Society of California Archivists - AGM 2022 Session Descriptions

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AGM 2022 Session Descriptions

SCA AGM 2022

Session Descriptions

THURSDAY, MAY 19

Workshop: Preserving and Providing Access to Oral History Collections This workshop will explore how to begin and grow an oral history project, how to care for the various elements in an oral history collection, and how to provide access to the material through a digital archive. The Anne T. Kent California Room’s own Oral History Project began in 1974 at a time when interviews were recorded on audio cassette tape and transcribed by typewriter. Today, these recordings, transcripts, and supporting information have been made public on the California Room’s Digital Archive. Librarian and Digital Archivist Carol Acquaviva will explain the process she used to curate, preserve, digitize and disseminate this diverse collection of over 500 interviews conducted with long-time residents, community leaders, artists, architects, government officials, and others who have helped shape the history of Marin County. Please Note: Registration to AGM is not required to attend the pre-conference workshops. To register, please add the pre-conference workshops to your AGM registration or select the "Workshops only" option during registration.

Workshop: Demystifying Digitization: Planning a Digitization Project from Start to Finish will provide participants with general guidelines for a range of digitization projects, covering six steps to achieve digitization and digital preservation of print-based and audiovisual materials. By the end of the workshop, we hope that participants will walk away feeling empowered to approach analog-to-digital conversations and digital preservation projects in their own organizations.

During the day-long pre-conference workshop, California Revealed team members will lead participants through the steps of inventorying, assessing, prioritizing and selecting materials for digitization, as well as working with standards for metadata description and preparing items for safe shipment and digital capture. California Revealed’s in-house workflows will be explored, along with factors to consider when working with digitization vendors, including creating a timeline and performing quality control of digital files. The last portion of the day will be spent workshopping action steps for achieving long-term access, use, and digital preservation of files. Team members will help attendees find creative solutions for institution-specific digital preservation challenges while maintaining best practices.

We will also offer information regarding various digitization grant opportunities including NEH, CLIR, and others. Participants will be encouraged to pursue California Revealed’s free services and resources available through the California State Library, including the Digitization and Preservation and Cataloging California programs. Please Note: Registration to AGM is not required to attend the pre-conference workshops. To register, please add the pre-conference workshops to your AGM registration or select the "Workshops only" option during registration.

Tour: Hear of the City Walking Tour Pioneers to Playground of the Stars Explore the dynamic past and vibrant present of this world-famous desert getaway while strolling the Walk of Stars. Learn how Hollywood stars, part of our local scene, made Palm Springs their playground.

Leadership Meeting Ever wonder how you can get more involved in SCA? All SCA members are invited and encouraged to attend this meeting of the SCA Board with Committee chairs and others. Come meet SCA's leaders and learn how SCA operates and learn about becoming a member of a SCA Committee.

All-Attendee Reception Join SCA friends for a reception by the pool!

FRIDAY, MAY 20

New Member Meet & Greet Join the Membership Committee at this informal gathering to meet your new colleagues. All new members are welcome, as are returning or veteran members who'd like to welcome those new to SCA.

Plenary: Archives are people: pragmatic hope, love, and courage for our future Audra Eagle Yun has worked in archives for over 15 years, focused on access to community and local history. In this plenary, she will share how authenticity and reciprocity can help archivists revolutionize archival work. After all we’ve been through, what do archivists *represent* right now, and what do we want for our future?

Challenges and Solutions to Indigenous Representation and Silences At last year's AGM, our session addressed the ways in which Santa Clara University's Archives & Special Collections Department and the University's de Saisset Museum had begun working in earnest to address the silences, erasure, and elision of Native American lives and voices in the archives and museum fields based on their particular experiences and initiatives. For the AGM in 2022, Challenges and Solutions to Indigenous Representation and Silences in the Memory Institutions of Santa Clara University: Part Two will focus specifically on new partnerships and working groups that emerged from this work, as well as a planned speaker series with local indigenous groups and individuals slated from January through May 2022. Presenters: Erin Louthen, Santa Clara; Kelci Baughman McDowell, Santa Clara University; Lauren Baines, Santa Clara University

Thinking Forward / Forward Thinking In Thinking Forward / Forward Thinking, archivists from a historical society, universities, and corporate archives come together to discuss technology, taxonomy, community histories, and strategic planning in lightening rounds. These current projects serve as case studies and building blocks for future practices and include: Developing Subject Terms at the GLBT Historical Society will discuss the Society's process in building subject terms for use with its collections and strategies used by the Society to expand access to its collections in a way that aligns with archival best practices, while still extending empathy and respect to the queer community it serves and represents. Presenter: Megan Needles, GLBT Historical Society Preserving the History of Cooperative Extension in California traces a UC Merced Library access and community project involving the divergent formats of the University of California Cooperative Extension records that demonstrate how agriculture and rural life information was disseminated throughout the 20th Century. The talk will also share virtual learning opportunities for 4-H youth participants that directly address challenges of digital inclusion; information gaps; and wider visibility of resources and community knowledge. Presenter: Rebecca Gourevitch, UC Merced 3-D Digital Capture at Levi Strauss & Co. Archives will highlight Levi Strauss & Co. Archives' first venture into 3-D digital collection capture. It is a brief case study into learnings and outcomes of this new process. Presenter: Tracey Panek, Levi Strauss & Co. Archives Designing a 5-Year Strategic Plan for Special Collections and University Archives will describe the process of creating a 5-year strategic plan, from, 2022 to 2027, for the CSU Stanislaus Special Collections and University Archives. Presenters: Mary Weppler-Van Diver, CSU Stanislaus; Liza Posas, Autry Museum of the American West; Megan Needels, GLBT Historical Society; Rebecca Gourevitch, UC Merced; Tracey Panek, Levi Strauss & Co. Archives

Working Together to Mentor BIPOC Archivists: A Discussion and Interactive Group Mentoring Session will begin with a brief overview of the first BIPOC mentorship cohort organized by the Society of American Archivists from the perspectives of both mentors and mentees. The cohort was a 6-month program where two co-leaders facilitated monthly group mentoring sessions with eight BIPOC archivists. The cohort model de-centers the binary mentor/mentee relationship and allows for mentees to share and be mentored, not only by the group leaders but by each other. This sense of community is especially important for BIPOC mentees who may be the only BIPOC employee in their department or institution. Mentoring is also important to foster morale and retention among BIPOC staff, who are underrepresented in the archival profession.

The project overview will be followed by an interactive mentoring session in which attendees can discuss career issues or questions in small groups organized by topics such as advancement, compensation, job searching, etc. We’ll come back together at the end of the session to discuss successes and challenges to mentoring BIPOC archivists. Presenters: Sharon Mizota, DEI Metadata Consultant; Mario H. Ramirez, California State University, Los Angeles; Elizabeth Valencia, Getty Research Institute; Marisa Ramirez, Loyola Marymount University

OAC/Calisphere Contributor Meeting Are you a current contributor to the Online Archive of California (OAC) or Calisphere? Are you thinking about becoming a new member? Join us to meet fellow contributors, ask questions of program staff, and learn more about new developments with the services. We will highlight and share work-in-progress updates from our Calisphere and OAC roadmaps, including: community best practices and considerations to collectively support more responsible access and inclusive description; progress highlights on Calisphere's new harvesting infrastructure; and "Building a National Finding Aid Network," a two-year IMLS-funded research and demonstration project.

CSU Archives and Archivists Roundtable Join fellow Cal State University colleagues for our May CSUAAR roundtable in person at the AGM. In the spirit of the roundtable, our discussion topics are flexible, we will also have time for introductions and updates.

From Evidence to Archives “After the end of the criminal trial,” legal scholar Katherine Bieber asks, “where does the evidence go?” Some evidence is destroyed, but some is granted an afterlife in cultural institutions like archives and museums. From Evidence to Archives: Archival Labor and the Afterlife of Crime will explore the intellectual, physical, and especially emotional labor performed by archivists to transition criminal evidence (sometimes graphic and sensitive) from its role in the judicial system to its cultural afterlife. Kim Hayden, of the Center for Sacramento History, will discuss her work on the criminal trial case files of serial killer Dorothea Puente. Lara Michels, of The Bancroft Library, will discuss the experience of processing the extensive criminal case files of renowned criminologist Edward Oscar Heinrich. The presenters will endeavor to make transparent what generally remains opaque or invisible: the emotional, intellectual, and physical work of the processing archivist. The presenters will also reflect on the essential role of the processing archivist in ensuring the ethical management of criminal evidence in archival repositories. Presenters: Kim Hayden, Center for Sacramento History; Lara Michels, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley

Giving Data Back to the Community through Computational Scholarship: Two Case Studies focused on Japanese American Incarceree Records from World War II brings together two in-process projects that are working to encourage computational and ethical access to collections stewarded by archives and libraries. Presenters from The Bancroft Library and Densho, a community-based organization, will discuss their projects related to records surrounding the forced removal and incarceration of 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II. This work is being realized by leveraging partnerships that merge technical expertise with content or domain expertise and deep community knowledge. The intersectional and positional work of these projects highlights the importance of building new partnerships outside of the archives to create new content and implement community co-curation models to support on-going inquiry, knowledge-building, and exploration around this topic, with implications for vulnerable communities today. Presenters will share their work so far and engage with audience members to collect feedback on our approaches and practices that will be essential for our future work. Presenters: Geoff Froh, Densho; Cameron Ford, Doxie.AI; Mary W. Elings, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley; Marissa Friedman, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley

New Voices/New Directions: Preparing MLIS Students for People-Centered Archives presents the voices of current MLIS and Ph.D. candidates with those of active MLIS faculty as we consider how to prepare the next generation of people-centered vs. object-centered archivists. How might transformations in MLIS education align with emerging archival thinking and practices addressing reparations, decolonization, diversity, redescription, and trauma-informed archival labor? The panel will discuss present challenges, initiatives being considered or implemented to address them, and strategies the archival community might adopt to expand these efforts. What gaps in content exist, and what specific changes in course content might we envision? The panel is exploratory in nature, seeking input from the bottom up to identify needs, better define problems and tease out solutions. By naming and defining the changes needed, archival students and faculty can have agency in effecting transformations in MLIS programs. The panel is significant as person-centered education and training will be critical in realizing the broader shift from documents to people in the archival profession. Presenters: Katherine Schlesinger, Jewel Joseph Cummins, and aems emswiler, University of Arizona, Tucson; Darra L. Hofman, San José State University, CA

All SCA Member Meeting & Committee Meetings All SCA members are invited to learn about SCA’s recent activities, including the SCA election results. Log-in to your SCA member account to review the minutes from last year’s members meeting, the agenda for this year’s meeting, and SCA’s Statement of Financial Condition. Everyone at the meeting has a chance to win two free drawings for a one-year membership in SCA. Committee meetings will follow, which also makes this a great opportunity to check out possible committees to join.

Group Happy Hour & Mixers Planning to hold a no host meet-up with your fellow alums and affinity groups members? Email vicepresident@calarchivists.org to get your happy hour & mixer event listed here. Please provide title, contact person & email, and location of event. Or announce your event the “old school” way by posting details on the SCA message board located in the Ballroom Foyer.

BIPOC Mixer Calling SCA BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) Archives workers! The Ethics and Inclusion Committee invites you to join your BIPOC colleagues to mingle, share ideas and experiences, collaborate, and get to know each other. This is an informal gathering to focus on BIPOC professionals' experiences in Archives, develop equitable and inclusive practices together, and network. This event will immediately follow the Ethics and Inclusion Committee meeting.

Rare Books Palm Springs Cocktail Hour Join Rare Books LA, the premier producer of antiquarian book fairs in Southern California, for a new event: Rare Books Palm Springs! Opening one hour early for SCA members.

Obtain your free ticket to the cocktail hour here: www.eventbrite.com/e/256575001737/?discount=SCAFREE

A free shuttle at 4:30pm will take you from the Renaissance Palm Springs Hotel to Rare Books Palm Springs at The Hotel Zoso, located in the heart of Palm Springs' vibrant downtown dining district. Come for a complimentary cocktail and free admission to the book fair on Friday, May 20 from 5pm to 8pm/P

SATURDAY, MAY 21

Artist archives : from in situ to institution will feature five archivists who have worked with artists' records in a variety of contexts: in support of the solo artist, embedded in the studio, artist endowed foundation, and gallery environments. While acknowledging the uniqueness of every context, panelists will converse about their strategic approach, priorities, and decision-making processes and how they have been flavored by resource availability, reporting structure, current and imagined future users, and timelines. Each archivist will give insight into the challenges and opportunities of being a degreed archivist in these distinct yet overlapping artworld settings where “archives” holds multiple meanings and defining and advocating for your role is imperative. Presenters: Virginia Allison-Reinhardt, Archivity; Mary Haberle, Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts; Jennie Freeburg, Gagosian; Jennifer Kishi; Julie Yamashita, Richard Shelton Art

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in Interpretive Work Many archives and other cultural heritage institutions are doing increasing amounts of interpretive work (i.e., using their own collections to develop original historical narratives in such formats as exhibits, presentations, and tours) that focus on ways in which race, citizenship, colonization, gender, and sexuality have had systemic meanings and consequences. Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in Interpretive Work: Challenges and Opportunities will examine several questions, including: How is this kind of work happening in your own institution, and what are the opportunities and challenges you've encountered? How might your experiences help other institutions think about their own interpretive projects in this area? Presenters: Christine Kim, California Digital Library; Kim Hayden, Center for Sacramento History; Danelle Moon, University of California, Santa Barbara; Drew Bourn, Stanford Medical History Center, Stanford University

Striving for Inclusion Elizabeth Hobart’s Ethical Cataloging and Racism in Special Collections explains how re-evaluating institutional cataloging practices can promote cultural sensitivity in libraries. Striving for Inclusion: CSUDH Library’s approach to promoting social justice through reparative cataloging will show how Archives & Special Collections departments can put Hobart’s ideas into action by launching a campus-wide reparative cataloging initiative. CSUDH Library Archives & Special Collections and Collection, Access, and Processing Services departments united to address the presence of offensive resources and revise catalog records that contain insensitive language. The team collaborated with the CSUDH campus at large by informing its work with community feedback, including establishing a “Harmful Language Form” for library users to suggest revisions to resource descriptions, and creating a LibGuide that explains the presence of harmful language in resources and records. They also plan to reach out to students, staff, and faculty affiliated with various academic departments as well as campus organizations that work with diverse communities for guidance. Their efforts will coincide with similar work conducted within the CSU system by the ULMS Resource Management Working Group. Presenters: Allison Ransom, Yoko Okunishi, Tom Philo, and Jennifer Hill, California State University, Dominguez Hills

Setting SCA's Advocacy Agenda SCA’s Labor, Advocacy, and Public Policy Committee is a standing committee “responsible for advocating for archives and archivists, focusing on labor practices, diversity, and the role of archives and archivists within society.” In this interactive session facilitated by current Committee members, participants will help us to identify priorities for the committee to focus on as we seek to respond to the excellent recommendations of our colleagues on the Labor Task Force in their final report and otherwise grow into our newly revised charge. Are you passionate about pressing labor and diversity issues in our field? We want to hear from you! Please join us to discuss ways in which the committee and SCA can better advocate for all archival workers, find out more about how you can get involved in this work, and help us generate actionable plans for moving forward. All conference attendees are welcome. Facilitator: Marissa Friedman

Preservation for All: Accessible Cultural Heritage Care for Communities is an introduction to Your Neighborhood Museum, a new organization dedicated to creating sustainable community-led alternatives to institutional cultural heritage models. Our mission is to work together with communities to conceptualize and establish new legacies of care and appreciation by developing programs that materially support the heritage preservation goals of BIPOC communities, while also investigating and addressing their root causes. We strive to make cultural heritage preservation accessible to communities under-resourced and under-recognized by traditional art institutions. We want to share our work with CA archivists and find areas of mutual interest and support. Presenters: Diana Terrazas, Jennifer Kim, and Lylliam Posadas, Your Neighborhood Museum

Awards Luncheon The Awards Luncheon Speaker this year will be Kim Stringfellow--artist, educator, writer and independent curator based in Joshua Tree, CA. Her Jackrabbit Homestead art installation commissioned by Desert X 2021 examines multimedia memory-keeping and archives within a sense of place. Please select your lunch option in the questionnaire at end of registration.

How to Hold a Moon-Container in Your Hand: Maintaining Physical and Intellectual Control Over Born Digital Archives and Relocated Analog Archives will explore tools and standards for maintaining physical and intellectual control over born digital archives and relocated analog archives. Christina Velazquez Fidler will discuss the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley’s use of the Digital Library Federation (DLF) Levels of Access guidelines to create pageable containers for born digital materials using ArchivesSpace, Alma, and Aeon. Bo Doub will present on a project following a move of archival collections at the University of Southern California Libraries to batch-update container and associated location information using the ArchivesSpace API and Python scripts. This session will explore various conceptions of a "container" in an archival context and review the unique sets of challenges involved in retrieving and providing access to the contents of such containers. Presenters: Bo Doub, University of Southern California Libraries; Christina Velazquez Fidler, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley

Words Have Power Over the past thirty years, our understanding of the relationship between power and information in archival spaces has changed greatly. Through this work, the creation of history, its relationship to the present, and the role knowledge plays in informing our cultural identities is linked to the information we choose to preserve. Preservation is at the heart of archival work and is fundamental to the persistence of knowledge, but current discussions of preservation frame it primarily in terms of physical interventions aimed at preventing decay. Akin to conservation, this definition has changed little since the days of Hillary Jenkinson and his contemporaries in the early twentieth century. The presenters of Words Have Power: A New Definition of Preservation for the 21st Century will propose a new definition for the term "preservation." In this twenty-first century definition, preservation is not limited to a step in the record keeping process nor is it simply extending the lifespan of an object. Rather, this decolonized definition describes a dynamic continuum where silencing and illumination are identified as tools in the perpetuation of power and knowledge, occurring through the intent and context informing the act of preservation. Presenters: Rori Holford and Jeff Hirschy, University of Southern Mississippi