In the wake of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor murders, and in the spirit of protest that followed, the ArchivesSpace community began a conversation about what it could do to promote diversity and inclusion while combating systemic racism in our field. That continuing conversation has led to a series of initiatives that we will undertake in the coming years, including the ArchivesSpace Diversity Partnership.
The ArchivesSpace Diversity Partnership is a new three-year program that offers support for implementing the ArchivesSpace application to institutions that are themselves or primarily serve communities underrepresented in the ArchivesSpace community. This program will launch with a small cohort of institutions on July 1, 2021. The three-year term will conclude on June 30, 2024.
For the duration of the program, each ArchivesSpace Diversity Partner will receive, at no cost to them:
ArchivesSpace membership
ArchivesSpace hosting and technical support from a Registered Service Provider
introductory and specialized training
ongoing user support
These commonly used resources for implementing ArchivesSpace are being offering as a package for the purposes of this program, but participating institutions may decline individual items if they are not wanted. All ArchivesSpace Diversity Partners will be ArchivesSpace members for the duration of the program.
Eligibility
Eligible organizations include:
academic Minority-Serving Institutions such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), and Tribal Colleges and Universities
non-profit or community archives primarily run by or serving BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color)
tribal archives
Eligible organizations cannot already be an ArchivesSpace member or client of a hosting provider. An organization also cannot be a unit of a parent institution that does not meet these criteria.
Responsibilities of ArchivesSpace
Provide, at no cost to the Partner, the implementation resources selected by the partner institution, which may include membership, hosting, training, user support and technical support. Resources will be provided according to the standard terms of these offerings.
Provide opportunities for partner institutions to connect with each other and others in the ArchivesSpace community.
Responsibilities of Partners
Actively work to implement ArchivesSpace at their institution.
Attend occasional ArchivesSpace Diversity Partnership meetings and provide feedback about their experience implementing ArchivesSpace and participating in the ArchivesSpace member community. It is anticipated that all meetings will be online; travel support would be provided if a meeting were to be held in person.
All information held within a Partner’s ArchivesSpace implementation remains the sole property of the Partner, to be used or shared at their discretion only. Any information about progress of individual implementations of ArchivesSpace and any institution-specific data collected in meetings or feedback opportunities will be kept confidential.
To Apply
There is a short Expression of Interest form to complete. The Expression of Interest asks for some information about the applicant institution and why becoming an ArchivesSpace Diversity Partner is of interest to them.
Expressions of Interest should be submitted to ArchivesSpaceHome@lyrasis.org by March 15, 2021.
All applications will be evaluated by outside peer reviewers and a subset of the planning group according to the criteria established by the planning group. Some applicants may be contacted for further discussion about the program and their interest as part of the evaluation process.
We expect to select and notify the cohort of Partners by May 1, 2021.
To Learn More
Members of the planning group are happy to talk about the program at any time - please contact us at ArchivesSpaceHome@lyrasis.org. Potential applicants who are interested in the experience of using ArchivesSpace at an underrepresented institution can contact Brittany Newberry (bnewberry@auctr.edu). She is happy to talk about Atlanta University Center’s experience implementing ArchivesSpace as an HBCU.
A recording of our informational webinar on February 10th about the ArchivesSpace Diversity Partnership is now available on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/B3SOgG4zThM.
The slides from this discussion are available below:
Planning Group
Jessica Crouch, ArchivesSpace Community Engagement Coordinator
Christine Di Bella, ArchivesSpace Program Manager
Brittany Newberry, Atlanta University Center and ArchivesSpace User Advisory Council Chair
Sean Quimby, University of Pennsylvania and ArchivesSpace Governance Board Vice Chair
Madeline Sheldon, LYRASIS Digital Technology Services