Classified records, archives, the SAA, digital library tools, the library profession, and more
This week's newsletter will share news about archives, libraries, history, genealogy, LGBTQ topics, animation, and beyond
Hello everyone. I hope you are all doing well. I’ve been busy with writing in the past week. Last Tuesday, I wrote about the fictional library in LoliRock. The next day I reviewed one of the last webcomics I’ll review for a while for The Geekiary. On last Friday, my review of Disenchantment Part 4 came out on The Geekiary. Recently, I also reprinted my I Love Libraries review on The Owl House. Additionally, I reviewed yet another animated series, Human Kind Of, again for The Geekiary. With that, let me move forward in this “too long for email” newsletter.
NARA is in the news this week just as it was last week. This began with confirmation that some of the presidential records retrieved in Mar-a-Lago were classified. This was revealed in a February 9 letter to Carolyn B. Maloney, Committee on Oversight and Reform at the U.S. House of Representatives, where David Ferriero, who is still retiring in April 2022, told her, in part, that:
…NARA had ongoing communications with the representatives of former
President Trump throughout 2021, which resulted in the transfer of 15 boxes to
NARA in January 2022. NARA is in the process of inventorying the contents of the boxes. NARA has identified items marked as classified national security
information within the boxes. NARA has identified certain social media records that were not captured and preserved by the Trump Administration…NARA has asked the representatives of former President Trump to continue to search for any additional Presidential records that have not been transferred to NARA…Because NARA identified classified information in the boxes, NARA staff has been in communication with the Department of Justice…After the end of the Trump Administration, NARA learned that additional paper records that had been torn up by former President Trump were included in the records transferred to us.
Some responded, calling for the DOJ to act, argued that the former President was guilty, summarized NARA’s letter, said they were justified (in the case of Citizens for Ethics) in suing for NARA to get the former President’s “administration's emails and messages,” joked about this, wondered whether the former president returned all the documents, noted that the former President once assailed Hillary Clinton for her “handling of sensitive material,” pointed out that in the past, Samuel R. Burger pleaded guilty to removing documents from NARA, and asked if NARA might be an “instrument of doom” for the former president.
In the Associated Press article which broke the story, it said that NARA’s revelation could “interest federal investigators responsible for policing the handling of government secrets,” although the DOJ and FBI have not said they were pursue, pointed out that “federal law bars the removal of classified documents to unauthorized locations,” and that it “exposes him to charges of hypocrisy.” It further stated that House investigators will “be looking to see if Trump’s actions, both during his presidency and after, violated the Presidential Records Act…[which] mandates that presidential records are the property of the U.S. government, rather than belonging to the president himself.” In response to all of this, the former President sneered, declaring “Fake News is making it seem like me, as the President of the United States, was working in a filing room.” This led some to point out the archivists and record managers do more than filing things. Others said that all of this is the reason that archivists saw the jobs for the former president’s library and said “well, that’s a shitty job that won’t be worth it. Nixon Library on steroids.”
There were many other archives-related stories apart from presidential records. NARA has pointed out the April release of the 1950 U.S. Census, highlighted Aileen Cole Stewart, a Black woman who was a Red Cross nurse during World War I, and the story of the 1950 Census P8 Indian reservation schedule. There were previous, but still relevant, posts about an Irish immigrant and sinking ships. More directly, Ferriero published a post noting that NARA is “embedding customer experience initiatives and principles into the strategic goals for the agency” in response to a call from the Biden Administration to “transform…federal customer experience,” noting NARA’s previous efforts in “cultivating public participation and access to our records.” This included noting NARA’s biggest project is the release of the 1950 census in April, looking for feedback to improve the NARA catalog, and other topics.
“Customer” is a word used by libraries and archives alike nowadays, including by Ferriero on various occasions. Long time readers may remember in June 2021 when I said that Ferriero was speaking like he was “part of a private company or a corporate archive than a public entity” by using words like “customers” and talking about “market research,” quoting those who noted that funders dictate a “market language of use and efficiencies,” with archivists having to “justify their existence in economic and market-based rather than social and cultural terms.” This analysis was criticized, at the time, by Maarja Krusten, arguing that my views on NARA and corporate language were not complete and lacked historical background.
I said, in my next newsletter that I can only do so much in the newsletter, as it is only part of analyzing a topic, not a fully-fledged academic article with this newsletter. It just “summarize[s] some of the important news in specific fields and some of my own thoughts on specific topics.” I believe the same thing. I would love to do a historical analysis, at some point, about changes in NARA language from using words like “user” to “customer.” I will say that using words like “customer” makes the interactions with those who use the NARA catalog and NARA resources more transactional and akin to how a business would describe those who use their products. It is one example of language used in the corporate world seeping into archives. At this point, it is so ingrained in NARA messaging, it’s not like we can tell them to start using the word “user” instead. I’m not sure whether this language is used by everyone in NARA or just the managers, but this corporate-like language isn’t going away anytime soon. I recall a manager, whose name escapes me, who I met before I left the Pratt Library and started at library school. She told me that the Pratt uses the term “customers” rather than “users” or “patrons.” This contrasted with the records I had to update every day which were called “patron records.” Personally, I tend to feel that words like “users” and “patrons” sound more welcoming, and descriptive, than “customers” which makes me feel like I’m buying a product from a store. Perhaps that is exactly the perception NARA is trying to give and are trying to appeal to those with more business-oriented mindsets.
On a related note, the SAA endorsed a statement of the Council of State Archivists on essential characteristics of the Archivist of the United States. SAA President Courtney Chartier recently wrote about the struggle of change, Brian Pope, the Founder and Executive Director of Arc/k Project, was interviewed by Rachael Cristine Woody of the SAA’s Committee on Public Awareness (COPA), an open town hall where you can ask questions of the SAA’s Vice-Presidential Candidates (Richard Punzalan and Helen Wong Smith), and engaging history majors in intensive archival research: assessing scaffolded curricula for teaching undergraduates primary source literacy skills. I submitted a question for that open town hall, and I recommend that you have a question, you submit a question as well. My question was: Given the high student loans and low wages of many archivists, would you support a tiered system for membership dues, in which those who make more money would pay higher dues and those who make less money would pay lower dues? I wrote this in response to Alexandra deGraffenreid (alexiadpuravida on Twitter) pointing out that SAA membership is relatively expensive, which I can agree with.
There were assorted archives-related news, like a scrapbook archivists use to identify a railroad matron, the Internet Archive taking down a terrorist manifesto, noting considerations that archivists should take in mind when considering donations (that stories can be decontextualized, copyright and burdens of researching, access to reading rooms), the importance of digital media preservation, the release of the 1940 census dataset, archived records tell the story of our ancestor's daily lives, how to preserve chat messages like iMessages, and why company archives are better off if they are in the hands of a professional archivist. Others noted how Black archives (like We the Diaspora, Black Archives, Black Beauty Archives, Black Film Archive, Archiving the Black Web, and many others) are highlighting overlooked parts of history and culture. At the same time, there is a webpage on the UN website about records management, a blog about archival activism, collection management in archives, reading materials about archives, and assisting a blind patron in an archive.
I liked reading the review of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by Sam Cross, noting themes of records and documentation in the film, which seems to have no archivist in sight. There were intriguing journal articles about records and counter-narratives archives “need to embrace in order to support truth and reconciliation processes for black Americans,” how locations of power and agency “can be (re)positioned by post-custodial archives theory and praxis,” curated archiving of research software artifacts, design and implementation of the first generic archive storage service for research data in Germany, centering disability in archives through its absence, and mass digitization for small institutions.
That brings me to libraries. One of the biggest topics in the last week is about Hoopla Digital and Overdrive having fascist propaganda books on their platforms, with “harmful views” and holocaust denialism. Some have built upon this and criticized Hoopla, saying that they “give the green light to…literally anything” that gives them a collection to market. Others pointed out that Hoopla’s statement uses “both sides” language (also see here, here, here, here, and here), and said, in the case of Alex Brown, that Hoopla are using the ALA Bill of Rights as an excuse to keep Nazi books. Others called on Hoopla and Overdrive to “vet publishers,” worried about the ease that “alt-right propaganda, Holocaust denial, and other xenophobic dreck” may seep into digital library services, said that removal of such books is not censorship, wondering why the books were included in the first place, with such books “on demand,” and even proposed that their library drop Hoopla altogether, or to call them out at the least. One person, Jess Schomberg, in a seeming subtweet responding to Alex Brown, said that talking about the official documents of the ALA distracts from the reality that many Nazi sympathizers “have powerful positions in the publishing industry, libraries, schools,” and so on, and adding that denying/defending/supporting the Holocaust is not equivalent to being queer.
This stems from the fact that Hoopla and OverDrive are private companies, meaning it can more easily skirt public accountability for its actions. Hoopla is owned by a limited liability company named Midwest Tape, while OverDrive is owned by an investment company earning billions of dollars named KKR & Co. Inc. Furthermore, Kanopy is owned by OverDrive as well, as are other library apps like Libby and Sora. On a related note, publishers gained a victory recently when a court blocked Maryland’s library e-book law. Recently appointed federal judge Deborah L. Boardman sided with the publishers, declaring that the law “likely stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment of the purposes and objectives of the Copyright Act,” while the ALA and Maryland’s government defend the law.
There are other library stories beyond this. The Washington Post noted how the Marrakesh treaty agreed to by 100 nations allows for sharing of “audio and electronic Braille versions of published works for people who are blind, have impaired vision or any disability that prevents their use of printed media.” Book Riot reported that challenged books in Walla Walla, Washington are back on the shelves. Smithsonian Libraries noted their use of Wikidata projects. Alex Brown asked people to share cool stuff their libraries are doing and noted that not everything at libraries, which offer more than books, are free, due to late, lost, and printing fees. Jennifer Snoek-Brown shared the news that she is the inspiration for the character, Terri the Librarian in the Wonder Twins comics. Perspectives of History examined the politics and purpose of Library Subject Headings. Newsy noted growing book challenges and bans on the rise in the U.S. Publishers Weekly reported the clash between the Internet Archive and Penguin Random House over the digital publication of Maus.
There was also a thread by Dolly Meagan. She said that she is leaving a library, citing poor leadership, a toxic environment, low pay, lack of advancement, expectation of office housekeeping and care work, the myth of libraries as an essential “societal saving grace,” and hoping those coming into the field afterward would approach it with “realism and determination and actually create change.” She added that she only hears “happiness from solo school librarians…who still exist.” There were many other responses to another librarian, Miss Julia, explaining where they are going after leaving their respective libraries, on a related note.
Otherwise, there were posts celebrating the launch of the book The Black Librarian in America, the continuing popularity of libraries, HTML for newbies, streamlining the job application process, dismantling evaluation, a broad critique of diversity as the dominant mode of anti-racism in LIS, calling for the questioning of current conceptualizations of older adults and the library services created for them, and data intelligence training for library staff. This week, I’d like to share a post from Michele T. Fenton’s Little Known Black Librarians Facts blog, this time about Bertha Pleasant Williams (1923-2008) who was the first Black librarian in Alabama and worked to promote library services to those in the Black community.
With that, I move to history-related stories. Facing South argued that schools in the American South are failing to teach accurate history of the Reconstruction. The New Yorker had a funny, tongue-in-cheek article about White people’s “responsibility to wield your privilege to help cure our nation of this disease (because, ultimately, it’s all about you),” saying that the way to be anti-racist during Black History Month is to “shop exclusively at Black-owned businesses.” John Garrison Marks argued that the history process is like detective work, involving “looking at [a] range of evidence, using different methods, and updating our understanding as we learn new things.” Mekla Audain shared a book she contributed to, In Search of Liberty, writing about “freedom seekers who escaped from Louisiana to Spanish Texas” in the early 1800s. Sam Winn, in an older post from September 2020, shared the index for Esther Brown in one of her favorite books by Saidiya Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval, saying that she would “love to see it taught in history methods + archival classes.”
In terms of other stories relevant to Black History Month, there is a list of Black history sites, the effect of the 13th Amendment, an obit for Betty Davis, the SNCC Digital Gateway, digging at a former Jesuit plantation, Southern Blues, the 1619 Project, contested foundings, and the danger of a single origin story. Others highlighted Black and Indigenous people of the Revolutionary War era which should be better remembered, a spotlight on endangered Black historical sites, a list for preserving Black history, the silencing effect of anti-“critical race theory” laws, and preservation of the John and Lice Coltrane home.
There were additional history stories about the origins of the Civil War, putting the “Dark Ages” to rest, creating museum collections around COVID-19 and hunger, the truth about English explorer James Cook, data practices in digital history, making meaning of historical Papua New Guinea recordings, poetry and feminism in the eighteenth century, and historic photos of Latin America and the Caribbean. There were further articles about religion and the American Revolution, the cracking of the codes used by Charles Dickens in his shorthand, the changing nature of the history profession as recounted by the current president of the AHA, James H. Sweet, and oral histories used to battle climate change.
For their part, Smithsonian magazine had articles about whether the first Battle of Bull Run was a picnic or a battle, the history of cats in the White House, uncovering of a baby tooth which places humans in Western Europe 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, dozens of decapitated skeletons uncovered at the Roman cemetery in England, how Agatha Christie’s love of archaeology influenced Death on the Nile, why researchers are clashing over identification of Captain Cook’s Endeavour, how Madam C.J. Walker changed philanthropy, defining the water cycle, and an early medieval dwelling which may be the oldest home in the U.K.
There are some stories about genealogy, which are related to those about history. Vera Miller highlighted scanned records of Ukraine’s partisans from WWII which is now online. Laurelyn Dossett noted a family project. WUNC had a podcast about estrangement when family bonds break. James Tanner of Genealogy Star penned a post when he stated that a special collections department or division which might house your particular documents, and asked if we know what is “historically and genealogically significant,” and said that we shouldn’t “destroy the originals after they have been digitized,” saying that a “handwritten journal or a letter is unique and irreplaceable.” I understand his thinking when it comes to specific documents, but not everyone has room, or space, to keep the originals, and they can become an albatross if you are moving a lot. So, having the space, and ability, to save written records about yourself (like diaries, for example) is, arguably, a bit of privilege. ABC News in Australia talked about DNA which provides a strong link to the missing Whyalla man. Kansas Reflector had an opinion piece asking why we are hiding the roots of the U.S. Tanner’s Genealogy Star noted FamilySearch’s new feature, Family Groups. Others listed their favorite DNA testing companies, how to understand place names, the debate behind using genealogy to solve crimes, finding comfort in memories and remembering, a methodology introducing students to multicultural education utilizing creative writing and genealogy, a narrative inquiry exploring enslaved ancestral roots through a critical family history project, and a Black woman telling the story of her grandparents, the Sengstackes.
Then were an assortment of articles in Smithsonian magazine. Some were about a heat wave in Pacific Northwest and Canada in the summer of last year, a World Cup for unrecognized states, thousands of unknown microbes found in subways around the world, dogs not returning the favor after strangers feed them, how the Moon’s orbit and rising sea levels will cause record flooding in the 2030s, scientists making thin strings of ice bend without breaking, and 30 football-sized goldfish caught in a Minnesota lake. There were additional stories on a newly uncovered mud-loving zombie frog, puppies born ready to communicate with humans, and eight fun facts about black widow spiders.
I’d like to shift gears and focus on LGBTQ topics. First of all is higher amount of Americans who identify as LGBTQ, with Gallup, after interviewing 12,000 adults, measuring it as 7.1% of the population, and saying that over 86% say they are heterosexual or straight and 6.6% not offering an opinion. Of that 7.1%, over half of the identify as bisexual, about 21% say they are gay, 14% lesbian, 10% trans, and 4% something else. Since some people may be closeted and unsure about their identity, the number of 7.1% is probably a low number and could even be higher considering that over 6% did not offer an opinion. In the past, similar surveys have not “explicitly measured gender identity.” This is the case with this poll too, which is only divided into men and women, with no categories for anyone who identifies as non-binary or any other gender. That limits the survey in many ways, and in the fact that it didn’t capture other LGBTQ identities like pansexual, asexual, and so on.
There were assorted other stories, like The Asexual Agenda, a blog which promotes and stimulates other asexual content, shared, in their post last Friday, a review of sexnormativity in Dark Matter, The Ace and Aro Advocacy Project (TAAAP) is having its pride chats this week for Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week (ASAW), two interviews (one about amatonormativity and another about an asexual sex worker), and a person rejecting a valentine as they are aromantic. Others noted the end of a yuri manga entitled The Two of Them, the Oscars dragging their feet with regard to LGBTQ content, ND Stevenson’s Book of Boba Fett fan comic, the premiere of a Mexican romcom which explores polyamory (Two plus two), how polyamory in fiction can solve love triangles (like the one in Kashimashi), defining polyamory, and a book entitled Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire Society & the Meaning of Sex.
This interlinks with stories about animation. Today was a big day for animation with the release of the first two episodes of The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder. While I’ve put aside some other anime which I mentioned in my last newsletter, I’m willing to give some new anime series I’ve come across a try, which I may mention in my next newsletter. Related is news about She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, with a new interview showcasing the staying power of the show, beyond bizarre reviews which claim that Catra/Adora is toxic and claim both were in a relationship when they weren’t. Related in terms of animation are the synopsis of the upcoming episodes of The Owl House (beginning on March. 15) and possible scenes between Amity and Luz, the continued dispute over pay which is keeping John DiMaggio from joining the Futurama revival, and the 60 best cartoon characters of all time. It includes some of my favorites like Steven Universe, Bender, She-Ra, Jake the Dog, and Perry the Platypus, as I don’t really know the others that well.
In light of that, I think Lara Adams article about the biggest problems with yuri anime for CBR is apt. She noted that “yuri content has fluctuated in and out of popularity,” with The Rose of Versailles becoming “popular in the women's movement of the 1970s,” and having sub-genres, with some including those which don’t “contain an explicit confirmation of the relationship” as it captures the emotion but doesn’t prove “beyond doubt that this is anything beyond girls being friends,” leading to yuri-baiting. Adams argues this is the case for Puella Magic Madoka Magica and Sound! Euphonium, artwork for the show Princess Principal, Izetta: the Last Witch, Higurashi: When They Cry and many others, with such baiting as “cruel towards LGBTQ+ viewers who are searching for stories to connect with.” There are other shows with more direct yuri like Yuru Yuri, Citrus, and Strawberry Panic!, but those all have their problems, while Revolutionary Girl Utena, as Whispered Words, Bloom Into You, Kase-san and the Morning Glories and Adachi and Shimamura are much better. She concludes by saying that “yuri is moving in the right direction and will continue to do so as audiences demand fairer representation as society evolves to be more accepting of yuri and queer women in real life who want to exist beyond the scope of fiction.” While I didn’t like Adachi and Shimamura ultimately, and felt the same about the sci-fi yuri series, Otherside Picnic, I remain a bit optimistic about yuri series myself and hope it gets better in the years to come.
There were articles about the proposal to roll student fees into tuition at UMD, proposed development of forested land previously owned by NASA, the seeming end of the fraud investigation in New York of the former president, a judge ruling that the former president can’t claim immunity against being sued for January 6, assessment of public opinion on transparency at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the C.D.C. isn’t publishing large portions of the COVID data it collects, and 9 ableist tropes in fiction: villainous disabled character, mystical disabled character, disability as a character quirk, disabled character providing character growth to an abled protagonist, inspirational disabled character to an abled protagonist, disability must be cured, the tragic disabled character, disabled character which doesn’t have sex/can’t be romantic, and the idea that disabled characters can do anything.
Others noted the contrast between equality and equity, Biden pushing for a new Cold War, when papers are published, the faultiness of Mayor Adams announcement that unhoused people riding subways will be forced to leave the train. Others noted that Biden facing conflicting pressures of the Supreme Court nominee, the US Copyright Office refuses to register AI-generated work, the capitalist imperative to create and bolster self-perpetuating markets, how background information should be agreed to by both parties and can’t be universally declared, IOC denying the comparison between the doping cases of Shacarri Richardson and Kamila Valievas, ethics and legality of memoir, shades of ethnic diversity in Black religious life, and a new state law in Oklahoma allowing state employees to run public school classrooms with no experience or higher education requirements. Destiny O. Birdsong’s debut collection of poems, Negotiations, which “explores the constant adjustments that Black women make to survive,” a month of paid leave transformative for someone’s workplace, what the Winston-Salem fire says about environmental justice in North Carolina, and a Florida home to be sold in novel non-fungible token (NFT) deal.
Finally, there are illustrations in The Nib. They focused on gun maker Remington who settled with Sandy Hook families, risk assessment and COVID pandemic, four cartoonists on their favorite unsung Black history heroes, distorted and reactionary beliefs, top podcasts on Spotify, how barbed wire sparked a cowboy war and changed the American west, charter schools, family secrets, when you're autistic, respect is hard to come by, people wanting to move on from the virus and shaming those wearing masks (boo!), and recycling dilemmas. Additional illustrations were on Josephine Baker, the dancer, icon, and spy, Americans drowning in debt, faulty sacrifices during the pandemic, and police brutality in New York City.
That’s all for this week’s newsletter. I tabulated how much time I spent on this newsletter, and I spent over eight hours on it! Due to that expenditure of time, I am going to, for now, scale back the newsletters from being weekly to bi-weekly instead. That means the next newsletter will come out not on 3/2, but on 3/6, 3/7, 3/8, or 3/9 instead. That would also allow for me to spend more time on the newsletter as well, and make sure I’m not so crunched for time in putting it together.
With that, I hope you all have a great rest of your week.
- Burkely