Stereotypes, magical libraries, archives, genealogy, and other subjects
This week, I'll share with you two reviews I wrote about libraries and librarians in popular culture, a new interview of me published this week, news about archives, genealogy, history, and more
Hello everyone! I hope you are all having a good week. In this past week, not only did I publish a post about the stereotype of shushing librarians, but I had my newest post published in I Love Libraries, which focuses on a magical library, and librarians, in the series Welcome to the Wayne. Just as exciting was the new interview of me published in The Hidden Branch, a blog for young genealogists. I’d say it deserves a read. Oh, also I just finished judging websites for the Maryland state level of National History Day, and I was the chief judge of a three-person group, so that was a lot of fun. With that all being said, let me begin this newsletter.
Starting with archives, there were some interesting articles I read this week. Grace Muñoz argued that reparative description initiatives can be reframed by using critical race theory and Black feminism. The same blog that Muñoz wrote on shared resources from the SAA’s Native American Archives Section. Just as important is the History Coalition’s call to support increased funding for NARA and the NHPRC, the value of advocating for archives, history, and the humanities, and the power of the insurgent archive in Latinx art. It was interesting to read the working document, P&C (Privacy and Confidentiality) in Archives Best Practices, about a public hearing in Conway, New Hampshire for a bond to restore county records, that UMD libraries and others were awarded a grant to archive social justice activism from college students who are people of color, and behind the scenes of the archives of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The same can be said about NARA’s citizen archivist mission focusing on tagging and transcription of Chinese heritage records, with people able to tag or transcribe records with an easy-to-create account. NARA released two datasets from their catalog and the 1940 census, and Antonio Austin, the Archives, History and Heritage Advanced virtual intern in the Library of Congress (LOC)’s Prints & Photographs Division talked about the importance of making the less visible more discoverable. Then there is the story that the media (like Politico) is portraying as a “struggle” between Twitter and NARA. Twitter is not letting NARA repost the former president’s tweets back on the platform for archival purposes, as they have done for the Obama Library, which I wrote about back in a newsletter in late January of this year, in newsletters in September, August, and July of last year, and in a newsletter in July 2019. Politico notes that NARA is still trying to make the content from the Twitter account public, and make the content available as a download on the presidential library website of the former president, with watchdog groups saying NARA has to work to make the content public and even says that the former president could take “measures to restrict access to his archived tweets” if he wanted. This all makes me think of my proposed article to the Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies about the all-digital Obama Library, which was rejected by the archival studies publication after one year of proposed edits and suggestions, all of which I replied to. Tired of them, I publicly criticized them on Twitter in October of last year, asking people to NOT submit any articles to the publication. At the time, I lamented the whole experience seemed like a waste of time and that I would be putting the “topic on the back burner…doing reviews of libraries and archives in popular culture instead,” calling that “more fun and exciting than writing about a stuffy presidential library anyway.” This wasn’t the first rejection, as I never got a reply to a similar submission about NARA and genealogy to the International Journal of Digital Curation as I noted in June 2019. One day I may end up writing an academic article about the Obama library, the future of presidential libraries, and NARA, and another about the role of the genealogical community and NARA, but whatever I write, on either topic, will likely start from scratch.
Otherwise, there is a new database, titled “Black Virginians in Blue,” run by The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at UVA, which will be helpful to genealogists, and the training list of the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC), along with videos on the NEDCC’s YouTube channel.
That brings me to libraries. I came across two great resources recently, first the Library and Information Science Encyclopedia and secondly the Glossary of Library & Information Science. While these could both be useful for library science and library work, of course, I was thinking of possible use for them when it came to fiction, in that I could use them to find certain concepts as needed. Of course, there were articles about why libraries are important, the value of investing in libraries, and a nice video from LOC about the cherry blossoms in D.C., titled “Fleeting Beauty, Enduring Traditions.” There were also articles about eLending in the United States, the ALA announcing a COVID library relief fund, proposals for how libraries will move forward, a rise in the number of parents trying to ban anti-racist books in U.S. schools (BOO!), the vitality of digital inclusion, library-on-demand, and how libraries have dealt with pandemics in the present, and past. There are also a number of great LOC posts about geography and maps, legislative history, dancing, and the intricacies of jazz and gender, which I read this past week. Those who write for LOC are always so prolific!
Following this, is a short mention of genealogy-related topics. As I noted on Twitter, I did some digging through a NARA database I had heard about some time ago. More than that, the Wilson Collection released a new set of family records from New Zealand, while genealogists wrote about the importance of expanding your scope of genealogical research, analyzing church marriage records, the challenge of deciphering the handwriting of your ancestors, and how pandemic closures are affecting genealogy research. Finally, I’d like to say how excited I am about the upcoming genealogy fair hosted by NARA, specifically on their YouTube channel.
With that, there some topics, in the realm of history, I’d like to mention. Some wrote about oral histories being collected in Brooklyn, Isaiah Thomas, how foreign assistance led America to win the Revolutionary War, and medieval pandemic cures. Others wrote about settler colonialism from the 1860s to 1930s in the British empire, the history of “vaccine passports,” women telephone operators during WWI, and the history of Cahokia. On related topics, there are those who are trying to highlight the contributions of Black female suffragists, a reviewer (Rebecca Long, who I mentioned in my late March newsletter) noting the problem with Captain America in Winter Soldier and why he isn’t needed, people making a database of sign language more accessible, and a new directory (at least to me) of neurodivergent graphic designers and illustrators. That’s something I’ll probably have to add myself to as soon as I improve my illustration skills. That is, to say it lightly, a work in progress! It was interesting to read the Pew Research Center’s report on social media use in 2021, along with illustrations in The Nib about tear gas, the dissonance in who is against the “establishment,” NYPD robot dog in Manhattan, drones, the flat circle of right-wing pundits, the never-ending Afghanistan war, and building a media empire. There are so many illustrations in The Nib every week that I can’t even include them all in this newsletter, which is why they are spread out across many newsletters.
I think that’s all for this week’s newsletter. Until next week! Hope you have a great week ahead on this fine Monday morning.
- Burkely