15th Annual Conference
#DCConference21
via Zoom Webinar
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PANEL A:
Managing the Competing Forces of
Agency, Equity and Privacy in Archival Practice
It is an urgent moment in which we need to ask not only if collections are political but explore how collections continue to shape our imagined communities and reinforce cultural disparities during a pandemic. Panelists will share and discuss some of the most important questions that they have grappled with over the past year. What are the consequences and opportunities represented by the absences in collections and in the tools that we use to access them? In what ways are we adjusting our practices to welcome, create space and share authority with communities previously excluded from history-making activities? Can the very efforts we make to address the absences in our collections harm the populations and groups we are seeking to document? How are we creating a durable record while also respecting privacy and sacred cultural knowledge? What do statements by the American Library Association that seek to take responsibility for past racism, or the Society of American Archivists’ Council Statement on Black Lives and Archives mean? While we welcome these statements, we must ask ourselves if our professional authorities have provided additional resources to address the underlying disparities. Have national digital efforts changed their priorities or do they depend on priorities that continue to marginalize at-risk populations?
Panelists
Richard Chabran attended the University of California, Berkeley where he obtained a B.A. in Anthropology, a secondary teaching credential, and a Master’s in Library and Information Studies. In 2003, after more than 30 years working at the Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Riverside campuses he retired from the University of California as a Distinguished Librarian. His areas of focus were Chicano librarianship and digital inclusion. For the last 20 years he was an adjunct faculty member in the School of Information at the University of Arizona where he taught cultural perspective courses. He is a member of the Latino Digital Archives Group, the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies, and REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking. As the policy advisor for the California Broadband Policy Network he made numerous presentations including to the California Public Utilities Commission and the California State Legislature. He served as a consultant and served as a member on several national advisory bodies such bodies as the Hispanic Division at the Library of Congress, the Educational Research Information Center/Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools, the National Library of Medicine Board of Regents, the National Telecommunications Information Administration, and the PEW Research Center Internet and American Life Project on Libraries. His publications include numerous articles, the Chicano Periodical Index and the Latino Encyclopedia.
Christine Anne George is the Assistant Director for Faculty & Scholarly Services at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law Library. She is a Certified Archivist who received her B.A. from Bard College, her J.D. from St. John’s University School of Law, and her M.S.I.S. from the University of Texas at Austin School of Information. Within the American Association of Law Libraries, Christine is the immediate Past Chair of the Legal History & Rare Books Special Interest Section and the Vice-Chair/Chair Elect of the Law Repositories Caucus. Christine began researching the legal and ethical issues surrounding the Belfast Project for her masters thesis, “Whatever You Say, You Say Nothing”: Archives and the Belfast Project. Her article, “Archives Beyond the Pale: Negotiating Legal and Ethical Entanglements after the Belfast Project,” won the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference’s Arline Custer Memorial Award in 2013. She has continued to write and present on the Belfast Project’s ongoing legal saga and the concept of archival privilege.
Natalie Milbrodt is an information professional and content developer with experience working in small business, academic, cultural heritage and library settings. She currently leads the Queens Public Library’s Metadata Services Division, responsible for the library’s oral history and community archiving program, archival digitization, and cataloging. Milbrodt is a founding member of Global Grand Central and serves on the Oral History Association’s Metadata Task Force. She is an advisory board member for the New York State Archives and Wikitongues. Her cultural heritage consulting clients include The Frick Collection, The Wildlife Conservation Fund, the Skowhegan History House, and the Leo Baeck Institute.