Off the Record

SAA President Helen Wong Smith began her term at the conclusion of ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2023. As new leadership takes their seats in working groups, committees, and sections this fall, Helen shares her vision for the coming year and what SAA hopes to accomplish as we work together toward a bright archival future.

To paraphrase the Nobel Prize recipient bard, Bob Dylan, there has never been a better time to redefine the boundaries of our profession and shape the fabric of SAA. Recent changes and actions in operations, programming, education, and advocacy provide increased opportunities to participate, collaborate, and expand our impact not just within the profession but on society. Prudent redefining of boundaries requires an openness to change (forgive the additional Bob Dylan reference) while recognizing our history.

During the 2023 Business meeting, I offered an ʻŌlelo Noeau, or Hawaiian proverb:

        ʻAʻohe pau ka ʻike i ka hālau hoʻokai
         All knowledge is not taught in the same school.
         One can learn from many sources.

I’d like to couple it now with this proverb:

         I ulu no ka lālā i ke kumu.
         The branches grow because of the trunk.
         Without our ancestors we would not be here.

By Jacqualine Price Osafo

This column originally appeared as the Executive Director’s message in the March/April 2022 issue of Archival Outlook.

The first eight months of my tenure as SAA executive director have unsurprisingly been filled with learning about archival work. It’s also included a deep dive into archival advocacy!

• A significant project has been SAA’s response to recent media reports about former-president Trump’s regular practice of tearing up documents required to be preserved under the federal Presidential Records Act. SAA President Courtney Chartier with the assistance of the Committee on Public Policy sent a letter to the editors of the Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, The Hill, and Chicago Tribune regarding the critical role of the National Archives in preserving government records. Read it here.
• On February 13, Lee White, executive director of the National Coalition for History (NCH, a consortium of more than fifty organizations including SAA), was interviewed by Greta Brawner, host of the daily call-in show Washington Journal on C-SPAN about the importance of the Presidential Records Act. Check it out in the video library at C-SPAN.org. And speaking of NCH, as a member of its Policy Board I have been invited to serve on a working group on the future of NCH.
• In light of David S. Ferriero’s announcement of his retirement this spring, SAA has endorsed a statement prepared by the Council of State Archivists regarding the essential characteristics of the Archivist of the United States. Read the statement here.

I like to think of these opportunities as SAA’s “Got Milk” campaign for archives. Everybody was talking about the catchy 1990s campaign—and many still do! It was everywhere. With national attention focused on presidential records, this is our opportunity to increase public awareness of the value of enduring records and the important work of archivists in preserving our history.

On January 18, SAA, together with the American Library Association (ALA) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), invited members to observe the US National Day of Racial Healing with reflection and action. This day is part of a larger movement for Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT)—a political and cultural framework developed by Dr. Gail Christopher and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Each organization created a list of resources and invited its members to devote time for a Healing Hour in their organizations and departments for discussion, education, and reflection and to share their organization’s learning with colleagues and users. You can find resources to spark your thinking, discussion, and action on the SAA website.

We are collaborating again with ALA and ARL on a virtual event on March 30 featuring Dr. Charles Chavis, founding director of the John Mitchell, Jr. Program for History, Justice, and Race at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. In addition, SAA’s four DEI webcasts for archives managers will be available for free through April 30. Learn more.

Another exciting project we’ve been working on is A*CENSUS II, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and collaboratively developed by SAA and Ithaka S+R. In October, SAA and Ithaka launched the All Archivists Survey to gather information from every archivist and community memory worker in the US on their demographics, educational backgrounds, job placements, and salaries, as well as perspectives on key issues in the field. More than 5,500 people participated in the survey. Thank you to those who did and especially to those who helped spread the word!

As I write this, SAA has launched part two—the Archives Administrators Survey. This survey, to be taken by the most senior leader and decision maker of an archives, will gather data about institutional characteristics, resources, strategic directions, and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). While part one of A*CENSUS II focused on archivists and memory workers, part two will give us a better understanding of the strategic direction, resource capacity, and DEIA across archival institutions. A*CENSUS II findings will be shared widely with the profession later this year, so stay tuned.

The SAA Foundation enters its eleventh year of providing resources and enhancing the work of the archival community through professional growth opportunities, recognition of archivists, and research about the profession. As its mission and reach continue to evolve, the Foundation is in the midst of developing a strategic plan to guide it in the next few years—I’m excited for what’s coming!

The first eight months of my tenure have also included getting to know archival collections! In September 2021, I toured my very first archives with Chris Prom at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, my alma mater. I was on campus for an alumni event at the Gies College of Business, where I earned my MBA. My visit was a fabulous introduction to archives stacks and rare books collections, and Chris was a great guide.

In November, I continued my tour of archives with a stop at the Chicago Public Library (CPL), where SAA Publications Editor Stacie Williams is chief of archives and special collections. Among the materials she showed me was a historic map of Chicago’s Douglas Park—which, unbeknownst to Stacie, I lived across from and walked to school through every day as a child! I also viewed CPL’s new exhibit “Called to the Challenge: The Legacy of Harold Washington,” on Chicago’s first African American mayor to be elected in 1983. I wasn’t old enough to vote for him, but I remember his desire to seek racial peace in the city, and it was a pleasure to see his life and legacy honored publicly.

The more I learn, the more I’m amazed by archivists and the work they do. I look forward to growing my own awareness of archival work as SAA continues to advance awareness of archives in the public.

Follow Jackie’s Journey

Listen to Jackie share about her journey to SAA on the Archives in Context podcast and via Association Forum’s Reflections on Black History Month series.

This article originally appeared as the President’s Message in the March/April 2022 issue of Archival Outlook.

In my last column, I referenced the “beloved community” as coined by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. What a fraught word, community.

In the new version of SAA’s strategic plan, you’ll see multiple references to “community,” a word that means everything or nothing. If I were to draw you a map of all of the communities I belong to (an exercise I had to do once in a workshop—I challenge you to try it and see what you discover), it would be straightforward in some ways and strange in others. I belong to the community of archivists. I belong to the community of my workplace. I belong to the community of my neighborhood—New York City’s Upper West Side, but please don’t mistake me for a Yankee! After forty-two years in the South and a degree in Southern studies, I closely identify with the community of “Southerness,” even when it challenges my love.

Community is important to humans. It’s how we organize ourselves and how we find connection and solace. I will bowl alone, but I prefer it with people who also love the sound of a ball striking pins and the taste of draft beer in a wax cup.

Community is also how we divide and abuse others. Those inside “our” communities get a pass, and those outside are denied their needs and humanity.

Archivists have been as guilty of this as any other human community. We push out those who we think don’t belong, whether based on their skills and education or our judgment of their recorded history as somehow outside what we do.

I was reminded of this recently when I read an op-ed in The New York Times called “The Battle for the Soul of the Library.” To be kind, the article is a bad faith argument for why librarians should be neutral. The context is the wave of book bans we are seeing across the country in reaction to the false threat of critical race theory.

Were the librarians who denied access to books to their own neighbors being neutral? Or those who prevented other librarians from being successful at their profession? What about the archivists who refused to document the contributions of certain people, or created hostile educational and work experiences for their fellow archivists? If we claim neutrality, then we uphold evil institutional and personal communities.

Not all archivists look like me, think like me, or have my educational background. The materials under my stewardship are a privilege to collect, not a necessity for my own vital information or my personal liberation.

Earlier this year, SAA released a statement in support of a campaign by Don’t Shoot PDX to reclaim the Albina Arts Center in Portland. This center has been a community touchstone for arts, activism, and archives for decades. Due to mismanagement by the state of Oregon, the records held by the center, and the center itself, are threatened with destruction.

Please consider supporting this important work by signing their petition, contributing to the organization, spreading awareness, or, if you live in Oregon, encouraging your elected officials to maintain this resource for the community of people for whom it is essential.

The work of loving and protecting records is not neutral, nor is the work of loving and protecting people. Self-determination is a power that has long been denied to many communities, and it will take our collective action to listen and act. Let us all be beloved. Let us all be community.

The Society of American Archivists stands in solidarity with Ukrainian memory workers in this dark time. We also stand with our colleagues of Ukrainian and Russian heritage who live in the United States; we recognize their fear and anger as they protest the actions of Russia, and demonstrate concern for their loved ones either facing armed conflict, or protesting in their home countries.

We join the International Council on Archives to provide assistance to those working in neighboring countries in its call to the Russian government to respect the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.

The National Disaster Recovery Fund is available to any repository that holds archival records or special collections need not be a member of SAA. These funds will be available for any repository in Ukraine that needs support, though it is our greatest hope that they will not be needed.

This article originally appeared as the President’s Message in the January/February 2022 issue of Archival Outlook.

I have always been suspicious of resolu­tions timed with the new year. Why should an arbitrary calendar determine my self-reflection and decision to eat better/drink less/exercise more/read more/watch every Denzel film/change my life be tied to a specific day?

Making the decision to change is easy and sticking to it is hard. Culturally speaking, the new year is a convenient cut-off date to sweep out the old and commit to new habits. It’s the pressure we put on ourselves that is inconvenient, cruel, and often counterproductive.

Resolutions as a concept are in conflict with other maxims for change. “One day at a time” has long been used in twelve-step programs; it recognizes that the decision to change isn’t the last step—it’s one we must make every day. It also recognizes the struggle of change in each new day.

I am as suspicious of maxims and daily affirmations as I am of resolutions. This is born of my own cynicism and experience. I am beholden to the past. [1] Yet, this morning as I put on my shoes, I had an unkind thought about other people. I had to stop myself and actually said aloud, “I choose to be kind today.”

Ack! That’s not true—I just lied to you out of embarrassment! What I actually said was, “I choose to create abundance today.” At forty-two, I am still scared to fully share all that is in my heart.

I learned the language of abundance during a multiyear educational experience with the Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) program at DePaul University. The cynical side of me laughs it off as having made me a hippie. The side of me that still fears judgment and ridicule would tell you that it remains the single most transformative experience of my life.

The transformation that I experienced was largely about me embracing truths about myself and learning how to articulate my beliefs and put them into practice. I truly love other people, and I believe that we all have gifts and abundance and that together we can thrive and share the wealth of the Earth. [2]

My struggle, my opportunity for change, is to stay connected to that vision. It is hard. I struggle with anxiety and depression, and there are some days when even seeing my own gifts feels impossible (I call it “The Grey Veil’’). There are days when I am frustrated and angry with others and can’t see their gifts. Those are the days when I stop putting on my shoes and say aloud that I choose abundance. I say that I choose it so that I must do it.

I do not encourage you to tend to resolutions if they only make you feel guilty when you snag a cookie from the breakroom, or sleep through your alarm, or just can’t find the energy for what you promised yourself you would do. I do not encourage you to hang a farmhouse-chic aphorism over your kitchen sink. But I do wish for you to find a path to the changes that you want for yourself, and I wish that you find abundance within you so that you can recognize it in those around you.

And I will encourage you to explore Denzel’s full catalog. It is its own reward.

Notes

[1] My eternal thanks to a colleague who gave me these words.

[2] Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called this the “beloved community.” I think there is no lovelier phrase in my native tongue.

This article originally appeared as the President’s Message in the November/December 2021 issue of Archival Outlook.

One of the SAA Council’s responsibilities is to develop and implement a strategic plan. As I write this, the Council is sched­uled to meet in November to refresh the strategic plan.

I’ll admit it: I love strategic planning. This is owed fully to Carolyn Hart, who headed strategic planning at one of my first professional jobs at the Atlanta University Center Woodruff Library. Carolyn knew how to make strategic planning fun, but she also knew how to appeal to people like myself: people who enjoy creating, but are tied to the reality of day-to-day work and finite resources. Dreams can be practical.

Although Carolyn’s method had a positive impact on me, I am less impressed by the roots of strategic planning—in the military. “The art of the general” refers to how one deploys their troops and remains a major criticism of the process. Too much strategic planning is done by senior leadership who do not care to understand the jobs/lives/fears/dreams/needs/pain of those at other levels in the hierarchy or the communities they intersect with on a daily basis. That lack of care is how we are crushed by hierarchy.

I’ve been made miserable by both the process and the result of poorly led strategic planning. I have sat through too many sessions where the goal was clearly to tack on new work that took away from day-to-day operations and existing commitments, to elevate shiny ideas still half-baked, and to ignore the truly powerful function of strategic planning: the diagnosis of—and treatment for— structural problems.

Also as I write this, a Council working group is collating and reviewing member feedback (gathered online through comment, via email, and in two online forums) on the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Work Plan. The results will be in the revised strategic plan. This is the culmination of a great deal of work, started by a report and recommendations prepared by the Diversity Committee, and informed by the “Black Lives and Archives” listening sessions held in July 2020.

DEIA is not a new strategic direction, but descriptive of one of our fractures. Over the years, many members diagnosed SAA with structural problems that make our organization exclusive rather than inclusive and that privilege the few over the many. The work plan is the Council’s method for addressing those structural problems by taking the recommendations of expert members, requesting wide feedback, and setting goals for ourselves via the new strategic plan. This is leadership addressing one of the dimensions of our problems. It does not excuse individual bad actors.

Addressing structural problems must be the work of senior leadership in any organization. I recently read a commentary by Amy Davidson Sorkin of The New Yorker noting that you can’t address structural problems if you are “trying to restock the pasta.” In my job, I am not paid to do the operational work that moves our programs forward; I am paid to lead and facilitate that work. As president of SAA, I was not elected to do the operational work of SAA staff or our members that move our programs forward. I was elected to lead and facilitate the improvement of our structural problems.

I’m a leader in my job, but I’m also a staff member. I’m a leader in SAA, but I am also a member of the Society. I will never be a part of a strategic plan that isn’t considerate of the work already being done, of our collective concerns, or of our pain. We will make decisions that take into account the resources of SAA, the voices of our members, and the flaws in the structure.

This article originally appeared as the President’s Message in the September/October 2021 issue of Archival Outlook.

I am looking forward to a good year.

At this point in time, “good” has become a relative term. After eighteen months of great turmoil in our country, I sometimes struggle to articulate hopes and dreams beyond conducting my day-to-day life and work. My anxiety, depression, and impostor syndrome have had too much fodder lately for me to see much of the forest for the trees.

In the past few months, I have changed jobs, moved away from the South for the first time, and taken my seat as the 76th president of the Society of American Archivists. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by change, I feel refreshed. I suspect it’s because I am so desperate to see the forest again, in all of its great and mysterious complexity. I don’t want to move on or go back to “normal,” but I want something that works better and fits better and makes me feel more successful and adjusted.

After the SAA Annual Meeting in August, I had my first meeting with Jackie Price Osafo, SAA’s new executive director, and Terry Baxter, SAA vice president. In a joking moment, Terry said that the theme of my year as president should be “futurism” and Jackie suggested “grace and futurism!” (In this instance, “grace” is a reference to the remarks I offered at the annual SAA Membership Business Meeting on August 3. You can see my remarks on the SAA president’s blog, Off the Record.)

I do believe in a brighter future, but there is a cost to idealism. It requires a great deal of advocacy and critical thinking to believe our world can improve when faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. SAA must address the ongoing health, climate, and justice emergencies with an eye to how we build a more safe, sustainable, and equitable future.

I do have specific hopes and dreams for my year in SAA, most of which center continuing work that is already in process: strengthening and implementing the work plan developed by the SAA Council Working Group on DEIA; evaluating the ongoing health of our sections; reconsidering our membership model; and participating in the Foundation Board’s strategic work with a development consultant. I also plan to work with the Council to refocus on SAA’s strategic plan, opening up the planning process to more members and groups within SAA and creating accountability measures for initiatives that we add.

A final concern for me is to ensure that Jackie Price Osafo’s first year as executive director is a resounding success. In just a few short months, Jackie has already proven to be a great asset to our organization and, as president, I want nothing more than to prove to her that SAA is a worthy choice for this step in her career.

The below remarks were delivered by SAA President Courtney Chartier at the annual SAA Membership Business Meeting on August 3, 2021. Chartier was responding to an open letter to NARA published by the American Historical Association. You can read the letter here (scroll down); AHA has since published an apology to NARA available on the same webpage, and SAA has responded.

Thank you everybody for being here today. I actually rewrote my remarks for this afternoon in light of the American Historical Association’s (AHA) open letter to NARA, questioning NARA’s plans for reopening their reading rooms; the letter is available on AHA’s website or, if you’re an active Twitter user, there have been a lot of responses online from our community.

A nice way to characterize the letter is to say it is condescending and was not written with much compassion for the people who staff archival institutions. I actually saw a Tweet from another archivist, Emily Higgs Kopin, who summed it up perfectly, saying, “The effect . . . is not necessarily anger or frustration with being told how to do our jobs, it’s just despair.”

This resonates so strongly with me. I’ve felt so stretched the last 15 months, not just in my capacity to get my work done, but in my capacity to do it while also caring for my family, my friends, and my own physical and mental health. To see immediate criticisms of what I consider to be a practical plan for access from our National Archives is truly an exercise in despair.

I do recognize that this letter does not represent every member of AHA, and that AHA members are not all of our researchers. I’ve interacted with many researchers over the last 15 months who have shown nothing but care for archivists and true joy and appreciation for whatever access we were able to provide to them.

In a word, they showed great grace in their responses to me and to my colleagues and our work.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the word “grace” and what it actually means. I just started a new job and therefore I have to ask people a lot of questions to get anything done, and I try to remember to thank them especially for their grace in teaching me, in responding to me, and in the care they show in responding to what I need.

If you go to the dictionary, the definition of the word, the one we probably go to first, is about movement, physical grace. But people give me the gift of their behavioral grace, their spiritual grace, their goodwill and their kindness every single day. 

I imagine you are familiar with the word as a verb, too. “To grace” someone or something is to honor it, to be a credit to it. Showing compassion is an act of grace. Those researchers who have been so patient and kind throughout the pandemic are a credit to all of our researchers, and they truly grace us.

A lot of this has come up for me lately because of one person. That person who really got me thinking about grace more than anyone else is Simone Biles. I mean, she’s an incredibly graceful person; I’m a klutz so I’m always astonished by people who seem to know exactly where their bodies are in space at all times. But in the last few weeks she’s also given me a masterclass in that other kind of grace. Grace to her sport, grace to her teammates, and most impressively, grace to herself.

I care about researchers, but I care about my colleagues more. I care about other archivists and the joy of our profession a lot more. And even though the profession does some things poorly, it does some things with great grace. And even though SAA is an institution like any other, while it sometimes does things poorly, it also does some things with incredible grace. 

I do have some specific platform goals for my year as president that I had intended to share with you this afternoon, and I will [share these in a follow-up post on this blog and in forthcoming issues of Archival Outlook]. But in my fairly short time with you today, what I really wanted to say is that we all deserve grace. To be shown it, to show it in turn, and to fully give ourselves the grace we need as people to heal, and to process, and to rediscover the joy that does exist in our colleagues, and in our collections, and in our profession. 

I hope each of you has a wonderful meeting. You deserve grace, and I appreciate you. Thank you.