Governance Board 2020 Elections - Candidate Statements

J. Gordon Daines III
Curator of Research and Instruction Services, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
Candidate for ArchivesSpace Governance Board – Large Member Representative

These are challenging times for our communities and that includes our ArchivesSpace community. I have been privileged to watch the ArchivesSpace program team establish learning opportunities for the community and I have been gratified to see how the ArchivesSpace software has facilitated work from home. As a current member of the Governance Board I understand the importance of ArchivesSpace to your work and to your sense of community. Thank you for taking the time to participate in these elections and for making your voices heard.

I am delighted to have been offered the opportunity to run for a second term on the ArchivesSpace Governance Board representing Large member institutions. As department chair of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections for six years, I had responsibility for managing the operations of our department. I have experience with strategic planning, fiscal oversight, donor relations, policy development and implementation, collections management, reference services, outreach, and inter-departmental relationships. These have been valuable experiences as I participated in Governance Board discussions about the future of ArchivesSpace.

I have been actively involved with ArchivesSpace program from very early on. I was instrumental in convincing our administration to become a charter member of ArchivesSpace and served the community as chair of the User Advisory Council from 2014 to 2017. I actively participated in the development of specifications for enhancements to ArchivesSpace and have actively promoted the tool in the Intermountain West. I have served on the ArchivesSpace Governance Board since 2017 and was privileged to be the first non-partner chair. I believe strongly in the ArchivesSpace community and see service on the Governance Board as an opportunity to strengthen that community.

I have been an active participant in the archival community throughout my career at both the regional and national levels. At the regional level I have served as a council member and president of the Conference of Intermountain Archivists and am the director and editor of the peer-reviewed Journal of Western Archives. Nationally I have served in a variety of roles for the Society of American Archivists including as a member of the ACRL-RBMS/SAA Joint Task Force on Primary Source Literacy, as a member of the Education Committee, as chair of the Technical Subcommittee on Describing Archives: A Content Standard, and as chair of the Description Section. I am also a member of the 2017 cohort of the Archives Leadership Institute. I have contributed to the profession through scholarship on processing digital records, applying business process management techniques to archives, finding aid delivery systems, and the history of the archival profession in Utah.

My varied experience in the archival community has positioned me to be an effective advocate for the ArchivesSpace program. As a member of the Governance Board I am committed to seeing ArchivesSpace reach its full potential as a tool for archival arrangement and description by fostering opportunities for both community and non-community members to contribute to the development of the software.

Patrick Milhoan
Head, Archival Processing, Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame
Candidate for ArchivesSpace Governance Board - Large Member Representative

It is with great pleasure that I submit my name for consideration as a member of the ArchivesSpace Governance Board. As the Head of Archival Processing at The University of Notre Dame, my primary responsibility has been to set policy and provide oversight for the way the Libraries arrange, describe, manage, provide access to, and facilitate discovery of its rich archival and special collections holdings across the departments of Rare Books & Special Collections (RBSC) and University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA). My additional responsibilities include budget management, donor relations, and outreach.

In the fall of 2017, I led the ArchivesSpace Implementation Team, a part of Hesburgh Libraries’ Strategic Initiatives for 2017-2018. Migration of legacy finding aids from prior systems into ArchivesSpace required the modification of approximately 2,500 individual EAD finding aids prior to migration. The successful launch of ArchivesSpace occurred in the Fall of 2018 and marked the culmination of a concerted effort to update, standardize, and collocate finding aids from Rare Books & Special Collections and University Archives.

As the product owner of ArchivesSpace for the University of Notre Dame, I continuously seek ways to improve the platform by working alongside colleagues to develop system integrations to enhance discoverability and collections management functionality. In addition, I actively seek out ways to contribute to the ArchivesSpace community. Toward this end I have volunteered to serve on the program committee for the first annual ArchivesSpace Online Forum and look forward to pursuing additional opportunities as they arise.

As ArchivesSpace continues to become the de facto archival collections management system and resources continue to be allocated by The University of Notre Dame in an effort to create a holistic discovery and collections management ecosystem, the continued success of ArchivesSpace is paramount. As a community-driven platform, ArchivesSpace excels. As a member of the ArchivesSpace Governance Board, I will continue to advocate for its widespread adoption and use. This growth, from institutions large and small, will allow ArchivesSpace and its organizational home, Lyrasis, to leverage its greatest asset, the user-community.

Annie Benefiel
University Archivist and Digital Collections Librarian, Grand Valley State University
Candidate for ArchivesSpace Governance Board – Medium Member Representative

I am very pleased to be nominated to represent Medium sized institutions on the ArchivesSpace Governance Board. I have been involved as an ArchivesSpace member and user since 2014 and served on the ArchivesSpace Nominating Committee in 2016. As Grand Valley State University Archivist and Digital Collections Librarian, my responsibilities include collection management, budgeting, planning, project management, and donor relations.

At Grand Valley State University Libraries, ArchivesSpace provides critical infrastructure that enables archival collection management and discovery, and connects our users to the primary sources held in our Special Collections and University Archives. Further, the support and community of ArchivesSpace membership has proved indispensable to our ability to migrate our collection data, improve our discovery points, and provide efficient access to our collections. Through the community of ArchivesSpace, I have personally connected with other archivists and practitioners and assisted them with implementation of the tool at their own repositories, and gained valuable insight that helped me to solve problems at mine. I performed local usability testing of the ArchivesSpace Public User Interface, seeking data to inform metadata improvements and processing prioritization. I’m eager to contribute my strengths to see the continued development and support of this important system and its community of expert users.

Jay Gaidmore
Director of Special Collections, College of William & Mary
Candidate for ArchivesSpace Governance Board – Medium Member Representative

I am pleased to put my name forth as a candidate to represent the Medium membership institutions on the ArchivesSpace Governance Board. I have worked as an archivist at various institutions since 1996, gaining experience in every aspect of archival work, including processing, cataloging, and records management. Since 2013, I have served as the Director of Special Collections in the Earl Gregg Swem Library at William & Mary. My responsibilities include administering a department of seven FTE and four PTE, budget oversight, personnel management, and strategic planning. I also perform collection development for rare books and manuscripts, outreach, instruction, and reference, and collaborate actively with Library Administration and University Advancement to engage with and solicit donors. 

William & Mary is a charter member of ArchivesSpace and has been committed to its mission from the start. From 2014-2017, I served as the Medium membership representative on the Governance Board. We began migrating our legacy content from Archon and inputting new content into the system a few years ago, but only within the last six months, have we felt truly comfortable sharing it with our users. This is not because of any staffing issues or project management, but because of the legacy metadata.

The migration has been a great learning experience as has showing researchers how to use it. Along with my involvement in collection development and donor relations, these experiences have given me a better understanding of ArchivesSpace’s capabilities as well as its limitations, and how this system interconnects with digitization, digital preservation, tracking donations, and compiling user statistics.

With my prior service on the Board, experience with migrating from Archon, and showing users how to search ArchivesSpace, I think I am an ideal candidate to advocate the needs of Medium-level representatives and promote the system to other institutions. I am very excited to see ArchivesSpace develop and committed to supporting its mission as a community-based archival management system. As an open source software with an engaged and committed community of implementers, ArchivesSpace serves as a model for similar projects in the library and archival communities. I would be honored to serve again on the ArchivesSpace Governance Board.

Nicholas Zmijewski
Archivist, Industrial Archives & Library
Candidate for ArchivesSpace Governance Board – Very Small Member Representative

It is my privilege to run for reelection to the Governance Board. I feel as though the last three years have been a time of transition that has taken the program from fledgling to a stable institution. I have enjoyed spending this year as vice-chair, and am looking forward to serving as chair and past chair shortly. I have made it my mission to represent ASpace wherever possible and have spoken or led discussions at both conferences and the annual meeting in addition to my regular board responsibilities. Even though my institution is very small I feel as though we are heavily invested in the program.

I know and understand the issues that are unique to the institutions of our size and have not shied away from bringing them up in meetings. I want to continue to help ensure that the program is sustainable and kept current so that we may continue to use it for years to come.

I am currently the archivist for the Industrial Archives & Library in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and the very first piece of software we adopted was ArchivesSpace in 2016. I am amazed at how far we have come since then and I look forward to supporting both the program staff and the community to continue to make ArchivesSpace the choice for others the way it was for me.