AN INTERVIEW WITH:

photo credit: Grace O'Brien

What sparked your interest in pursuing a career in archival science? Did you know about the field before?

I did not. I would say it was a little difficult for me entering this field because I come from more of a blue-collar family background, with not as much college education. I'm actually the first person in my immediate family to graduate from college at all. So, I didn't really know what an archivist was for a long time, even when I was in college myself. I was at a small undergrad institution that didn't have archives. I would say it wasn't until I was about a senior in college as a history major until I started to kind of get a vague sense of what an archivist was. I think it was when I was a junior when I first met an archivist, and I didn't really know much about it. There was definitely a little bit of awareness about careers, including an archives career, to a certain extent that was dependent on people's background and culture. 

For me, I would say my interest started with a more self-centered interest. I was a person just fascinated by history, I liked knowing about people's stories, and I thought that working with cool stuff every day would be an exciting thing to do. It's certainly more exciting, at least for me, than a career centered around teaching or publishing. That was really what sparked my interest. However, what really solidified my interest was realizing the importance of archival work and what my work could do for wider communities. So, it started with a self-centered aspect and then solidified with a core understanding of what the impact of archives can be.

If someone were to ask you what an archivist is and why an archivist’s work is important, what would you say to that?

Yeah, what an archivist is and why the work is important. I'm gonna take that as two separate questions because they're big questions. I would say, an archivist, I would first tell them that an archivist is the person who reads dead people's mail. That is really the simplest description right there. But if I were giving them a more serious definition,

We are people who preserve people's memories for whom it most matters. There are two parts of that, there’s preserving them, and there’s making sure that it's accessed by the right people. That's really what we do. There's also a great piece by Kathleen Roe called "Why Archives?" that elaborates on a lot of that impact further that I personally love.

That’s great! The course I’m currently taking is called “Archives, Records, and Memory” so we have discussed the idea of archivists as memory keepers. On your resume and Linkedin, you mention doing reparative description workflows at Princeton. I’m interested if that continues to inform your work at your new position at Yale in any way?

Absolutely, yes. Reparative description is one of those areas that a lot of people throughout the field are interested in. Implementing it is substantially trickier, especially based on institutional resources available. But just to hold on to that thought, reparative description is a process that I think is very popular right now because it touches on the ethics of why we do our work but also the technical processes of how we do it. So, a lot of it is something that places like archives that have been around for a while, like the archives at Ivy League universities, like Yale and Princeton,  have been conducting description for ages. Just a couple of hours ago when I was at work, I was looking at an accession form from 1981. I had to ask a colleague across the room, who had been there since the '80s, "Hey, what is going on here? I can't even understand what this is referring to." So there's definitely a need for it, especially in places that have been around for a long time and carry certain marks of privilege as well. Again, the Ivy League universities, obviously, there are elements of things like class that go into that historically.

So, my experience going from Princeton to Yale: At Princeton, I attended some meetings of the Inclusive Description Working Group (IDWG), learned more about their work, and contributed to a paper with the other special collections fellow that summer. That was centered on issues regarding reparative description and possible steps forward for the future. I carried that background over into some work I did with my master's thesis at NYU, which touched a little bit on reparative description. Now at Yale, I'm working with the Reparative Archival Description Working Group (RAD), not as a member, but as someone collaborating with them on a redescription project. We are currently working on a project to redescribe records with harmful language about Indigenous women. My whole unit is bringing in volunteers, and I’m one of those volunteers. It's a great opportunity to get involved with that kind of work because any redescription process forces the archivist, in particular, to take a more critical look at why the description was done that way in the first place and how it can be improved.

Thank you for sharing, that is very interesting. From the list of people I reached out to for this project, you were one of the only people who really highlighted and touched on reparative description workflow, which is something we’ve covered in my classes, so it’s really interesting to hear your first hand experience. Thank you.

It seems like everyone wants to do [reparative description] in theory, but not as many people are doing it in practice, even if they might want to. So there is still definitely a gap to fill in that area from theory to action.

Can you talk us through your average day of work at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library? What’s it like to be an early-career academic archivist who works primarily in a processing role?

Good question. So, a lot of my work for the past few months has been really figuring that question out because I only started back in August of this year. The Beinecke Library is an incredibly diverse place to work in terms of work functions. We have several different departments, and I work in the Special Collections Technical Services Department as an archivist in the Archival Description Unit within that department. To put it simply,  functionally speaking, my job title is “Archivist,” but I'm more of a Processing Archivist. My work centers around arrangement and description, with some preservation work along the way, but that happens within the context of those two processes of arrangement and description. Processing at the Beinecke Library involves an extremely diverse user base and collections, with questions coming from remote reference all over the world. I contribute to answering some of those questions, which I can’t get into detail about because of confidentiality for patrons. There's an incredibly vast range of materials with users and stakeholders to consider, which makes up a key part of the experience of working at a place like the Beinecke Library processing archives. The broad, wide-ranging considerations set it apart from other places with narrower conceptions of who they are processing work for, and what their collecting practices are. That's the biggest difference.

Do you have a favorite part of what you do? 

My favorite part of what I do is getting to be trusted with all these incredible stories, memories, and the media that those things are communicated through. For me, it's always about the people behind the records that are most interesting. I suspect that other people in processing roles feel the same.

At least as far as a processing role goes, that's my answer.

I saw on your resume you have a lot of involvement in professional committees and certifications, such as the Society of American Archivists and the Academy of Certified Archivists. Do you feel like these affiliations positively influenced your career?

The short answer is yes. I'll touch on the two you mentioned. SAA is an organization that I personally think every archivist in the United States needs to be involved with in some way, shape, or fashion. They have the most popular journal with the most influential articles. They host the main conference for archivists in the country, which are fantastic opportunities to network. If you can get funding, I strongly suggest attending; if not, virtual participation is also great. SAA also sets many of our standards in one way shape or another which includes the publishing of the most influential manuals, books, and various materials. Even if someone is not a part of SAA, there is immense benefit in keeping tabs on SAA resources. As of this year, I took things a step further by joining CORDA, the Committee on Research, Data, and Assessment, as their Early Career Member.

As far as ACA goes, it was the right decision for me. But there's actually a great American Archivist article, again published by SAA, in which the authors did an empirical analysis and survey on people's attitudes towards ACA, the Academy of Certified Archivists. I recommend reading that. From my background on it, I'm going to summarize and say that the results that the authors found were kind of mixed - helpful for some people, not so much for others. There are nuanced reasons for that, but I'll just shelve that for now.

What advice would you give to individuals considering a career in archival science?

I would say, "Well, what are you interested in?" This is where I would start because motivation doesn't come out of nowhere. It certainly didn't for me. I didn't start out totally understanding the value of archives. I just knew what I was interested in and then explored that enough until I could find a motivation to do it. So I would say, "Well, if you're someone who's interested in archives, just find out more about what they are, what the work is, and why people do the work. Determine if their motivations are in line with your interests." Because, in my experience, those two things really go hand in hand; you can't really have motivation without interest.

Do you have any future aspirations in the field of archiving? Do you see yourself working on any specific projects or within a certain area?

Archives is definitely one of those professions in which professional development can go in a lot of different directions. Right now, I'm focused on building myself up as an archivist who works more in  a technical services capacity, primarily in processing. Now that I'm employed, have my degree, and certification, I'm starting to think about the areas I could develop a specialization in and the gaps I could fill moving forward. One thing on my radar for the future, if it becomes viable, is the Digital Archives Specialist (DAS) certificate from SAA. I feel like my graduate education, although I had a digital archives course, was more of an introduction to the concepts, and I want more practical knowledge.

Additionally, I'm going over information related to archival preservation. I've been reading a preservation manual during my lunch breaks, trying to expand my knowledge in that area. Looking into the future, I'm considering what I can specialize in. I've been quite interested in assessment and how it relates to our practices in processing. Reparative description is very much part of that, involving critical assessments of our practices and how we can change them. It's an area I'm looking to build myself up in, which is why I joined CORDA and SAA, so I could be in that space around people who are actively assessing the profession itself.

So, your interest in the Digital Archives Specialist course, is that because you would eventually prefer to work in Digital Archives over a Processing role?

Not necessarily. It's more like not trying to become a Digital Archivist, but it’s really about becoming a more well-rounded archivist. Like it or not, more and more records are being accepted in digital formats, and the skills that are considered specialized now won't be 20 years from now. We all need to learn and adapt because that happens a lot in this profession. Things change—records change, needs change, users change—and we need to change with that to continue serving our duty.

That’s a great point. What do you think the next biggest challenge archivists will face? Is it related to the vast volumes of digital information we’re going to have or do you think it will be something like AI?

I think one of the ongoing challenges in this profession, as new formats for records are developed, is retaining the skills to steward each of those formats. There's work that can be done with old analog AV formats by sending them out to a vendor for reformatting. There are also more familiar digital formats that staff can work with. However, the challenge is that these old formats aren't going anywhere, but they need attention because they're deteriorating. Magnetic tape media, for example, is in dire shape and needs to be reformatted, but not many people know how to do that.

More and more records are being accessioned and acquired in digital formats, and those formats are changing. The question for the future is – in 20, 30, 40, or 50 years from now – what the archivist's skill set for record formats will need to be. As the records change, the old ones don't go anywhere. So, it's a question of identifying the essential skills that we need to keep doing this job. That's something that keeps me up at night.

In your experience are there any cataloging standards, databases, and metadata tools that are the most beneficial to know?

Yes, there are some standards that are more standard than others, I will say that much. It really depends on your role, functionally and institutionally, and even factors like the user base, which can change how you use standards. Controlled vocabularies, for instance, use Library of Congress subject headings as the most [widespread] standard, but depending on your institution and user base, you might consider using different terminology.

For example, if your institution serves a significant[ly large] LGBTQ+ community [proportionate to its user base], you might want to consider using different vocabularies like the Homosaurus Linked Data Vocabulary or the Trans Metadata [Collective’s] best practices for description (Best Practices for Gender Diverse Resources). Someone within an institution framed around that community might want to think differently about how they apply terms and which ones are most useful for them.

If we’re talking about something like reparative description, it is inherently community-focused. Taking the project I'm contributing to at work, which involves redescribing files with harmful language about Indigenous women, one of the community standards would be helpful in a case like this. That is, to replace the harmful language with something less generic, such as replacing it with tribal affiliation. This approach reflects the community's input on what is useful for them, not just what is non-harmful but something that enhances the description. So, I would say that, paradoxically, standards can be quite idiosyncratic in the ways we apply them, and the example of subject headings illustrates how contentious this can be.