Librarians, secret files, pop culture reviews, archival appraisal, genealogy, and more
This week I'll be talking about libraries, archives, and genealogy, but will also mention a new pop culture review I published on Reel Librarians, and other related news.
Hello everyone! I hope you are all having a good week. On March 24th, my guest post on Jennifer Snoek-Brown’s Reel Librarians got published! It focuses on BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) librarians in animation and anime. Some of my favorites are George and Lance in the new She-Ra and the Princesses of Power series, Doctor Oldham in Gargantia (also a medical doctor), Myne in Ascendance of a Bookworm, and Lilith in Yamibou. Yesterday, I posted a review of secret files, mystery, and archival themes in one episode of the acclaimed Netflix drama, The Crown. Apart from that, in my friend’s new fictional work, there is a brief mention o a library as a place of refuge. My friend promises that in the next story, archives will be mentioned more directly. Oh, and Rebecca Long, editor, and writer, mentioned my first article about Kaisa, the librarian in Hilda, in her review of the series for Mic. While she incorrectly said that the American Library Association gave the praise for Kaisa, she still said that I pointed to the “positive, mold-breaking portrayal of Trolberg’s librarian…a young, queer-coded steward of knowledge who also happens to be a witch.” I sent a flurry of tweets to her about it and I hope to hear from her in the future. With that, let me begin my newsletter!
When it comes to archives, there are a number of promising developments. The American Archivist Reviews Portal had articles about oral history projects and a documentary project on Jewish refugees, while the M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives at Albany University has a website trying to create an “open source tool for preserving email archives using multiple formats, such as MBOX, PDF, and WARC” which does not currently exist. Northwest Archivists described two webinars about digitizing paper records, and the American Historical Association (AHA) announced the victory of their challenge to “NARA’s approval of ICE’s records disposition,” which would have permitted ICE to destroy records that documented “mistreatment of immigrants” detained in the agency’s custody. On page 11 of the decision, the U.S. District Court judge, Amit P. Mehta, said that “retaining inclusive perspectives was a lesser priority for the agency [NARA] in selecting which documents to preserve,” which is troubling. On page 14, the judge added that “NARA’s approval of the schedule was arbitrary and capricious on the grounds that NARA failed to evaluate the research value of the ICE records and that NARA failed to address significant and relevant public comments.” Yikes. The judge also says, on page 16, that NARA did NOT consider “current research use or made inferences about the anticipated use of the documents in future research.” The next page said that when the agency receives “numerous comments discussing the research value of records in dispute, it has a duty to respond to such comments and to explain its reasoning.” On page 20, the judge added that NARA should also weigh “the research value of any information that is preserved in primary sources” but isn’t captured by “secondary summaries or other documents that are permanently preserved.” That is a failure of records appraisal that Margot Note wrote about, the importance in records explained by Karl Melrose. Related to this is acquisition, which Note also explained recently. I may write about this, considering the large number of results in The American Archivist. This case reminds me of a 1986 article, in The American Archivist I read in grad school, “Appraisal and the FBI Files Case: For Whom Do Archivists Retain Records?” by Susan Steinwall, about a case where NARA followed the FBI’s recommendations and would have destroyed records, if not stopped by the court case.
That brings me to libraries. Hack Library School had articles about the value of public speaking, invisible labor, a COVID experience of one library, burnout, and planning post-COVID when working in a junior high school library. I’d like to mention posts on the Library of Congress blog about conductor Leopold Stokowski and case law, along with library advocacy resolutions and showcasing beautiful libraries in American Libraries magazine. Also of note are articles in the School Library Journal about Dr. Seuss and how not having his works in libraries is NOT censorship and lessons learned from adapting to the pandemic, and a review by Jennifer Snoek-Brown of a library scene in the acclaimed Hidden Figures film in 2017. I further enjoyed reading about the cost of library stewardship, post-pandemic libraries, Black library leaders, controlled digital lending, and Black female writers. Just as important is the news that Harvard University is ending the use of the subject headings “alien” or “illegal alien,” now using terms like “noncitizen” or “undocumented immigrant” instead! I am glad to see that Snoek-Brown got on a podcast about library scenes in horror films. Congrats to her. Someday, I’d like to be on a podcast too, or maybe I will create my own podcast.
Anyway, let me move onto genealogy. There were discussions about divorce records, how to do genealogy via Zoom, finding your family tree, and wedding certificates. Others wrote about how now is the time to do genealogy research, looking for Dutch grandparents, and Ancestry’s new CEO, Deb Liu, with Chinese roots, saying that “continuing to deepen people's relationship with the past, being able to discover their ancestors, being able to connect with relatives — I think that continues to be really core to the mission of what we do.” I found articles about gaps in infant mortality records, working around the census of 1890, biracial history, genealogists and historians regaining “access to the reference library, microfilm library, computer terminals and original records” of the Georgia Archives, and limits proposed on when police can “search consumer genealogical databases in connection with a crime” going through the Maryland General Assembly. The latter is promising because police should not have unfettered access to such databases. Their access should be limited in whatever way possible since that the genetic data is personal information.
This brings me to the last part of this newsletter. There were various comics I enjoyed looking through this past week, whether about background checks, the so-called “crisis” at the US-Mexico border, marijuana policy in the Biden White House, racists continuing to propagate their hate, and “relics” in the time before COVID. The AHA, for their part, had statements condemning the rising violence against Asian Americans and Asians, reviewed the articles in the March Issue of the American Historical Review, and Rebecca L. Davis told a story of homophobia in the job search process for historians. I was excited to see the colonial site discovered right near my alma mater in St. Mary’s City. In other news, the Smithsonian magazine had articles about Asian-American history, a nature preserve in Ecuador, a historic 16th century church in Mexico burning down, and the first vial used in COVID-19 vaccinations joining Smithsonian collections. William Hogeland had an interesting newsletter, this time about the filibuster, Angela Buckley wrote about pirates, The Artifice examined literature about Antietam, and Ashwanta Jackson wrote about the life of Matilda Sissieretta Jones, a Black female classical music performer. History Associates outlined what they call the “art of crafting a FOIA request” and historian Rebecca DeWolf argued that 2021 could finally be the moment for the Equal Rights Amendment. I loved to hearing that Lando Calrissian and other LGBTQ+ characters will be “featured on Pride month variant covers for Marvel's Star Wars comics in June,” and liked to hear a perspective in the Daily Princeton that unlike live-action, animation is “beyond capable of creating captivating worlds and evoking emotional feelings that leave watchers wanting more.” They added that “live-actions — especially adaptations — suck. Watch animation instead.” While I watch live-action media, of course, I agree with their sentiment.
That’s all for this week. Hope you all have a productive week ahead!
- Burkely