January/February 2017 Published by the Society of American Archivists

www.archivists.org 4 Bringing Black 12 Winner of the 16 Getting Ready

Collections Archives Short for ARCHIVES
Together Fiction Contest 2017
 January/February 2017

3 6 8

Unearthing a Time Not Personnel but Archival Bonds:

Capsule on a Time
Crunch
The changed landscape of the capital
of Paraguay, minimally processed offsite
collections, loose journal pages, and a
lost time capsuleno obstacle is too
difficult or too strange for these archivists
to overcome.
Sarah Pratt
Personal Love and Friendship
When the Sisters of Mercy of the
Americas consolidated their regional in the Archives
archives to a central location, staff had Part 2
a unique opportunity to understand A name encountered in a 1960s newspaper
the perspectives on access held by clipping led this university archivist on a
stakeholders, helping them to create an journey that affected his work and personal
effective access and restriction policy. lifeand revealed a new friend.
Elizabeth Snowden Johnson David McCartney

FEATURES COLUMNS
2 Presidents Message
4 Radical Partnerships Celebrating the Archival Community:
Taking New Paths in Black Collections SAAs Records and Milestones
Shanee Yvette Murrain, Cecily Marcus, Tamar Evangelestia-
Dougherty, Kara Tucina Olidge 18 From the Archivist
of the United States
10 The Truth Is in the Archives Presidential Library Museums Get New Looks
The Historic Role of Archives in Confronting
Appalachian Stereotypes
24 From the Executive Director
Gene Hyde The 2016 Foundation Donors

12 Family Stories DEPARTMENTS

Winner of the 2016 Archives Short Fiction Contest
14 Someone You Should Know
Marcella Huggard
Marcella Huggard

16 ARCHIVES 2017: alike/different 16 Kudos

SAA Annual Meeting in Portland
Terry Baxter

17 2017 SAA Research Forum COVER PHOTO

Call for Participants / Call for Presentations Hungry for justice. In an eight-day hunger strike in front
of the Iowa City post office, Steve Smith, a student at the
University of Iowa, raised more than $4,000 for civil rights
19 Become the Next Editor workers in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Turn to page 8 to read
how a university archivist follows up on Steves story years
of The American Archivist later. Photo by Mike Toner, courtesy of The Daily Iowan.

A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK 1
 PRESIDENTS MESSAGE
Nance McGovern
nancymcg@mit.edu
Celebrating the Archival Community:
SAAs Records and Milestones
L ets begin the new year with a celebration
of SAAs own archives and milestones.
Our Archives
Have you ever thought about, visited, or
used SAAs archives? Many of you may
have been lucky to do so. A recent visit to
SAAs archives, housed at the University
of WisconsinMilwaukee, in November
reminded me of just how special our archives
are and how fortunate we are to have such
an able team to manage them on our behalf.
Through the magic of archival serendip-
ity, the records of the Status of Women
Committeethe first SAA group I served
onwere out during my visit, thanks to
Alex Poole, recipient of the 2013 Theodore
Calvin Pease Award for best student paper,
who is currently one of the more active
users of the SAA archives. Kudos to Alex and
others like him for addressing important
archival issues using SAAs records.
SAA established an archives for our records
as one of its first acts in 1936, though it
moved around with SAAs secretary for the
first several decades:
ARCHIVAL OUTLOOK
The Society of American Archivists serves the education and information
needs of its members and provides leadership to help ensure the identification,
preservation, and use of the nations historical record.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Nancy P. Beaumont
nbeaumont@archivists.org
W E B A N D I N F OR M AT IO N
S Y S T E M S A DM I N I S T R AT OR
Matt Black
mblack@archivists.org
DIRECTOR OF PUBLISHING
Teresa M. Brinati
tbrinati@archivists.org
2 A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK
The minute books, correspondence, and other
records of the Society and its committees shall
be preserved by the officers and chairmen of
and Records Administration (NARA). We
often think of electronic records as a new
area in archives, but in fact, NARA is one
the committees and shall be promptly turned
over by them to the secretary when their terms of a number of international archives that
expire. Records that have ceased to be of use established digital programs decades ago.
in conducting the current affairs of the Society A committee convened in 1966 to address
may, by direction of the Council, be turned over the challenges of machine-readable records,
to a depository selected by it for permanent
leading to the establishment of a digital
preservation.
program later that decade.
SAA Archives Finding Aid
The SAA archives has been in Wisconsin NARA and SAA have always shared a
since 1978, first in Madison, and then in connection as the national archives and
Milwaukee since 2001. SAA member Abigail national professional association in the
Nye talked with me about UWMilwaukees United States. The list of SAA Fellows
archival program and its expanding digital and past presidents who have worked
program. Staff at the archives work to keep on electronic records at NARA includes
social justice issues as a key focus during Margaret Adams, Bruce Ambacher, Tom
collection, offering wonderful possibilities Brown, Charles Dollar, Fynnette Eaton,
as SAA works toward greater diversity and Meyer Fishbein, Edie Hedlin, Linda Henry,
inclusion. Watch for more updates from Trudy Peterson, Ken Thibodeau, Sharon
and about SAAs archives! Thibodeau, Vicki Walch, and myselfin
addition to many other SAA members!
Our Milestones This will hopefully be the first of many
opportunities to celebrate this important
One milestone for our profession to milestone in our profession!
embrace is the fiftieth anniversary of
electronic records at the National Archives
Archival Outlook (ISSN 1520-3379) is published six
times a year and distributed as a membership benet
by the Society of American Archivists. Contents of
the newsletter may be reproduced in whole or in part
provided that credit is given. Direct all advertising
inquiries and general correspondence to: Abigail
Christian, Society of American Archivists, 17 North
State Street, Suite 1425, Chicago, IL 60602; 312-
606-0722; toll-free 866-SAA-7858; fax 312-606-0728;
achristian@archivists.org; www.archivists.org.
E D U C AT I O N CO OR DI N AT OR DI R E C T OR OF E D U C AT I O N G O V E R N A N C E PR O G R A M CO OR DI N AT OR
Mia Capodilupo Kara Adams Felicia Owens
mcapodilupo@archivists.org kadams@archivists.org fowens@archivists.org
DIRECTOR OF FINANCE AND E D U C AT I O N CO OR DI N AT OR SERVICE CENTER MANAGER
A DM I N I S T R AT IO N
Peter Carlson Brianne Downing Carlos R. Salgado
pcarlson@archivists.org bdowning@archivists.org csalgado@archivists.org
E D I T O R I A L A N D P R O D U C T I O N C O O R D I N AT O R S E R V I C E C E N T E R R E PR E S E N TAT I V E M E M B E R S E R V I C E R E PR E S E N TAT I V E
Abigail Christian Lee Gonzalez Michael Santiago
achristian@archivists.org lgonzalez@archivists.org msantiago@archivists.org
January/February 2017
 And the Ever-
Evolving Role
of Reference
Services

Sarah Pratt, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center,

Boston University

L ate morning on August 18, 1956, the United States Ambassador

to Paraguay, Arthur Ageton, attended the commencement
ceremony for the start of construction on the new embassy in
Asuncin. The president of Paraguay, Alfredo Stroessner, and other
distinguished guests were in attendance; Ambassador Ageton
delivered a major address on economic policy with a reply from
Stroessners foreign minister. During the ceremony, which was over
before lunch, a time capsule filled with significant papers was Alfredo Stroessner, president of Paraguay, and US Ambassador Arthur Ageton bury
a time capsule in 1956. From the Arthur Ageton Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival
placed in a pit by the president and the ambassador, then covered
Research Center at Boston University.
with concrete mix and leveled using specially engraved trowels
to mark the occasion. improbable. With the help of a colleague, I was able to identify a
diary, photographs, and some printed items in the finding aid that
Fast forward nearly sixty years. In April 2016, the Howard Gotlieb
we thought were our best chance of answering the question.
Archival Research Center at Boston University received an email
from the current US Ambassador, Leslie Bassett, in Asuncin, While I scoured records in Boston, Ambassador Bassett and
Paraguay. The embassy was set to begin new construction on the her team persevered in Asuncin. They met with a 95-year-old
same property where the commencement ceremony took place six gentleman who was reported to be present at the 1956 ceremony
decades ago, Ambassador Bassett explained. Where was the time maybe he could point them in the direction of the time capsule!
capsule buried? she asked. Over the years, documentation on its
However, the landscape in the Paraguayan capital has changed quite
location had been lostand the ambassador hoped to find the
a bit in sixty years, and human memory is only so reliable. Bassett
time capsule before ground was broken.
and her team took to social media, posting on the embassys official
Facebook page to crowdsource clues from their followers.
The Hunt Begins
Back in Boston, having initially reviewed our records, I was not
This reference question made its way to my desk the first week of optimistic about our chances of finding the answer. Then two
April. The Gotlieb Center is home to more than 2,000 collections boxes arrived from our offsite storage. I started to shuffle through
and, despite nearly five years of working with researchers and envelopes and folders, one of which contained a stack of eighteen
cataloging collections, this was my first introduction to the Arthur black-and-white photographs topped with a short note reading
Ageton collection. The collection, I quickly discovered, is stored in Ceremony for new building US Embassy. I excitedly scanned
an offsite vault, minimally processed, and not often accessed by
researchers. In short, finding evidence of the time capsule seemed Continued on page 22>>

January/February 2017 A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK 3

radical PARTNERSHIPS
Shanee Yvette Murrain, University of West Georgia; Cecily Marcus, Givens Collection
of African American Literature/Umbra Search African American Literature; Tamar Evangelestia-Dougherty,
archival consultant; Kara Tucina Olidge, Amistad Research Center at Tulane University
T he urgency of representing African
American history and culture as fully as
possible links three related efforts that seek
to maximize the impact of African American
archives and enable new scholarship.
Through radical institutional partnerships,
open data, and the use of technology,
African American collections are working
against centuries of loss and erasure to
expand the historical record for students,
scholars, and the general public. Each of the
following projects presents a unique way
to harness technological innovation and
collaboration to the benefit of collections
that are often marginalized: building a
twenty-first-century digital archive by
leveraging Internet Archive; aggregating
hundreds of thousands of digitized African
American documents from more than 1,000
institutions in a single search interface;
and expanding the role of funding and
collaboration among African American
collections locally and nationally.
Leveraging Resources
The Payne Theological Seminary and African
Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church
Digital Archive projecta collaboration
among Payne, Princeton Theological
Seminarys Digital Initiative, and the
Internet Archivedemonstrates that
relationships thrive where community
is built by sharing resources to showcase
common interests. In building a digital
collection to celebrate Paynes 122-year
history, a radical partnership grew because
of three important factors:
t Payne recognized that its digitized
content has value that extends beyond
a local institutional context, and that it
lacked resources to build and maintain
a digital repository.
t Princeton recognized that its investment
in developing digital collections benefited
more than itself and should be shared,
4 A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK
a k ing New
T
and that it sought a larger corpus of
digital content than it could provide
on its own.
t The Internet Archive recognized that
its infrastructure is ideal for building
collaborative collections by first hosting
individual collections at low cost.
In 2014, Payne was awarded a two-year,
$150,000 Arthur Vining Davis Foundations
Award for the project, resulting in the
creation of two collections organized into
twenty-one categories of images and records
on the history of the A.M.E. Church.
Partnering together mitigated costs for all
involved, while also exposing participants
to new patrons
and patrons to
new resources. As much as Umbra Search
Princeton
provided Payne
is a resource for scholars,
students, writers, and
a free platform
and the expertise it is also a call to action for supporting students,
of digital
projects staff, more inclusive efforts.
while Princeton
benefited from
Paynes diverse content. Collaborative
outreach efforts for the Payne archives
engaged 8,615 users in its first year online, more than 400,000 digitized materials
with a 35.7% returning visitor rate, and
the homepage of the Payne collection
is the most visited site on Princetons
website. By working with Internet Archive
to host the archives, Paynes historical
materials are openly available and able to
be aggregated by the Digital Public Library
of America (DPLA) or Umbra Search African
American History (www.umbrasearch.org),
thus exposing the content to a far greater
audience than any one institution could
find on its own.
As concerns about metadata and points
of discovery for users mounted, Payne
sought to partner with Umbra Search to
Paths
in Black
provide increased metadata assistance,
new discovery points, and opportunities
to create digital exhibits, such as Black
Womanhood in the African Methodist
Episcopal Church, 18971916, for Umbra
Searchs blog (umbrasearchblog.org).
Increasing Public Access
Developed by the Givens Collection
of African American Literature at the
University of Minnesota Libraries
Archives and Special Collections, Umbra
Search African American History seeks to
make African American history broadly
accessible through a freely available widget
and search tool, by
digitizing African
American materials
across University
of Minnesota
artists, collections, and by
educators, artists,
and the public
through residencies,
workshops, and
events locally and around the country.
To date, Umbra Search brings together
from more than 1,000 libraries and archives
across the country.
The Givens Collection, a rare book and
archival collection, has grown through
collaboration since its inception in 1985,
first as a community partnership between
the University of Minnesota and the local
African American community. The creation
of Umbra Search comes out of another
collaboration, this time with Penumbra
Theatre Company, the largest continually
operating African American theater in the
United States, and with hundreds of African
American collections and organizations
around the country.
January/February 2017
 Umbra Searchs work has centered around
four efforts:
t
To identify and aggregate as much
material as possible that documents
African American history and culture
from individual digital collections
Umbra Search is also deeply marked by what
is missing and still left in the umbraor the
shadowsof American history and culture:
content that was not valued by institutions,
not collected, not identified as relating
to African American life, or not digitized.
history. Additionally, the term hidden can
refer to the silenced voices of marginalized
communities within processed collections.
Increasingly, bringing such collections out
of the shadows has become associated with
professional interest in community archives

Collec dispersed across the internet;

t To create an effective search
As much as Umbra Search is a resource for and partnerships.

ti on s strategy using a big bag

of more than 2,000
keywords (available
on Github);
t To develop relationships with institutions
via email, phone calls, and meetings
so that those who contribute content
to DPLA (the source of half of Umbra
Searchs content) are aware of the impact
of declaring metadata and thumbnail
images openly available and so that
non-DPLA content can be included as
a result of legally binding data sharing
agreements, such as with collections at
Yale University, Temple University, and
the University of Massachusetts Amherst;
t To demonstrate via a user-friendly,
intuitive website and embeddable
widget how a national corpus of African
American history materials activates
research projects, scholarship, art works,
digital exhibits, and other scholarly and
creative pursuits.
scholars, students, writers, and artists, it
is also a call to action for more inclusive
collection, description, and digitization
efforts and for more partnerships to
accomplish the work still left to do.
Throughout 2017, Umbra Search African
American History is cosponsoring a series
of public events in Minnesota and nationally
to celebrate Umbra Searchs public launch.
Get involved at umbrasearchblog.org/events.
Building Trust and
Transparency
Interest in hidden collections first
stemmed from the professions need to
address backlogged (i.e., unprocessed and
uncataloged) collections. If one cannot find
the collection due to it being unprocessed,
one cannot research the collection.
Therefore a collection is hidden in the
most fundamental senseand lost from
While many of the first hidden collections
initiatives centered on single, larger
repositories accessing their own backlogs,
subsequent initiatives such as the
Black Metropolis Research Consortium
(BMRC) at the University of Chicago,
the Desegregation of Virginia Education
project (DOVE), and the DC Africana
Archives Project at George Washington
University (DCAAP; funded by the Council
on Library and Information Resources
Hidden Collections program), all focused
on building partnerships and fostering trust
between traditional archival repositories
(government, museums, and libraries)
and cultural stakeholders such as grassroots
community archives.
Such collaborative initiatives are beneficial to
both the archives and the community as they:
t Render the traditional archive a more
inclusive space for communities of color;
Continued on page 21>>

Aeon is not another front

end system. Really.
Offsite
Other systems are about description and discovery. Storage
But Aeon is about fulfillment.
Some systems help you catalog and make objects discoverable within ILS
your institution or on the Web. Others manage the creation of the Digital Assets
Management
repositories in which objects can be digitally stored, searched, and found.
Aeon unites these systems to help meet the challenges of delivering
better service to researchers, improving collection security, and Linked Data
gathering meaningful statistics to support the assessment needs of
todays institutions.

To see how Aeon fits the pieces together, sign up for

a free web demo at www.atlas-sys.com/web-demo/.

Or, email us at aeon@atlas-sys.com.
ArchivesSpace Registered Atlas Web Visibility Services
We play nice with others. www.atlas-sys.com
Service Provider
Aspace@atlas-sys.com
Zepheira Distribution Partner
aeon@atlas-sys.com

January/February 2017 A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK 5
 Sisters at Villa Marie in
How do we Elgin, Illinois. Courtesy
of Mercy Heritage Center.
provide as
much access
A Family History
as possible
while The creation of Mercy
Heritage Center as
following a central archives
location was intended
legal and to allow a single
professional staff to
ethical provide greater care
guidelines for and access to the
records. The collections
for protecting gathered at Mercy
Heritage Center
third-party consist of 5,000 linear
feet of paper records,
privacy? photographs, and

No

audiovisual and digital

F or most of the
history of the
Sisters of Mercy
material from 1843 to
approximately 2008.
Current records are
of the Americas, housed in six regional
archival collections
personnel repositories across
the country.

but
were maintained
locally in twenty-five
regional archives, During the initial
with varying levels transfer of collections
of staffing, resources, to Mercy Heritage
Center from their

personal
and access. In 2011,
through the efforts of regional locations,
sister archivists and staff had a unique
community leadership, opportunity to
Mercy Heritage Center understand the
perspectives on access
opened to serve as the
national repository for
Writing an Access and Restriction Policy held by stakeholders.
this order of Catholic for a Religious Archives Sharing their history
with the general
women religious.
public was seen as
Elizabeth Snowden Johnson, CA, Mercy Heritage Center
Founded in Ireland, a primary goal, but
the Sisters of Mercy these collections were
came to the United States in 1843 and created religious communities more than just corporate or organizational archives. The collections
across North, Central and South America, Guam and the Philippines. were viewed by many sisters as reflections of their livesboth
Seeking to meet unmet needs in their new cities, the Sisters the history of individuals and a kind of family history. As one
immediately began founding schools, hospitals, homes for women, sister archivist told the staff about the collections, You have to
orphanages, and other institutions to help those in need. remember, its not personnel, its personal.

Over time, these ministries grew into larger institutions
universities, health systems, and social service agencies.
Membership in the order grew as well, peaking at approximately
14,000 in the mid-twentieth century. Over the years archival
material generated by the sisters and their ministries was gathered
at various motherhouses, provincial headquarters, convents, and
ministry offices. This material, though scattered, comprised a
unique record reflecting the lives of the communitys members
and a variety of organizations and institutions.
Given the need to provide greater access while maintaining a
sensitivity to our stakeholders, staff needed a comprehensive policy
that would set clear limits to protect the privacy of individuals
both of sisters and of the individuals they servedbut also allow
for greater access to this rich resource. The primary question
became: how do we provide as much access as possible while
following necessary legal and ethical guidelines for protecting
third-party privacy? As a new facility, collection descriptions were
Continued on page 20>>

6 A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK January/February 2017
THE ACADEMY OF CERTIFIED ARCHIVISTS

Why Becoming
Certified Matters > It provides a competitive edge.
It strengthens the profession.
It recognizes professional
achievement and commitment.

The next Certified Archivist examination will be held July 26, 2017, in

Albuquerque, NM Des Moines, IA

Annapolis, MD Portland, OR
(at ARCHIVES 2017)
Chattanooga, TN
San Jose, CA

as well as wherever three early-bird applicants

or five regular applicants wish to take it.

The 2017 application is available at

https://certifiedarchivists.wufoo.com/forms/aca-2017-exam-application/.

For the 2017 application and more information about

the Certified Archivist examination, go to the ACA website
(www.certifiedarchivists.org/get-certified) or contact the
ACA office (518-694-8471 or aca@caphill.com).
A
civa
bonds Love and Friendship in the Archives
Heres something that archivists dont discuss muchlove.

This two-part article explores the bonds that can develop between archivists and their collections, and
what the outcomes might be for the archival profession. In part one, Colleen McFarland Rademaker, head
archivist for the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, dened love and challenged readers to think about
how they might open their hearts, beyond affection, to their collections (see Archival Outlook, November/
December 2016, pp. 1213, 29).

In this second part, David McCartney, university archivist at the University of Iowa, poignantly shares his
own deep archival encounter and the benets gained by his institution.

Part 2: Uncovering Native American rights, and rights of Initial Encounter

Friendship in the Archives
It probably goes without saying that our
first day on the jobany jobcan be
overwhelming. In addition to meeting
new coworkers, understanding our
responsibilities, and assessing what needs
to be done, archivists are also prone to make
note of people who have contributed to the
history of the community, institution, or
organization. We realize that our holdings
dont contain any documentation of these
people, and their names join our ever-
growing must contact list for their papers.
I started keeping such a list soon after I
began my job at the University of Iowa
in 2001. Sometimes the names of these
people resonate strongly with us; I admit to
a conceit that their story may in some way
align with my own.
I grew up in a small, all-white town in rural
Iowa in the 1960s, and as a child I was dimly
aware of events that were enveloping our
country: the civil rights movement, the
war in Vietnam, and later the emerging
movements for womens rights, gay rights,
persons with disabilities. By the time I
entered college in 1974, campuses had
quieted down considerably, but the legacy
of these movements persisted. I registered
for the Selective Service as a conscientious
objector the summer after I turned 18, and
in September I attended my first political
rally, protesting President Gerald Fords
pardon of Richard Nixon, who had resigned
from the presidency in disgrace just a few
weeks before.
The 1960s informed me, but I was also
detached from that decade, having grown
up in a small town. During my sophomore
year, a graduate student wrote a letter to the
editor of our campus newspaper, lamenting
the shift from activism to apathy in just a
few short years. Its been a long time since
the 1960s, he wrote. A damn long time.
My fascination with this period of US
history was rooted in admiration for
activism in its many forms as well as in a
personal longing that I wasnt born a few
years earlier.
It was in this spirit that I came across the
name Steve Smith early in my work as the
university archivist. His name appeared in
newspaper clippings; he was a sophomore
who burned his draft card in the Iowa
Memorial Union on campus in October of
1965. The protest received considerable
news coverage. Steve was only the second
person in the country to burn his draft card
following an act of Congress two months
before, which criminalized such civil
disobedience with up to five years in prison
and a $10,000 fine. And he was the first to
do so on a college campusbefore Berkeley,
before Madison, before Columbia.
I noted his name as someone to contact. But
like many items on our to-do lists, this note
languished for several years. That is, until
one day in April 2012.
On that day, I received an email from a
student, asking for anything the archives
might have on Steve Smith for a class
project. I directed this researcher to our
clippings file, but this time I resolved to

8 A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK January/February 2017
follow through on my intent to find Steve
and perhaps add to our knowledge of his
time on our campus.
First, I did what anyone would
doI googled his name. I was
disheartened to learn that he
had died three years before,
almost to the day. Immediately
I got angry for waiting too
long to contact him. And I was
suddenly grief-stricken, an
emotion that lingers today.
His obituary was brief and did
not mention his controversial
anti-war protest more than
forty years before. I decided Steve Smith at the end of an eight-day hunger strike in 1965. Courtesy of UI Archives.
that, if I couldnt meet Steve, I
could at least reach out to those who knew
himhis family, his friends, his colleagues.
And so began a journey.
A Nascent Political Activist
Steve was born on November 18, 1944, in
Marion, Iowa, a small town just outside of
Cedar Rapids. While Marion epitomized
white, middle class America, the civil rights
movement was gaining national attention
at the time of Steves high school graduation. effort to register African Americans to vote.
January/February 2017
With the movements rise came violent
opposition from white supremacists such
as the Ku Klux Klan.
In Mississippi, intimidation of black
residents attempting to register to vote
was so strong and violent that in 1962
only seven percent of Mississippi s black
residents over the age of 21 were actually
registeredthe lowest number in the
country. In response, several civil rights
organizations banded together to form the
Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) Steve was assigned to work in COFOs
and organized the Mississippi Summer
Project, later called Freedom Summer, an
Word about Freedom Summer spread
across the country. At the University of
Iowa, about twenty students, including
Stevenow a freshman, attended a
meeting of the local chapter
of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee at the
Iowa Memorial Union in April
of 1964. A month later, Steve
was selected, along with 800
volunteers, by COFO to work
in Mississippi.
Freedom Summer
The work was dangerous. Just
as Freedom Summer was
getting underway, three civil
rights workers were reported
missing. Several weeks later, the bodies
of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and
Mickey Schwerner were discovered, the
victims of Ku Klux Klan-instigated violence.
For reasons of safety, organizers gave
workers the option to return home. Nearly
all elected to stay, including Steve.
headquarters in Jackson. His duties
Continued on page 23>>
A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK 9
 THE Truth
The Historic Role of Archives in Confronting Appalachian Stereotypes
Gene Hyde, Ramsey Library, University of North Carolina at Asheville
W ith J. D. Vances Hillbilly Elegy
making The New York Times
nonfiction bestseller list in 2016, scholars
of the Appalachian region are, once again,
confronting Appalachian stereotypes in the
national media. Sociologist Dwight Billings,
founder of the University of Kentuckys
Appalachian Center and a respected
Appalachian scholar, wrote this in a review
of Hillbilly Elegy: Vance knows little about
contemporary Appalachiacertainly not
the regions vibrant grassroots struggles to
build a post-coal economy . . . His inventory
of pathological Appalachian traits
violence, fatalism, learned helplessness,
poverty as a family traditionreads like a
catalog of stereotypes Appalachian scholars
have worked so long to dispel . . . It makes
as much sense as generalizing about Italian
Americans from Tony Soprano.
Billings comments are the latest in a
decades-long effort by scholars, archivists,
and librarians to confront Appalachian
stereotypes. When President Lyndon
Johnson came to the Kentucky coal fields
in 1964 to announce the War on Poverty,
the result was a national media blitz that
presented Appalachia as a destitute region
filled with poorly educated people lacking
10 A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK
IS IN THE ARCHIVES
basic resourcesa limited and incomplete
depiction of a region that includes far more
than coal fields. These representations
were part of a long tradition, dating back
to the nineteenth century, of portraying
Appalachia as a place of otherness that
was culturally and economically apart from
the rest of American civilization.
In 1966, in reaction to these stereotypes,
West Virginia Universitys director of
libraries Robert F. Munn issued a call to
archivists and scholars. Commenting
that more nonsense has been written
about the Southern Mountains than any
comparable area in the United States,
Munn observed that the lack of good
research about Appalachia was partially
because there is distressingly little in
the way of useful primary and secondary
material about the region. Lamenting this
extreme paucity of reliable sources, both
printed and manuscript, Munn predicted
an increase of archival collections within
Appalachia: It seems only a matter of
time before we see the development of a
number of comprehensive collections on the
Appalachian region. Good research required
good primary resource collections, and
Munn saw this interrelationship
Above photo: People watch a parade in downtown
Asheville, North Carolina, circa 1960s. Courtesy of the
Isaiah Rice Photograph Collection, Special Collections,
UNC Asheville. Copyright Darin Waters.
as critical in developing a body
of credible Appalachian scholarship.
Appalachian scholars echoed Munns
cry. Cratis D. Williams of Appalachian
State University was a key figure in the
development of Appalachian studies as
an interdisciplinary field. His dissertation
The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction
(New York University, 1961) is the definitive
study of Appalachian fiction, and he is
credited with teaching the first course in
the field that is now Appalachian studies.
Like Munn, Williams also called for the
development of Appalachian archival
collections. In his 1976 speech The Role
of Appalachias Colleges in Appalachias
Future, he described the importance
of special collections for studying the
region, citing existing collections at Berea
College, Appalachian State University, East
Tennessee State University, West Virginia
University, and others as examples. He
issued this call:
Continued on page 22>>
January/February 2017
 stuff. To see the name in print, official, real.
stu Dad was tone deaf; he usually played rhythm instead of singing,
Th
Those distant future relatives probably wont thank goodness.
get tennis elbow from turning the lever on the
microfilm
mi reader constantly, but Im betting

the still go cross-eyed and have an aching
theyll Once there was a letter from my grandmother to my mother, stating
hea from staring at tiny print on a screen.
head Well, I dont have anything to say because you were the news this
week, not long after my parents eloped to Vegas. I know this letter
There
Th are very few letters, no diaries, just a
existed because my mom has told me the story. I dont know where
few birthday or Christmas cards that I keep
this letter went, if it survived multiple moves, if my mother decided
bec
because theyre a little more substantive than
it wasnt important, if a child got hold of it and made it into a
l
a love you, Jerry or -s- signature line.
coloring book. (All those checks survived multiple moves, why not
There
Th used to be letters; my mother used to
the letters, too?)
correspond
cor regularly with her mother and
sib
siblings, but I have no idea where theyve Neither of my parents kept diaries, so far as I know. The few letters I
gone.
gon She took to email and then texting later found, cleaning out the records of the house, I set aside safely into a
in h
her older years. She and I even wrote a single folder. The formal correspondence from lawyers and bankers
short
sho story over text once, round-robin style. isnt in that folder. The letters from my aunt to my dad, the cards
At least I still have that, laboriously copied between my parents when they were younger. The round-robin
andd pasted
t d into
i t a word
d processing file since I knew that texts on a birthday card from my mom and all her siblings, a ritual they had
phone would never last. (The word processing file has been saved as years and years ago when most of them were still alive. I labeled this
a pdf/A in my Dropbox account, in case you were wondering.) folder Personal in pencil.

I wonder, would those letters tell my mothers stories? Would they
give me a different perspective on her? On my dad?
 latter half of the twentieth century. Who cares if their stories fade
My mom liked to tell stories. She married my dad for his brown
eyes because everyone in her family had blue eyes. She and my
dad eloped to Vegas before it was popular; I suppose youll see that
on the marriage certificate. But what about when they met each
other, not even six months before they got married, early in the fall
semester at college, mom singing with the piano player at the bar
and dad banging away at the salad bowl for a spontaneous drum?
Does it matter that their stories arent written down? My parents
werent famous, my dad was a newspaper writer, not a novelist. My
mother was the curiosity of the dying breed of housewife in the
with their passing?

You can probably find hints of my dad still, if you read through the
local newspaper over the decades and happen to notice a consistent
byline. When he died, somebody at the newspaper still remembered
him, nine years after he retired, and they found an old picture

Someone You Should Know

Marcella Huggard
W hen your professional and personal lives collide, write about
it! At least, thats what Marcella (Wiget) Huggard did in
Family Stories, which won our second Archives Short Fiction
SAA: What inspired the idea
behind Family Stories?

Contest. Huggard is the manuscripts coordinator at the Kenneth MH: I have a confession to make:
Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas, in charge the idea was based on a true story,
of coordinating the processing of manuscripts in the Special as they say. In the past couple
Collections, Kansas Collection, and University Archives personal of years, both my parents have
papers. Previously, she worked at the Kansas Historical Society in passed away and I have served as
Marcella Huggard
the State Archives, first as project archivist, later as government administrator for their estates. The
records archivist, and then as public records program supervisor. thoughts my protagonist had in the story are very much what
She received her MA in history from Colorado State UniversityFort Ive been struggling with through this processwhat to keep, what
Collins with a concentration in public history and her BA in history to destroy, what to send to whom, how to remember my mother
from Knox College. and father.

We talked with Huggard about the real-life inspiration behind her SAA: Are you often tasked with archiving responsibilities
winning entry and whats on her reading shelf. in your own family?
14 A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK January/February 2017
of him sitting at his desk at work, covered in piles of folders and
research. (I think about my own desk at work, covered in piles of
folders and research: like father, like daughter.) They put the picture permeating the house, like when I jumped off the bus after school in
with the article they wrote about him, full color, separate from the
obituary, scrounged up a couple of other old-timer editors and staff
for quotes. It mattered to
us. It mattered to us that,
The rules are different here,
when we were talking about
the arrangements, the under these circumstances, and funeral; the dresses she made me as a little girl, locked
funeral director stopped
when he recognized the rules arent necessarily mine, away in her hope chest. She was a maker of things, not
Dads name and got the or those of my profession.
newspaper to give us the
obit for free. I still have the
article, tucked away with all the other estate paperwork, still on its
original acidic newsprint.
The hints of my mother probably lie best in her library, dispersed
among us children and the rest of the world. Receipts and grocery
lists for bookmarks, photographs of her own and her siblings
children. She willed me her mysteries, my sister the craft books, my
brother everything else. (She and I had many discussions about the
relative merits of Rex Stouts Archie Goodwin versus Erle Stanley
Gardners Donald Lam.) I grabbed her Betty Crocker cookbook from
1969, falling apart from so much use, the spine almost completely
gone. No conservator will ever see this book, it will disintegrate
within my lifetime. I have the recipes she laboriously typed out for
me on the computer she bought when I was going away to college
(she was damned if she wasnt going to be able to email me), her
handwritten notes scribbled in the margin of the sugar cookie
recipe because, good grief, its cup, not cup of shortening. No
wonder my cookies never turned out right in grad school. Im still
scared any time I work with this recipe.
MH: My family likes to call on me with housing questions, or
I like to butt in on conversations with housing suggestions or
demandsGet that picture out of that frame! Dont just throw
those papers in that filing cabinet, organize them! But prior to my
parents passing, I avoided dealing with their records at all costs,
much as they did. Taking a more active role earlier with their records
would have helped later, though Im not sure my parents would
have appreciated me nagging them about their tax returns and
refrigerator manuals.
SAA: What would you advise non-archivists going through
a late relatives les?
MH: Youre going to be overwhelmed. One way to cope is to break it
down into smaller chunks of effortjust focus on this box today, or
that pile on the corner of the table, or this section of a filing cabinet.
If you can, take your time. Sort through the necessary stuff to keep
(legal documents, documents about the house or other properties,
recent medical info or other matters that might have led to bills)
and the stuff you want to keep or you think somebody else in the
family will want. Dont forget electronic records, which can be easy
to do when it seems so invisiblemake sure you have or can gain
January/February 2017
I regret I never learned to make bread with her, never took the time
nor had the confidence. I miss the smell of freshly baked yeast rolls
the fall and winter.
Perhaps her story is best told in objects after all, not
words, not text. The ceramics she made, showing up
in everyones home; the frogs she collected and only
a handful of which we were able to hand out at her
so much a writer.

Not everyone ends up in an archives, after all. My
fathers stories are imaged onto microfilm that may or may not last
the 500 years promised by the vendors, and my mothers stories
well. Ill remember and write down what I can for her and hope
that its enough for both of us.
My mother married my father for his brown eyes, and that can be
where my story begins.
Marcella Huggard
Honorable Mentions
The Backlog by Christine Borne
The Tell-Tale Diary by Susan J. Illis
Night, Memory by Jona Whipple
To read the honorable mentions
and for more information about the contest, go to
http://www2.archivists.org/2016-fiction-contest.
access to your relatives email, social media, and other electronic
accounts, especially if they were very active online. Deal with
what you have to immediately, but if at all possible save the really
emotional stuff until youre ready to look at it. My family photos are
still hiding in a closet until I can face looking at them.
And if you have an archivist friend or family member, talk to
themthey can help!
SAA: Whats currently on your reading shelf?
MH: Right now Im reading a lot of graphic novels and history
booksAlison Bechdel, Allie Brosh, a book on the history of
Scotland and a book on 1215 and King John signing the Magna
Carta. After I get through these I might turn to a mystery, and Ive
been meaning to reread Douglas Adams The Hitchhikers Guide to
the Galaxy series for a while now. Variety in reading, much as in
my career, is a great thing.
Huggard would like to thank Lisa Dickson, who has been reading
and critiquing her work for almost 15 years, including this story. She
dedicates Family Stories to her friend Jen Levin, who passed away
this fall.
A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK 15
 ARCHIVES 2017: alike/different
2017 A N N U A L M E E T I N G I N P O R T L A N D

Terry Baxter, Multnomah County Archives and SAA Program Committee Chair

W e are less than seven months away

from alike/different, SAAs 2017 Annual
Meeting, at the Oregon Convention Center
in Portland from July 23 to July 29. While
that may still seem like a long way off, the
program committee has already been working
hard to ensure that the program content
will be challenging, informative, andin
the spirit of the Principles and Priorities for
Continuously Improving the SAA Annual
Meetingcreative and innovative.
While the 2017 Annual Meeting includes
new approaches to education content, it
also continues traditional and recently
developed processes. A call for proposals for
education sessions and posters went out in
September and closed in November 2016.
A total of 160 session proposals and 36
poster proposals were received. The program
committee is evaluating these proposals to
determine which of them will be presented
in July. The process is competitiveonly
about a third of the session proposals will
be selected.
The 2017 program committee has also
continued recent innovations. Pop-up
sessions, first introduced in 2015 at the
Cleveland meeting, will be called for in early
2017. Pop-up sessions allow for proposals
discussing timely topics or issues and for
members to vote for the ones they prefer.
The committee also created a Google
spreadsheet as an informal tool to connect
individuals seeking ideas or collaboration
on session proposals for the 2017 Annual
Meeting. This idea was introduced for the
2016 Atlanta meeting and has received
positive feedback the last two years.
One thing that is new for the 2017 Annual
Meeting will be The Liberated Archives:
A Forum for Envisioning and Implementing a
Community-Based Approach to Archives. Held
all day on Saturday, July 29, the purpose
of The Liberated Archives is to convene
community members, organizers, activists,
archivists, and professional allies to engage
with each other as equal partners in the
pursuit of justice, freedom, and liberation
work. A subcommittee has developed a
concept and structure to guide the forum,
working with the program committee to
refine the design of the forum. A special call
for proposals will be issued in mid-January
2017 for forum content.
The intended result of all of this work
by the committee members, SAA staff, the
folks who proposed sessions and posters,
and community members in Portland
is an education program that will have
something useful for as many attendees as
possible. alike/different will have an arc. The
sessions on Thursday and Friday provide
practical, theoretical, and social knowledge
that will build toward direct engagement
with communities and their archives
needs on Saturday.
The program committee is committed to
using alike/different both to challenge and to
enrich the lives of archivists and the people
they work with. We cant wait to see you all
in Portland this summer!

KUDOS

Kara Adams is SAAs new director of
education. Previously, she served as program
coordinator and then as program manager
for Knowledge and Learning at the Institute
of Food Technologists. A newly minted
Certified Association Executive, she received
the Association Forum of Chicagolands Forty
Under 40 Award in 2016. Kara succeeds Solveig De Sutter, who
retired in January after a lengthy career in the association manage-
ment field, the last sixteen years with SAA. Welcome aboard, Kara!
Ronald L. Becker retired from the Rutgers
University Libraries after 43 years of service,
the last 25 of which were spent as head of
Special Collections and University Archives.
Becker oversaw a period of unprecedented
growth for the library and helped it become
the largest repository of New Jersey history
and culture. Becker has held offices in more than a dozen profes-
sional, state and county government, and historical organizations
and has won numerous awards for his contributions. He has been a
tireless champion for New Jersey history through lobbying efforts,
including testimony at legislative hearings and meetings with New
Jerseys congressional delegation.
Maria R. Estorino is the new director of
the Louis Round Wilson Library and associ-
ate university librarian for special collec-
tions at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill Library. Estorino will provide
leadership for and administration of research
and instructional services, cataloging and
archival processing, and conservation departments.
Derek Christian Quezada has been
appointed outreach and public services
librarian for special collections and archives
at the University of California, Irvine
Libraries.
Michelle Sweetser has been appointed
head librarian and university archivist
at the Center for Archival Collections at
Bowling Green State University. She will be
responsible for setting vision and achieving
and assessing strategic initiatives for the
center, which includes collections related to
Northwest Ohio history, Midwest literature, and student affairs.

16 A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK January/February 2017
 SOCIETY OF AMERICAN ARCHIVISTS
2017 RESEARCH FORUM
FOU N DATI ONS A N D I N N O VAT I O N S
Tuesday, July 25, 9:00 am5:00 pm sOregon Convention Center
CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS / CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS
If youre engaged in research, seeking to identify research-
based solutions for your institution, willing to participate in
the research cycle by serving as a beta site for research trials,
or simply interested in whats happening in research and
innovation, then join us for the 11th annual SAA Research
Forum: Foundations and Innovations!
Researchers, practitioners, educators, students, and
the curious across all sectors of archives and records
management are invited to participate. Use the Forum
to discuss, debate, plan, organize, evaluate, or motivate
research projects and initiatives. The event seeks to
facilitate collaboration and help inform researchers about
what questions and problems need to be tackled.
Archivists from around the country and the world will
convene at ARCHIVES 2017, the Annual Meeting of SAA in
Portland, July 2329. The Research Forum will provide a
CALL FOR PLATFORM AND POSTER PRESENTATIONS
SAA invites submission of abstracts (of 250 words or
fewer) for either 10-minute platform presentations or
poster presentations. Topics may address research on,
or innovations in, any aspect of archives practice or
records management in government, corporate, academic,
scientific, or other setting. Presentations on research
results that may have emerged since the call for proposals
deadline are welcome, as are reports on research
completed within the past three years that you think is
relevant and valuable for discussion. Abstracts will be
evaluated by a review committee co-chaired by Nancy
McGovern (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and
Helen Tibbo (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill).
January/February 2017
platform to acknowledge currentand encourage future
research and innovation from across the broad archives
community and for the benet of the archives profession.
Research Forum Events
at ARCHIVES 2017
The following events are planned for 2017:
s 2ESEARCH0RESENTATIONSAND0OSTERS(Tuesday,
July 25, 9:00 am5:00 pm): Heres your chance to
present, discuss, listen to, or view research reports and
results on a variety of topics. The nal thirty minutes of this
session will seek input for SAAs 2018 Research Forum.
s 0OSTER3ESSIONS Be sure to make time to visit the poster
sessions, which will include practice innovation and
research topics.
Deadline for submission of abstracts:
May 1, 2017.
You will be notified of the review committees decision
by July 1 (in advance of the Early-Bird registration
deadline).
Submit your 250-word abstract no later than May 1 via
email to researchforum@archivists.org.
Please be sure to include: Presentation title,
your name, affiliation, email address, and
whether your proposal is for a platform or
poster presentation.
A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK 17
 FROM THE ARCHIVIST OF THE UNITED STATES
David S. Ferriero
National Archives and Records Administration
david.ferriero@nara.gov
Presidential Library Museums Get
New Looks
In 2016, we marked the 75th anniversary
of the founding of the presidential library
system. When President Franklin Roosevelt
dedicated his library in 1941, he shared
his vision to make available to future
Americans the story of what we have lived
and are living today.
As decades pass, our understanding of
past events changes. As more records
are processed and declassified, history is
rewritten. In Who Owns History, Eric Foner
wrote: History always has been and always
will be regularly rewritten, in response
to new questions, new information, new
methodologies, and new political, social, and
cultural imperatives. . . . Who owns history?
Everyone and no onewhich is why the
study of the past is a constantly evolving
neverending journey of discovery.
New information and new ways of looking
at history create a need and an opportunity
to revisit how we tell our stories. In recent
years, the majority of presidential libraries
have redesigned their permanent galleries or
are planning to make major improvements.
These efforts have brought refreshed
exhibits, new technology, and creative
interactive experiences that allow visitors
to better understand the context of each
presidents life and times.
In 2016, both the Gerald R. Ford Museum
in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the Richard
Nixon Library and Museum in Yorba Linda,
California, reopened after months-long
renovations, offering visitors striking new
exhibits with cutting-edge interactives and
18 A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK
historically balanced assessments of our
37th and 38th presidents.
The Ford Museum welcomed back visitors
to its galleries and the new DeVos Learning
Center in June. The Nixon Library and
Museum reopened in October. The rede-
signed exhibits, except for the more recently
installed Watergate exhibit, now feature
President Nixons secretly recorded tapes
and his handwritten notes as part of their
displays.
Who owns history?
Everyone and no one
which is why the study of
the past is a constantly
evolving neverending
journey of discovery.
These two recent renovations continue a
long line of major museum redesigns. The
Jimmy Carter Library in Atlanta began the
trend in 2009 with new exhibits about the
Carter presidency and the former presidents
international work in the years since he
left office. The next to modernize was
the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley,
California, which reopened eighteen new
galleries in 2011. A major renovation in
2012 at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library
in Austin, Texas, gave the exhibit space a
completely new look.
The most extensive redesign project,
however, took place at the Franklin D.
Roosevelt Library and Museum in Hyde Park,
New York. From 2010 to 2013, the library
embarked on its first full-scale renovation
since the building opened to the public in
June 1941. The new permanent exhibits
offer a fresh look on the Roosevelt presidency
and the lives of Franklin and Eleanor
Roosevelt. The John F. Kennedy Library
in Boston refreshed its exhibit galleries in
2015, adding digital imagery and installing
interactive components featuring assets from
the Kennedy Librarys digital archives.
And there are more changes still to come.
The Harry S. Truman and Dwight D.
Eisenhower Libraries are working with their
foundations to develop design plans for
their respective museums. The Eisenhower
Library in Abilene, Kansas, is planning to
unveil its new display spaces in June 2017.
The Truman Library in Independence,
Missouri, is targeting a 2020 reopening.
The museums in the presidential library
system are in the strongest shape they
have been in their history. I am especially
proud of these efforts which help give
new shine to these jewels in the National
Archives crownand wish to express
my appreciation for the support of the
presidential library foundations, which were
our key partners in each redesign effort.
If you have not visited a presidential library
lately, come by and see what weve been
up to. The museum experiences we offer
visitors are more engaging than ever!
January/February 2017
Not Personnel but Personal
continued from page 6
not standardized and staff was just starting
to gain expertise in the subject matter. The
first task then was to understand what
types of records existed in the collections.
Categorizing the Records
Records could be grouped into two
main categories. The first, community
records, relate to the Sisters of Mercy
as an organization and the records of
individual sisters lives. This includes
finances, property, minutes and papers
of leadership groups, reports, forms, and
other documentation generated by large
organizations. This category also includes
documentation of individual livesa
sisters application to the order, her personal
photographs, diplomas, and travel diaries.
The second category, ministry records,
includes organizational and foundational
records of hospitals, universities, parochial
schools, orphanages, and agencies created to
provide affordable housing, healthcare, and
outreach to the economically poor. Records
in this category range from blueprints
of hospitals to board minutes to surgery
ledgers, and from photographs of orphans
to school yearbooks.
For community records, the clear guidelines
for access were the preference of the sisters
themselves. After consultation with a
network of Mercy archivists and sisters in
leadership, broad time-based restrictions
were set for administrative material.
Material related to individual deceased
sisters is carefully screened for privacy
concerns prior to access. Living sisters are
consulted regarding access to materials:
if their personal material resides in the
archives, they may decide if they wish to
allow research access during their lifetime.
Ministry records were a more complicated
issue, due to the variety of records found
in the collections. A general survey of the
collections contents showed groups of
materials that fit into several categories:
education records, including correspondence
and transcripts; health records, including
surgery logs, admission ledgers and
photographs; case files and logs from
social service ministries; and thousands
20 A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK
may reflect a painful
or difficult moment
in the life of the
religious community.
In these situations,
staff compiles a
packet containing
contextual
information
and an access
recommendation
to the sisters main
governing body,
who make a final
decision on the
Sister Maureen McGarrigle from the Sisters of Mercy and former archivist of the level of access. This
Detroit Regional Community. Courtesy of Mercy Heritage Center. method of internal
review is intended to
of photographs depicting individuals function as a communication tool between
being served by ministrieshospital and staff and sisters, allowing staff to present
leprosarium patients, orphans, students, reasons for access and allowing the religious
and others. community to retain agency over a past that
is at once a larger organizational history and
an extremely personal story.
Setting Guidelines
Once the areas of concern had been
What were our guidelines? In some cases, established and proposals for access and
privacy laws applied; in other instances, restrictions had been outlined for subject
there were ethical areas, our next step
issues to consider. was to have the
For student
transcripts, FERPA
The collections were viewed policy reviewed by a
lawyer. Since Mercy
clearly applied by many sisters as reflections Heritage Center is
and records could of their livesboth the the archives of a
be restricted
accordingly. Others history of individuals and Catholic religious
community, it made
records, like case a kind of family history. sense to work with a
files, were obviously lawyer who practiced
private and could both canon and civil
be deaccessioned law. Once the policy had been submitted for
and possibly transferred to an appropriate legal review, it was then submitted to the
agency. In other cases, best practice Sisters of Mercy leadership for approval.
or respectful intentions seemed more
applicable. As an entity not covered by
HIPAA, we chose to respect the spirit of
Putting the Plan into Action
the law and restrict records for long periods
Although we now have a reviewed and
and redact records when requested for
approved access and restrictions policy in
research purposes. For photographs of
hand, work in this area is just beginning.
third parties, we chose to limit publication
Our next steps will focus on the processes
options to those showing individuals in
necessary for implementation, beginning
a respectful lightfor example, hospital
with more clearly identifying material that
patients who were clearly aware that a
fits into various access categories. This
photo was being taken.
will include broader collection assessment
In addition to administrative and personal and processes for marking, removing, or
materials, staff soon found that a third otherwise managing restricted records, and,
category of records was neededthat of of course, adapting and updating the policy
sensitive records. These records do not meet as the details of the records more clearly
any legal requirements for restrictions, but unfold.
January/February 2017
Radical Partnership projects. Most recently, the IMLS awarded by the University of California, Los Angeles.
continued from page 5 $98,680 to a project on Diversifying the The three remaining forums (open to the
Digital Historical Record: Integrating public) will convene in 2017 in New Orleans,
t Respond to emerging funder and donor Community Archives in National Strategies Chicago, and New York City.
requests to cast a vision for the future of for Access to Digital Cultural Heritage. The
Amistad Research Center, in collaboration
community archives, which emphasizes Rewarding and Radical
collaboration both inside and outside the with the Shorefront Legacy Center, the
South Asian American Digital Archive,
repository; and Examining the unique characteristics of each
Mukurtu, and Inland Empire Memories at
t Form partnerships with our communities of these partnerships highlighted several
the University of CaliforniaRiverside will
to shape what we common themes. Taking time to develop
host a series of
collect and interpret authentic relationships with partners is the
public forums
and to reach historically We will no longer collect, focusing on first step in building a collaborative project.
silenced audiences. Recognizing the value of each partner
arrange, and describe community
archives affords opportunities for sharing resources
As community partnerships within a vacuum; were that remove barriers to access and enhance
are strengthened through integration
professional outreach
meaningfully involving with the goal collection usage. Much of collaborative work
the community as an of increasing is considerably greater than one anticipates:
and education, we build a
representation partnerships are developed email after
foundation of trust with active participant in of marginalized email, phone call upon voicemail; content
cultural stakeholders.
We will no longer collect,
achieving true inclusivity. communities is identified not through search strategies
and people in or finding aids, but through one-on-one
arrange, and describe
within a vacuum; were meaningfully our national digital cultural heritage. This conversations with curators and subject
involving the community as an active series of four regional public forums is librarians. It is commitment to these
participant in achieving true inclusivity. among the first designed to critically engage long processes that makes collaboration
in solutions-based conversations around rewarding and radical.
Following the success of the BMRC, DOVE, the future of community archives and
This article is based on the panel discussion, Out of the
and DCAAP efforts, funders such as the digital cultural heritage. The projects first
Shadows: Bringing Black Collections Together through
Institute of Museum and Library Services forum, Definition, Commonalities and Radical Partners at ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2016, the
(IMLS) awarded grants for projects that Divergences: What are community archives? Joint Annual Meeting of the Council of State Archivists
highlight collaboration as a way to sustain took place in October 2016 and was hosted and the Society of American Archivists in Atlanta.

January/February 2017 A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK 21
Unearthing a Time Capsule the scanned photographs on Facebook, again received a package from Paraguay, which
on a Time Crunch attempting to crowdsource information. included a thank you note and t-shirt
continued from page 3 commemorating the 60th anniversary
Found! of the time capsule, with the US Embassys
seal on the front.
through the images. There was Ambassador
On September 18, exactly one month after
Ageton speaking at the podium. In another,
President Stroessner and Ageton, trowels in
the 60th anniversary of the ceremony, An Expanding User Base
Ambassador Bassett emailed me to say
hand, are bent at the waist smoothing out
cement. Another showed the stage, lined they had located the time capsule! In one We all know that being thanked publicly is
with streamers, where a gentleman in a suit of the photos, the house in the background hardly the point of archival work. In fact,
raised the American flag, onlookers holding still stands today and served as a point of sometimes it seems that the more quietly
their hats to their hearts. reference for their search. Eventually, they successful our work, the better we are doing
used a ground scanner our job. As an adjunct faculty member of
Loose journal pages for to narrow the search Simmons Colleges School of Library and
the year 1956 were found
Many of our collections area and dug five feet Information Science, I have talked with my
in another envelope. I are like time capsules. down to find the brick students a great deal about the changes
flipped to the summer and concrete pit. in reference services, the growth in user
months. Many of Agetons expectations, and the different ways archives
entries documented his health and his A week later the time capsule was extracted are being used. We are no longer responsible
day-to-day activities. Then, in an entry and given several days to acclimate to its merely to researchers in the humanities,
for Saturday, 18 August 1956, I found the new environment. The embassy opened studying history or literature. Our user base
following paragraph: the capsule privately, as it was clear that has expanded tremendously, helped in part
the pipe had been compromised over the by the growth of Web 2.0 technologies and
Next, Hutch and Barr filled the time tube, a brass decades. Water had seeped into the tube,
tube about three feet long that had once been digital archives initiatives. These, in addition
but luckily, despite some water damage, to other institutional web presences, have
the cylinder of a water pump, with significant
papers. The tube was carried down into the pit most of the contents dried out well and increased the publics awareness of archival
below us (lined with brick with a railing around were able to be displayed. The capsule repositories as a resource for a variety of
it decorated with red, white and blue streamers contained: a photograph of the newspaper research needsfrom dissertations to
and containing a small aperature [sic] of concrete El Pais, which featured a front-page story documentaries to time capsules.
at the bottom. Into this, the President and I put on General Harrison, one of the guests
the tube, two mozos sloshed in some concrete mentioned in Agetons journal entry; a US Many of our collections are like time
mix, and we smoothed them out with silver
one dollar silver certificate; a Paraguayan capsules, sometimes left untouched for
trowels appro-priately [sic] engraved with data
of the occasion and which were recuerdos of the 100-guarani note; three newspapers of the years only to be opened and explored from
occasion for the President and me. day; a copy of Ambassador Agetons speech; new perspectives, under new circumstances,
a personal message from the Papal Nuncio, and with new eyes. Our records offer
Time tube! We now had substantial pieces in attendance at the ceremony; an event something unique to each user who gains
of the puzzle. I scanned the five-page journal program; General Harrisons visit schedule; access, one no more important than
entry for August 18, as well as the black-and- and plans for the new embassy, which were another. It is this dynamic user base that
white prints documenting the ceremony, unfortunately ruined by water. not only challenges us as professionals to
and emailed them to Ambassador Bassett think more broadly about our collections
on April 13. In July, Ambassador Bassett The contents of the time capsule were and their uses, but also gives us a nice
shared via email that they had narrowed informally and temporarily displayed at the respite from traditional reference work.
down possible locations for the time capsule embassy entrance and the local newspaper,
on the embassy grounds but still had not Ultima Hora, covered the story on its front Besides, who doesnt love a treasure hunt
found it. With our permission, she posted page. In late October, the Gotlieb Center every once in a while?

The Truth Is in the Archives
continued from page 10
Appalachian colleges should be the depositories
of the history of Appalachia. Every college in the
region should collect . . . documents, manuscripts,
diaries, and other evidences of the past history,
culture, art, music, literature, religion, and social
customs of the region served immediately by
the college.
Williams 1976 speech came during a decade
of tremendous growth in Appalachian
studies and collections. What would become Scholarship also increaseda bibliography of
the Appalachian Studies Association was Appalachian studies scholarship from 1994
formed soon after Williamss speech. In to 2012 alone runs over a thousand pages.
1978, Appalachian archivists and scholars
Robert Munn and Cratis Williams both
met at the University of Kentucky for a
recognized the importance of Appalachian
conference on Appalachian sources with the
archival collections to Appalachian
intention to explore the present status of
scholarship. As Billings review of Vances
Appalachian collections and to consider the
book indicates, the need to confront
problems of documenting and preserving
whatever nonsense is written about
the history and culture of the region, and the region is still very much alive.
a number of Appalachian collections were
founded or expanded during the decade.

22 A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK January/February 2017
Archival Bonds
continued from page 9
included delivering voter registration
materials around the state. On the night
of July 15, while en route to Greenwood,
he and his coworker, Eric Morton, were
stopped by sheriffs deputies and several
White Citizens Council members ten miles
outside of Jackson. Steve was severely
beaten and, with Eric, detained in a nearby
jail for three days.
The incident, one of 60 occurring between
1962 and 1964, is recounted in an affidavit
signed by Eric Morton in Mississippi
Black Paper, a report issued by the US
Commission on Civil Rights. The incident
would haunt Steve for the rest of his life,
in the form of recurring nightmares.
Public Protest
Steves political activism continued
after he returned to Iowa. In March of
1965, he led an eight-day hunger strike
in front of the Iowa City post office to
raise money for civil rights workers
in Selma, Alabama. The action raised
more than $4,000.
In the fall, Steve turned his attention
to the war in Vietnam. At the student
unions weekly open mic session,
he burned his draft card in a public
protest that led to his arrest by the
FBI two days later. He was later tried
and convicted in US District Court in
Des Moines and sentenced to three
years probation. He never returned to
the university and, though the protest
era was well underway, he was largely Steve Smith, with his wife Barbara, after his stroke. Courtesy of
forgotten in the years that followed. UI Archives.
Documenting a Life
Not long after I began my journey to learn
more about Steve, I met his widow Barbara
over coffee at a restaurant in Marion. That
morning she brought photo albums, sharing
with me her memories of her late husband.
She described how he was followed by
FBI informants for several years after his
sentencing, how it was nearly impossible
for him to keep a job during that time. She
January/February 2017
told me they met in Madison, Wisconsin,
in 1991 and married eight years later. By
this time Steve was a professor of computer
science at a community college in Cedar
Rapids. It was the second marriage for both
of them, and the newlyweds were looking
forward to full and enriching lives together.
About a year after they married, as Steve
was leaving work and walking to his car, he
suddenly collapsed. He had suffered a heart
attack and stroke. He survived but, because
of oxygen deprivation for several minutes,
never fully recovered.
As Barbara recalled, he had the functionality
of a five-year-old child for the remainder
of his life. Steve died nine years later, in
2009, at the age of 64, in an assisted care
facility in Waterloo. Barbara said the stroke
robbed Steve of his memoryhe no longer
recognized herwith the exception of that
terrible night in Mississippi. Despite his
stroke, his nightmares did not stop.
As Barbara recounted his story, I held her
words close. After we said goodbye and
agreed to keep in touch, I walked out to
my car and wrote down everything I could
remember, filling two pages of a legal pad.
And then I sobbed, uncontrollably, for a
few minutes.
Since that meeting over coffee with
Barbara, I have met and interviewed about
a dozen people who knew Steve, including
his two children, his academic mentor, two
of his roommates, several of his high school
classmates, two people who witnessed his
anti-war protest, and his sole surviving
brother.
The archives has also obtained a transcript
of his trial and FBI file, both from the
National Archives, and we have located
correspondence in our own records
confirming that the president of the
university had implored the US Attorney
General, Robert Kennedy, to ensure the
safety of Iowa students in Mississippi.
Coincidentally, the letter was written
two days before Steves attack.
The Lessons of Steve Smith
What have I learned from Steve, and what
does he continue to teach me, even in death?
In personal terms, Steve forces me to ask
myself: What would I have done if presented
with the same circumstances? He has
led me to understand better the civil
rights movementand todays Black
Lives Matter movementnot only in
my head, but also in my heart. Frankly,
I am not proud of the fact that it was
through the experience of another
white boy from small town Iowa that
I came to understand more fully the
burden of racism and its continuing
ugly presence today.
In professional terms, meeting Steve
has opened doors for the university
archives. Additional collections have
arrived, including the papers of Eric
Morton, who said that, because of
his friendship with Steve and their
shared experience that summer in
Mississippi, it was his wish that his
papers be housed alongside Steves.
Documenting Steves life has also opened
another doorthe formation of the
Historical Iowa Civil Rights Network, an
initiative to identify collections around the
state pertaining to civil rights activism. To
date, twelve repositories are participating.
As we meet others and learn of their
experiences, we walk with them. Love
and friendship in the archives, indeed.
A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK 23
 FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Nancy P. Beaumont
nbeaumont@archivists.org

The 2016 SAA Foundation Donors

2016 was a remarkable year for the SAA Foundation: We awarded our first Strategic Growth Fund
grant$2,000 to Ed Benoit of Louisiana State University for his research project to develop a concrete set
of best practices recommendations for the use of user-generated description within moving image collections.
The Mosaic Scholarship Fund was revitalized, with generous contributions during a dedicated #DayofGiving
on June 20 and our Rosa Parkss Featherlite Peanut Butter Pancake break at the Joint Annual Meeting in
Atlanta. The Foundation Board was fully populated with a committed group of volunteers. And we set new
records in both fundraising (a very GRAND total of $72,648!) and number of donors (413!).

Heres to those who contributed to our record-setting yearand whose generosity will make it possible for
the Foundation to continue to grow in 2017:

PRESIDENTS CIRCLE (More than $5,000): Fynnette L. Eaton. PHILANTHROPIST ($1,001 to $2,500): Nancy Perkin Beaumont,
The John Blom Foundation, Richard A Cameron, Maygene F Daniels, Geoffrey A Huth, Maarja Krusten, Wilda D Logan, Dennis E
Meissner, Johanna M Russ, Margery N Sly, Carla M Summers, Lisa Weber, Helena Zinkham. FOUNDER ($501 to $1,000): Thomas
Battle, Marie P Carr, Jackie M Dooley, Peter B Hirtle, History Associates Inc, Randall C Jimerson, William L Joyce, Elisabeth Kaplan, Stacy
Belcher Lee, Waverly B Lowell, Nancy Y McGovern, Michele F Pacifico, Trudy Huskamp Peterson, Ann Russell, Becky Haglund Tousey,
Kathleen M Williams, Joshua J Zimmerman. PATRON ($251 to $500): Laurie A Baty, Anonymous, Thomas Elton Brown, Nicholas C
Burckel, Jelain Chubb, Scott Cline, Roger M Dahl, Mark J Duffy, Winnie Feng, Rosemary Pleva Flynn, Roy L Gates, Peter Gottlieb, David
B Gracy, Mark A Greene, Brenda S Gunn, Susan Hamburger, Robert B Horton, Anonymous, Gregory S Hunter, Thomas Hyry, Christopher
M Laico, William E Landis, Michelle Light, Allana Mayer, Gina LB Minks, Kathleen D Roe, Megan Sniffin-Marinoff, John J Treanor,
Gregor Trinkaus-Randall, Elizabeth Yakel. FRIEND ($101 to $250): Bethany G Anderson, Krystal Appiah, Anonymous, Lori J Ashley,
George W Bain, Menzi L Behrnd-Klodt, Danna C Bell, Lewis J Bellardo, Edmund Berkeley, Rebecca Bizonet, Maureen Callahan, David
W Carmicheal, James F Cartwright, Janet Ceja, Courtney E Chartier, Wesley J Chenault, Beverly A Cook, Jane Cross, Susan E Davis,
W Dean DeBolt, Rachel Donahue, Liz Doubleday, Linda Edgerly, Elaine Engst, John A Fleckner, Donald C Force, Michael J Fox, Ashlea
Green, Frederic J Grevin, Sara Griffiths, Pam S Hackbart-Dean, Wendy Hagenmaier, Aaisha Haykal, Harrison W Inefuku, Christian D
Kelleher, Elinor M King, Daria Labinsky, Nancy Zimmelman Lenoil, Lydia Lucas, Susan Laura Lugo, Bertram Lyons, William J Maher,
Lisa Mangiafico, Charles Martin, Paul H McCarthy, Aprille C McKay, Jennifer Meehan, Kaye Lanning Minchew, Teresa Mora, Mary L
Morganti, Timothy D Murray, Barbara L Narendra, Chon A Noriega, Michael C Oliveira, Martha Parker, Christopher J Prom, Colleen
McFarland Rademaker, Allen Ramsey, Jeannette Remington, Norma Rosado-Blake, SAA Archivists and Archives of Color Roundtable,
Amy C Schindler, Scott Schwartz, Kelcy Shepherd, Robert E Sink, Lynn A Smith, Hilary Swett, Eira Tansey, Barbara A Teague, Sharon
Gibbs Thibodeau, Deborah A Torres, Rachel Vagts, Christine Ward, Leah H Weisse, Tanya Zanish-Belcher.

24 A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK January/February 2017
 DONOR (Up to $100): Margaret O Adams, Ruth Andel, Lindsay Anderberg, Kimberly Anderson, Elizabeth Andrews, Kristen L Autobee,
Kira Baker, Brenda S Banks, Elizabeth S Banks, Terry Baxter, Jeanette Berard, Andrew Berger, Elizabeth P Bilderback, Peter Binkley,
Matthew D Black, Jan Blodgett, Frank Boles, Charlene E Bonnette, Steven D Booth, William E Branch, Sally Brazil, Jeremy Brett, Heather
Brodhead, Mary Uhl Brooks, Ruth Bryan, Bridget J Burke, James B Byers, Stuart Campbell, Elizabeth Caringola, Janet M Carleton,
Anonymous, Peter Carlson, William C Carpenter, Marietta R Carr, Laura W Carter, James G Cassedy, Erika B Castao, David L Chapman,
Jeanie F Child, Marlayna Christensen, Caitlin Christian-Lamb, Kevin Clair, Alison Clemens, Elizabeth Ann Coelho, Joseph W Coen, Faith
Coleman, April Conant, Amy Cooper Cary, Meghan Courtney, Stephanie A Coy, Marian Ruth Creamer, Bethany Cron, Myles P Crowley,
Mary Virginia Currie, Caroline Cushman, Steven H Daley, Deborah L Dandridge, Sarah H Danser, Daria DArienzo, Leilani T Dawson, Erin
Dix, Anita Taylor Doering, Lawrence Dowler, Rachael Dreyer, Jennifer Dryer, Christian Dupont, Conley L Edwards, Frank Kim Kimball
Efird, Rebecca Elder, Daryn Eller, Anne Engelhart, Ellen M Engseth, Micah A Erwin, Maria Rita C Ferraris, Elsie T Freeman Finch, Jessi
Fishman, Clare Flemming, Nancy Freeman, Michele McKinnon Fricke, April Gage, Deborah Garwood, Aleksandr Gelfand, Alice George,
Cynthia A Ghering, Patricia Gibson, Rebecca Goldman, Susan Goldstein, Elizabeth Goodwill, Anonymous, Tonya Green, Scott Grimwood,
Rebecca L Hankins, Johanna L Harden, Shannon Hartman, Herbert J Hartsook, Rebecca E Hatcher, Elizabeth Haven Hawley, Jeffrey A
Hayes, Mary Cleta Heady, Edie Hedlin, Ben Helle, Louise Henriksen, Steven L Hensen, Mary E Herbert, Katharina Hering, Lori Hines,
Andrew Hinton, Frances H Hodges, Sue E Holbert, Frederick L Honhart, Charles E Howell, Marcella D Huggard, Ann Hunter, Licia Hurst,
Karen L Hwang, Polina Ilieva, Paula Jabloner, Karen L Jefferson, Jennifer I Johnson, L Rebecca Johnson Melvin, Joanne Kaczmarek,
Cameron Kainerstorfer, Rebecca Katz, David Kay, Stephanie L Kays, Sarah Keen, Julia Keiser, David Keller, Lea Kemezis, Kris Kiesling,
Margaret J Kimball, Marissa O Kings, Kathryn M Kramer, Joan D Krizack, Mary A Larson, Erin R Lawrimore, Leah Lefkowitz, Jeannine T
Levesque, Lori Lindberg, Claire Elise Lobdell, Linda J Long, Stephanie Macklin, Charles Macquarie, Steven Mandeville-Gamble, Lucinda
Manning, Kathy Marquis, Jennifer Marshall, David C Maslyn, Linda M Matthews, David F McCartney, Brenda S McClurkin, Daniel
McCormack, Donna E McCrea, Mary Lynn McCree Bryan, Dylan J McDonald, Collette N McDonough, Alexandra McGee, Brian McNerney,
Samuel Alan Meister, John D Metz, Jessica W Meyerson, Kevin C Miller, Rachel Miller, Cathy L Miller, Meg Miner, Lawrence Molina,
Julianna C Monjeau, Sheon H Montgomery, Anne Morgan, Sammie Morris, Stephanie A Morris, Eva S Moseley, Judie D Moses, Derek T
Mosley, Nora Murphy, Shanee Yvette Murrain, Lindy J Narver, Kathryn M Neal, John R Nemmers, Elizabeth A Nielsen, Martha R Noble,
Pamela Nye, Kathleen M OConnor, Oregon State University Libraries and Press, Felicia Owens, Katherine Palm, Alex H Poole, Joseph
Pozo, Merrilee Proffitt, Adrienne Pruitt, Timothy D Pyatt, Jaimie Quaglino, Caryn Radick, Mary-Andrew Ray, June Reich, Sherwin Rice,
Nancy Richard, Deborah A Richards, Michelle D Romero, Jane Rothstein, Mary Elizabeth Ruwell, Heather LM Ryan, Nancy A Sahli, Helen
W Samuels, Michelle Schabowski, Kevin W Schlottmann, Dawn M Schmitz, Arlene B Schmuland, Lori N Schwartz, Paul R Scott, Patricia
Lyn Scott, Elizabeth M Scott, Diana Senturia, Debra S Shapiro, Kathie Sharp, Deborah J Shea, Jennifer H Sirotkin, Elizabeth Skene, John
H Slate, Stephen Smith, Paige L Smith, Kristy Sorensen, Mark W Sorensen, Jennifer L Spamer, Mark Sprang, Anna St. Onge, Cheryl L
Stadel-Bevans, Darwin H Stapleton, Laura Starr, Elizabeth Stauber, Nancy L Steinmann, Paula Stewart, Leon J Stout, Carol Street, Mike
Strom, Laura Sullivan, Carolyn Hoover Sung, Michael A Tarabulski, Mark G Thiel, Jennifer Thomas, Kazuya Tominaga, Maria Tucker,
Susan Tucker, Meg Tuomala, Ellie Meek Tweedy, Valerie Uber, Laura E Uglean Jackson, Andy Uhrich, Elizabeth Ungemach, Pamela
Upsher, Linda J Valois, Carl Van Ness, Mona K Vance, Portia Vescio, Amy S Vilelle, Diane L Vogt-OConnor, Anke Voss, Carol Waggoner-
Angleton, Victoria Irons Walch, Allaina M Wallace, Timothy R Walsh, Anonymous, Denise P Wernikoff, Anonymous, Linda A Whitaker,
Justin M White, Brian A Williams, Elliot D Williams, Valerie Wingfield, Elisabeth Wittman, Helen Wong Smith, Deidra Woodson, Sonia
Yaco, Julia Marks Young, Michael D Zaidman, Christina J Zamon.

January/February 2017 A R C H I VA L O U T L O OK 25