community on issues they face, physical exhibits, and an online collection. Some results of the project have been course instruction, participation in trainings for Resident Advisors and Teaching Assistants on interacting with the campus community and within EDI (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) courses, a workshop on organizing for action, collaboration with campus groups, and inclusion in the national initiative Project STAND (STudent Activism Now Documented). 

This webinar, presented by Tamara Rhodes (Librarian for Psychology, Cognitive, Science, Human Developmental Sciences, and Linguistics, UC San Diego Library) and Cristela Garcia Spitz (Digital Initiatives Librarian, UC San Diego Library), will share critical strategies and practical approaches for planning and advocating for this kind of project, and a focus on how partnerships are invaluable to this work.

Learn more and register.

While we're unable to gather in person, SCA will be hosting "First Friday" lunchtime meetings on the first Friday of each month at 12pm. Our next meeting on Friday, September 4th, from 12 to 1 pm, will focus on updates from SCA's Labor Task Force.

The Labor Task Force is a special committee charged with reviewing labor issues within the archival profession and suggesting ways in which SCA can better advocate for its membership. This session will share out results from the task force’s recent survey on current labor issues in California archives as well as provide a space for open dialogue among attendees. Join us to discuss the work of the task force, and help inform and influence priorities for best practices, advocacy, and board recommendations.

SCA recently made two donations to organizations serving archival professionals. The first, We Here, is a supportive community for BIPOC library and archive workers. Learn more about We Here and ways to support their work at https://www.wehere.space/. The second was SAA's Archival Workers Emergency Fund. Learn more about the fund and ways to support your colleagues at https://www2.archivists.org/groups/saa-foundation-board-of-directors/archival-workers-emergency-fund.

The Society of California Archivists affirms Black Lives Matter and stands in solidarity with the protesters calling for the end of police brutality and violence against the Black community. 

We stand in opposition to the historic and present state of violence against Black lives. The murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor are a direct result of the structural racism that infiltrates every corner of our society, including the archival profession.

The Society of California Archivists acknowledges that our profession has supported and continues to support racist systems and practices that uphold systemic inequality and perpetuate white supremacy. The legacy and role of white supremacy in archives has led to a predominately white and male historical record, while Black communities and Black voices are silenced, distorted, or entirely excluded from the historical record. Anti-Blackness has infiltrated our collections, policies, and workforce. It is our responsibility as archivists to dismantle oppressive archival practices and work toward building a more accurate and representative historical record. This moment reminds us as archivists that our work is not only to preserve but to amplify those voices that have been, and continue to be, unheard and silenced. It is this work that we must prioritize at the present moment. Otherwise, we can be sure that the history that is told will be by those voices most carefully crafted to establish and maintain systems of dominance and control.

The SCA Board is stepping forward to acknowledge and work toward amending the inequities caused by systemic racism. We call on ourselves and our white and non-Black membership to think about the antiracist actions we can take both professionally and personally to support the Black Lives Matter movement and to eradicate anti-Blackness in all forms. Personally you can take action by: donating to bail funds; signing petitions advocating for police accountability; locally supporting policies that defund police/law enforcement; donating to organizations that advocate for an end to structural racism; and calling your local/state representatives. Professionally we can: consider the policing nature of the archives and review access/use policies; rewrite collection development policies; commit to ethical collecting practices and prioritize care for protesters if collecting on the protests; revise our descriptions to eliminate racist/biased language, distortion, and the erasure of Black lives; and support community archives by providing resources.

The Board recognizes that in order to make headway in dismantling structural inequity, SCA as an organization needs to change. The SCA Board is committed to taking specific actions to show our support and to dismantle white supremacy, and we will remain accountable to our membership through further communications.

-In Solidarity, The SCA Board