That AHA letter, the role of archives, libraries, genealogy, history, and more
This week I'll be writing about the same topics as usual, along with a focus about recent letter from the AHA, new leadership at the SAA, and many other topics
Hello everyone! I hope you all had a good week. I have been following, closely, the recent fallout from AHA’s passive aggressive, condescending, elitist letter to NARA, reeking of privilege, saying that archivists should work more, hire back retired workers, work on weekends, and anything else to ensure the “precious” historical researchers get all the help they need, opening it all up, pandemic be damned. I put together threads here, here, and here on Twitter, bringing together some responses to this from archivists, historians, and the like. The AHA appended the letter, after a few days, with an apology, but this didn’t change the fact that the AHA is behind the times, with a divide between scholars who use social media platforms and those who use email/listservs, as some pointed out. Others thanked the AHA for the apology, saying it honestly recognizes their mistakes, hoped that they never said such an awful letter again, noted that archivists were rightly offended by the letter, hoped the AHA would rethink their relationship with archives and archivists going forward, hoped for self-reflection on the part of the AHA, argued that the AHA should recognize the invisible labor which keeps archives functioning, maintains access to records, and such.
Some said that historians should know that context matters, asking who the AHA serves and what role they play, remaining thankful of the relationships between archivists and historians, saying that in the apology the AHA owns up to their mistakes, hoping for beginning of efforts to “build solidarity and support with archivists, librarians, curators etc.” who work together already, thanked archivists for holding AHA accountable, noted that tensions between archivists and historians have bubbled to the surface, and criticizing the letter in and of itself as a bad idea. Beyond that, in the past week I have published two reviews, one about examining “archives” in one of my favorite webcomics and another on a librarian in an animated series I enjoy. Oh, and I am keeping two family history blogs on hiatus for the time being, so I can focus on other family history research, using my time more wisely going forward. With that, let me move forward with the rest of my newsletter.
There is a lot of news about archives this week, apart from what I have noted in the newsletter already. Connected to this is a comment by digital archivist Emily Higgs Kopin, that those working in libraries and archives have had a massive amount of “additional work added to their plates since the pandemic started,” with everyone overworked, stretched too thin, and having burnouts. I’ve been loosely following news from the current SAA conference using #SAA21 hashtag, including the remarks (shared by Alexia D Puravida) at the Chartier Membership meeting by the newly elected SAA’s Vice-President, Courtney Chartier. She responded to the AHA letter, describing it as condescending and not written “with much compassion for the people who staff archival institutions” and called it “truly an exercise in despair.” She noted that while she cares about researchers, she cares about her colleagues more, saying the profession does some things badly but “does some things with great grace” and concluded by saying that “we all deserve grace.”
On a related note, I wrote back in March 2020 about Chartier’s argument for more pathways for “talented and passionate people” to reach the SAA leadership, calling for people to “truly and authentically understand each other” in order to solve existing communication problems, and arguing that the SAA is not “critically engaging the breadth of archivists with how our world is changing the profession” but should improve this in the future. Otherwise, there were stories about how NARA is working with “20 federal agencies to support the celebration of the U.S. semiquincentennial,” that senior archivist David Langbart at NARA is receiving the Anna K. Nelson Prize in Archival Excellence from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and Algerians urging France to open their colonial archives.
From now until August 20, people can comment on the 2022-2026 Draft Strategic Plan for NARA, which reaffirms existing parts, while updating “strategic objectives to reflect our increased commitment to equity, inclusion, and the customer experience” and accelerating agency modernization, according to NARA’s summary. There was the #ArchivesHashtagParty focusing on #ArchivesAthletes, which began yesterday, and the Vermont State Archivist, Tanya Marshall, appointed to serve on the Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress. Of interest is a call by ArchivesAWARE for “unique, moving, or humorous archival stories,” with a deadline of August 31, an introduction of Jacqualine Price Osafo, the SAA’s New Executive Director, and a farewell message from Rachel Vagts, the outgoing SAA President, noting changes in SAA leadership and among archives in response to the pandemic.
There are a number of stories in the world of libraries. Some rightly criticized a Yahoo! News description of a librarian is incorrect, and the Philadelphia Inquirer noted colleagues of Latanya Jenkins, a wonderful Black female librarian, who said the punitive sick leave policy of Temple University ran her into the ground, causing Jenkins to suffer as she got sicker and sicker from cancer. In a more positive note, I was glad to see that Jennifer Snoek-Brown mentioned me in her recent post on her Reel Librarians blog, noting that I regularly emails her “with updates of animated TV series with librarian and library scenes.” So that’s cool.
People may be interested in Hack Library School’s call for guest posts, especially from “any current library & information science (LIS) student” with some “exceptions for non-LIS students or LIS professionals….on a case-by-case basis.” Workers of the New York Public Library are speaking out about mounting COVID-19 fears, a library weakly removed their sign about systemic racism, giving into those who complained about it as “offensive,” libraries across the U.S. are ending their fines for overdue books, and some said that libraries should be paying attention to the #SaveNilesLibrary campaign. The latter is because one low-turnout election can change the entire makeup of a library board completely. The Washingtonian profiled a look at DC’s newest library branch, IMLS Director Crosby Kemper III talked about “learning through the pandemic and leaning into the future,” and the ALA is adopting a new Code of Ethics principle on racial and social justice.
This connects to what April Hathcock wrote about in August 2016: that “diversity initiatives have been largely unsuccessful in increasing the numbers of librarians of color,” noting that “librarians of color…often end up working isolated in a profession that is 97% white” (recent stats actually show the profession is only 86% White if we say that the ALA’s membership accurately reflects the library profession, which has been thrown into question) adding that while there is an importance to networking and mentoring opportunities in such initiatives, she asks how many people couldn’t, or didn’t participate in panels on diversity because they couldn’t meet requirements “rooted in our system of whiteness and false meritocracy.”
There’s a lot of news in the genealogy field. I am very annoyed, angry, and disappointed with Ancestry declaring that they will be able to, by September 2, share the content on their platform (if it’s not on a private tree) permanently unless you delete it, as I noted in a thread on Twitter. People responded saying that it is just a way for Ancestry to make more money, that they were glad they never added non-ancestry materials to theirs, or even called it a “fascist” measure. On a related note, one genealogist, Mish Holman, even said that she is putting watermarks on her photos to prevent them from being commercialized by Ancestry something which I’d be willing to do (even if it is a “big job” as she put it), provided I can save the original photographs, somewhere.
Apart from this is a Baltimore Sun story, which my mom shared with me in the past week, about Joe Biden’s ancestral ties to Baltimore. It notes that his father and grandparents lived in Charles Village and is a fascinating article on the whole. While there are so many other posts I could include, I enjoyed reading Nicka Smith’s post on genealogy success by “avoiding common pitfalls when beginning your genealogy research,” how genealogy sites lack diverse DNA and are struggling to identify people of color. The article noted that Indigenous people may not trust the testing, Black people may not be able to afford it, and those outside the U.S. do not have the programs marketed to them. All of this is no surprise to me. On an investigative note are posts about elusive ancestors, identifying unknown portraits, and solving genealogy mysteries, if you are interested in that.
Apart from great memes like this one for the awful AHA letter, there were articles about historical topics. For one is the story of Mountbattens' unseen personal diaries published amid a UK court battle, along with Black voices at the Museum of the American Revolution being showcased in a new exhibit. Smithsonian magazine focused on a number of topics, including the importance of going beyond the female firsts in science history, the endangered places which tell complex stories, and Germany acknowledging genocide from 1904 to 1908 in Namibia. Although they are paying for infrastructure improvements in the country, the German government has refused to directly compensate victims of the genocide, leading to justified protests in Germany as they refuse to accept responsibility for a genocide, only wanting to give money and make it go away. Then there are the stories in Scalawag about untold stories of the queer South, how those histories inform the present, and murals, and street art, in London during the 1980s, to give a few examples.
That brings me to topics which didn’t fit in other parts of this newsletter. There are stories about how vaccine hesitancy is a 21st century phenomenon, a concept for a private luxury train which will cost over 300 million dollars and only be for the wealthy (and presumably others who work on the train), making it sound just like Snowpiercer, and Argentina has become the first country in Latin America to “officially recognize gender nonbinary people.” Smithsonian magazine noted how climate change is remaking the Arctic, how people can learn echolocation in ten weeks, and that puppies are born ready to communicate with humans.
There is a post by Hathcock in September 2016, talking about how scholarly communication conversations are “saturated in the values and ideals of the white North American and Western European, neoliberal researcher,” even though the idea of “commoning” has its roots in “indigenous and native notions.” She called for “dialogue, real dialogue, that decenters white North American and Western European values and knowledge creation.”
In closing, I enjoyed reading illustrations in The Nib about the alternate reality of those who support the former president, false ideas people have on unions, doing your part to fight the pandemic, and the selective memory of the GOP, to name a few of my favorites which I came across in the past week.
That’s all for this week. Hope you all have a good week ahead!
- Burkely