Archives, pop culture, libraries, trans people, family history, and all the rest
This week I'll focus on spinster librarians and archival manipulation in fiction, archives and library news, trans people, family history, and more!
There’s a lot of news to report for this week! For one, I found out that my newest article about temporary stop on the Seattle Federal Records Center’s closure, was published on Issues & Advocacy. So, that made me happy to see and I will likely write some more articles for them in the future. On my blogs, I reviewed spinster librarians in animated series and wrote a post titled “Evil Anna and How I Learned to Love Archival Manipulation,” which is obviously tongue-in-cheek (you will see what I mean if you read it). Already I’ve received some positive responses on Reddit to these posts, especially on the sub for libraries, although on Twitter responses have been non-existent. Oh, I finally finished an updated list of librarians/libraries in anime, and put together similar lists, but broader, for my blogs reviewing genealogy and archives in popular culture. If you have recommendations of something you’d like me to write about, let me know. Anyway, let me move onto the rest of my newsletter.
Starting with archives, one of my colleagues at NSA wrote about how Brazil aided (and abetted) the overthrow of Salvador Allende of Chile in 1973. Samantha “Sam” Cross of Pop Archives reviewed archives in various different mediums: radio (The Magnus Archives), animation (Codename: Kids Next Door), and video games (Diablo 3). ArchivesAware! interviewed Jeanie Fisher, Reference Archivist of the Seattle Municipal Archives about what she loves about archives, History Scotland reported that over a million records held by the National Records of Scotland were put online, a celebration of Smithsonian Transcription Center, and glass plate negatives of Mitchell Community College. Pieces of History, a NARA blog, had posts about Assistant U.S. Secretary General Mabel Walker Willebrandt who enforced the Volstead Act and pursued famous bootleggers, the Fenian Brotherhood, exploring famine files and arrival records of Irish immigrants, and Walt Whitman’s facial hair. In other archival news, Lucy Britner talked about the day in the life of a… whisky archivist, the BYU–Hawaii noted that it is holding historical documents and 1,500 Polynesian artifacts, Margot Note wrote about the value of archival description, and some archivists continued their focus on the 1960s, talking about bridging generations and scholarship in online archives when it comes to that time period. Note talked about the approaches to acquisition, while there was news about the Louvre putting its entire collection online, meeting the leaders of the SNAP section, the difference between digital asset management systems and collections management systems, the American Indian Digital History Project and the ARK Alliance. I’d like to mention some interesting articles I came across this week, one which critiques whiteness as an archival imperative and another which explores into archival descriptions of LGBTQ materials. Neither were published in the past week but are relevant enough to include here in this section of the newsletter.
Then we get to libraries. I enjoyed reading an issue of Serious Trans Vibes, with the protagonist, a trans woman, asking for a new library card and getting her name corrected from her dead name. Presumably, her gender was corrected in the library system, as it was originally recorded wrong in that system. Commenters rightly noted it is none of the library’s business to ask for her gender and some recalled their experiences in libraries. This is important to mention because the ALA, the primary library association in the United States of which I just became a member, stated that libraries must “actively affirm and support the safety and rights of transgender people.” There is even a book by trans library workers, Supporting Trans People in Libraries, which attempts to dismantle some of the barriers libraries have to “actively supporting trans people.” Some scholars said that for trans people, the library, in Portland, to give one example, is one of the last places they look for information because of outdated health information or an environment which is unwelcoming. Other information is scattered throughout the “Libraries and the LGBTQ community” page on Wikipedia. In other news, NYPL wrote about screenwriter Anita Loos, NAACP Image Awards literary booklist, and adult-oriented manga. The Library of Congress had posts about the new law librarian of Congress, Aslihan Bulut, celebrated the life of a late deputy librarian for library collections and services, while writing about panoramic maps portray U.S. and Canadian cities and towns, Bob Hope collection, and a legal document signed by Mary Coffin Starbuck of Nantucket and Wunnatuckquannum. Just as important was a list of adult non-fiction to celebrate National Deaf History Month (last month), endangered alphabets, a traveling Black women’s library, COVID relief for libraries, libraries as key tools for people getting out of prison, and a new resource of the National Library of Scotland on Black revolutionaries in the Atlantic World.
Let me talk about genealogy. The blog, Hidden Branch had posts about holy ancestors and an unfortunate ancestor, while Paul Chiddicks wrote about distinguishing between fact and fiction in genealogy and how to research a WWI soldier. Others wrote about various related topics: finding hidden treasures in the Napa Valley genealogy library, family history remaining a “bright spot” for Mormons, and WWII Missing Air Crew Reports (MACRs). I liked reading about newspaper archives, Black genealogy, and the success story of Ancestry.com.
This is one strange archivist, I must say… it sorta makes more sense in the whole episode, I guess. Anyway, this whole episode of Regular Show is about obsolete formats fighting each other, with VHS as the dominant form (why?)
In the final part of this newsletter, I’d like to talk about numerous related stories which don’t neatly fit into the categories of archives, libraries, or genealogy. The Nib had illustrations about an ICE processing center, steps to fleeing America during a pandemic, and pundits ignoring an anti-trans bill passing in Arkansas, claiming they aren’t as “important” as other issues. CBC had an article about a freed enslaved person buried in Hamilton Cemetery is a U.S. Civil War vet, The Guardian talked about amateur detectives, Smithsonian magazine noted how Black activists organized for racial equality before the Civil War, Ben Vinson III wrote in the Perspectives of History about the “perpetual newness” of Black history, and LA Times explained what happens when ICE asks Google for your user information. Other publications asked whether online proctored exams undermine student privacy, how books can address economic inequality, how the filibuster has been used to deny Black rights for over 100 years, had remote reflections on remote learning from a scholar, and asked whether Microsoft technology can classify records better than a human (obviously, it cannot, as an any archivist or record manager would know).
That’s all for this week. I hope you all have a productive week ahead.
- Burkely