Governance Board 2023 Elections - Candidate Statements

Katherine Crowe
Curator of Special Collections and Archives, University of Denver

It is with excitement and interest that I submit my name as a candidate to represent the “Large” membership institutions of ArchivesSpace. The governance structure of ArchivesSpace is a model of openness and transparency and is indicative of the centrality of member and user engagement that is often not present in software and related systems’ oversight and leadership. ArchivesSpace is so central to how many of us “do archives,” and I would be honored to serve in this capacity.

I have over 15 years of background and experience in both public and technical services related to archives and cultural heritage, all at my current “Large” institution, the University of Denver. In my first professional position, Archives Processing Librarian (2008-2012), I oversaw archival processing, collection management, digitization, and digital collections management in our previous collection management system, Re:Discovery. In 2012, I became the Curator of Special Collections and Archives, having been the Curator for our Dance Archive since 2009, and taking on the acquisition and curation of Manuscript and University Archives collections, as well as all instruction, reference, and outreach for the department. Over this time, my research has looked at: gaps and silences in the historical record, whiteness and white supremacy in archives, exhibitions as archival outreach and in instruction, and critical pedagogy utilizing cultural heritage materials.

My institution, the University of Denver, has been using ArchivesSpace since the 1.0 release, which also involved a migration from Re:Discovery, ably presided over by Kevin Clair (currently on the Technical Advisory Council, now at Penn State). Since this time, ArchivesSpace has become integral to our special collections and archives technology ecosystem; it is integrated into and/or connected to our digital preservation and access infrastructure, our library management system, and will soon be connected to our online exhibits platform. Despite the “Large” category we belong to, we have a relatively small but still mighty technology team – two full-time developers and an IT librarian who are responsible for all library and archives-related development and systems maintenance, and a newer Digital Collections Librarian – and so this integration and development that we’ve been able to achieve is reflective of the kind of deep expertise and collaborative long-term planning that we have all built together. I look forward to bringing this ethos and context to the governance board.

Teresa Mora
Head of Special Collections & Archives, University of California, Santa Cruz

Thank you for considering me as a candidate for the ArchivesSpace Governance Board. I look at this as a wonderful opportunity to contribute to the larger archival profession and am eager to more fully participate in the ArchivesSpace Community.

Having come to the role of manager through the pathway of technical services I am keenly aware of the need for functional and flexible systems, such as ArchivesSpace, to support the larger mission of collection accessibility. Although I'm no longer a regular user of ArchivesSpace, I was an early adopter in my previous position at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley and have had the opportunity to see the tool in use in both a very large (Bancroft) and now large institution (UC Santa Cruz). In my time at the Bancroft as the Principal Manuscripts Archivist I helped to implement ArchivesSpace and was an active user. In my current role as Head of Special Collections & Archives at UCSC, I still engage with the tool but most of the daily work is conducted by colleagues as I focus my time on managing the department. Small by UC standards, our holdings include over 40,000 published works and over 600 manuscript collections. All of our manuscript holdings are managed in ArchivesSpace and it is our primary tool for the authoring of finding aids as well as MARC records for our archival collections.

Although not yet a perfect system, I believe strongly that, as a community-driven, open-source system, ArchivesSpace is a powerful tool and I welcome the opportunity to become more involved in moving the work of the community forward. I am particularly intrigued by the prospect of serving on the Governance Board given the good work they have been doing in recent years, specifically the adoption of the Diversity Partnership program which I consider a model for the bridges that need to be built to ensure the entire archival community has access to this important resource, not just those of us located in well-established and well-funded institutions.

Jillian Cuellar
Director of Special Collections, Tulane University

Thank you for the opportunity to run for a position on the ArchivesSpace Governance Board representing medium-sized institutions. I am Director of Special Collections at Tulane University Libraries where I oversee staff, collections, and operations, and provide leadership and vision for the division. As a member of the library’s senior administration group, I collaborate with a team to advance the library’s mission by establishing strategic priorities that are aligned with contemporary scholarship and diverse modes of engagement. For my division and for the Library, I participate in policy creation, strategic planning, fund management, and relationship building with internal and external constituencies.

I have been engaged with technologies for archival collection management since the beginning of my career; first as a project archivist whose primary responsibility was to create archival description, then as a department head who thought strategically and practically about archival data creation and management on a large scale, and now as a division director who advocates for a staff focused on using technology to enhance the user experience for staff and the public. I was employed at UCLA Library Special Collections in 2013 when UCLA became a charter member of ArchivesSpace. I led the preparation for our division to migrate from Archivists’ Toolkit to ArchivesSpace and supported a talented team of archivists responsible for migrating the data, training staff, communicating with the ArchivesSpace community, establishing local practices, and ensuring consistent adoption of these new practices. When I moved into my current position in 2018, I advocated for and facilitated moving Tulane’s locally hosted ArchivesSpace instance to Lyrasis hosting and I continue to serve as the main administrator contact.

I have held several leadership roles in member-led professional associations, and it has been a distinct privilege to serve as a voice and advocate for my colleagues. One of my earliest leadership roles was serving as chair of the Collection Management section where I proposed creating the Collection Management Documentation Portal, and then worked with the Steering Committee to see it come to fruition. The Portal continues to be a model for how member associations can address the needs of a broad spectrum of users, particularly through community created and maintained resources. ArchivesSpace’s Diversity Partnership program and Member Match program are initiatives that arose from a similar spirit of community and values-driven engagement. I would be honored to support more initiatives like these, and I am ready to listen, learn, and act with all of you.  

Maggie Hughes
Archival Processing Manager, The Huntington

I’m excited for this opportunity to run for the ArchivesSpace Governance Board as an institutional representative for medium-sized institutions and serve Aspace and the wider community. I believe I would be a valuable member of the board because I have extensive experience with, and a range of perspectives on, ArchivesSpace. I’ve been using ArchivesSpace since 2014 at four different institutions, primarily in positions where I have been involved in implementing ASpace, including developing institution-specific trainings and workflows. The Huntington Library is in an ongoing implementation of ASpace, which I see as a 5-10 year process, realistically (not including ongoing maintenance). Additionally, I was a member of the ASpace Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) for four years (2017-2021), and served as Vice Chair and Chair during those terms. My past experiences with TAC were professionally and personally fulfilling and edifying, and I’m excited about this opportunity to learn from colleagues on the board and contribute to the mission and strategic direction of ASpace in a new way.

I am very interested in open source software as a model for community-driven, accessible, and non-proprietary library software. However, I know that open source comes with its own set of challenges, which include potentially unstable funding and relying on volunteer labor in a field that is still often under-paid, overworked, and at risk for burnout. I’m also interested in and aware of the opportunities of technical improvements in archives systems and tools, the one-time and ongoing investment of resources those improvements require, and the tension of those opportunities with the skill gaps that many archivists and institutions have as well as increasingly limited resources. These factors limit which archivists, communities, and institutions have access to and participate in ASpace which has downstream effects on collections, researchers, archivists, and staff.

I’ve been excited to see some of the recent initiatives that ASpace has undertaken to make the software and the community more accessible and welcoming to a wider community, such as the Consortium Provider affiliation and the Diversity Partnership program, and would support continued work in creative and innovative efforts that ensure ASpace is meeting the needs of a broad and diverse community by identifying and lowering barriers to access by allocation of resources. Thank you for considering me for this opportunity to engage more closely and directly with the strategic direction, fiscal health, and other challenges and opportunities that ArchivesSpace faces as a member of the Governance Board.

Linda Hocking
Archivist, Litchfield Historical Society

I appreciate the opportunity to stand for election to represent Very Small institutions on the ArchivesSpace Governance Board. Since 2002, I have worked as the archivist at the Litchfield Historical Society, which operates two museums, a research library, and an outdoor interpretive space with a staff of five full-time employees. I know firsthand how the varying demands on the time of archivists responsible for everything from acquisitions to reference can make it challenging to also juggle database concerns. I also recognize that archivists at Very Small Institutions have a unique perspective because they are likely to experience using all aspects of the ArchivesSpace system, from accession to user interface.

After the Historical Society joined ArchivesSpace as a Charter Member in 2013, I served as an Inaugural Member of the ArchivesSpace User Advisory Council from 2014-2017. Thanks to ArchivesSpace members who contribute code, funds, and time to its further development, ArchivesSpace is a truly collaborative, leveling tool. I believe that the greatest benefit of adopting ArchivesSpace is the community. Making the technology available to every type and size of institution and providing archivists who staff them opportunities to join forces bridges divides between institution sizes and types and leads to greater understanding of our profession. To that end, I would advocate for continued support for Diversity Partnerships and look for innovative ways to include those repositories who cannot afford even the very small membership category.  As your representative, I would strive to bring your ideas and concerns to the Governance Board to aid in the future development of ArchivesSpace in a way that is inclusive of institutions of all resource levels.

Laurie Sather
Head of Technical Services, Hagley Museum and Library

I am the Head of the Technical Services Department at Hagley Museum and Library, where I supervise Hagley's archival processing and cataloging projects; manage the collections management system (ArchiveSpace), the online public access catalog (EOS), and the public finding aids database and public MARC catalog. I supervise the management of the library and archival collections, including accessioning and space management of 45,000 linear feet of archival material, 10,000 linear feet of audiovisual material, 300,000 volumes of published works, and over eight terabytes of born-digital materials.

In 2015, I was a Visiting Professional Fellow in the Office of the Chief Information Officer at the Smithsonian Institution. Prior to my current position, I was the public services librarian for the Special Collections Department at the University of Delaware Library, a project archivist at Drexel University Archives, and a PACSCL Hidden Collections Project collections processor. I hold an MLIS from Drexel University, an MA in Media Studies, and a BA in Theatre Arts, both from the Pennsylvania State University. I am also a Certified Archivist.

At Hagley Museum and Library, one of my duties is to manage the archival collections data in the collections management system (CMS) and in the public database for finding aids, which in this case are now one and the same – ArchivesSpace (ASpace). Before Hagley adopted ASpace, we used Archivists' Toolkit (AT), which many of you know was only a back-end system.

I believe I will be a valuable member of the Governance Board because we at Hagley were not early adopters of ASpace. I took workshops for five years, watched the development of ASpace unfold, and waited. I was part of a team researching other CMS options available (paid and open-source), determining our wants, needs, deal-breakers, and dream features. The team spent over a year testing different systems, using sandboxes containing our data, and speaking with vendors. At Hagley, we never withdrew our support/membership, despite investigating other options. After all that research and testing, we decided to go with ASpace, because it was and is the best software for our repository.

I know this is an unconventional candidate statement, and maybe for many, it may make you uncomfortable that I didn't immediately install ASpace at my institution. Why would you elect me to serve as a Governance Board representative instead of someone devout from the start? I believe that since our decision to switch to ASpace was a calculated and deliberate choice based on thorough research and careful examination, positions me to provide valuable insight as to the needs of repositories at the "very small" level. A large portion of my daily work relies upon ASpace. I hope my experiences with the program will benefit the current user community and those considering it.