Call for Nominations: SAA Publications Awards

The Society of American Archivists is in search of excellence! Do you know of an individual or organization that has made an outstanding contribution to the archives profession? Or promoted greater public awareness of archives? Have you published a groundbreaking book, written an outstanding article, or developed an innovative finding aid? Click on the links below to learn more about the below awards and nominate a deserving colleague—or yourself! Please consult the specific award for submission requirements and nomination form. Note that you can apply or be nominated for multiple awards in a single cycle, but may only receive one. The deadline for nominations is February 28. 

Call for Contributors: SAA Intergenerational Conversation Series

Overview

The goal of this series is to foster ongoing conversation between new voices in the archives profession and authors whose work shaped the professional literature years ago.

The inaugural year of the series focused on the work of archives scholar, practitioner, Society of American Archivists (SAA) Fellow, and former SAA President John Fleckner.

The second year of the series will revisit select SAA Presidential addresses.

Read more.

New/Recent Publications

Articles

Jennifer Parrucci. “Metadata at The New York Times: organizing and leveraging news content from 1851 to today.” The Indexer 1, no. 4 (December 2023).

Sara Lafia, David A. Bleckley, J. Trent Alexander. “Digitizing and parsing semi-structured historical administrative documents from the G.I. Bill mortgage guarantee program.” Journal of Documentation 79, no. 7 (December 2023).

Reuben Saah, Samuel Abban, and Esther White. “Use Of Social Media in Public Archives: Perspectives About Ghana’s Readiness And Perceived Challenges.” Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies 10, Article 20 (2023).

Books

Golub K. and Liu, Y. (Eds.). (2021). Information and Knowledge Organisation in Digital Humanities: Global Perspectives. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003131816

Baillot, A. (2023). From Handwriting to Footprinting: Text an Heritage in the Age of Climate Crisis. Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0355

Podcasts

Archives in Context: dindria barrow, Marika Cifor, Sarah Nguyễn, and Anna Trammell about their work on The Community Archives Center Toolkit, collaboratively developed by the Tacoma Public Library and the University of Washington.

Reports

The Second Digital Transformation of Scholarly Publishing: Strategic Context and Shared Infrastructure
Tracy Bergstrom, Oya Y. Rieger, Roger C. Schonfeld
Ithaka S+R, 2024


CFP: (Digital) Retrospectives on Historiography from Africa: Decolonization, the African press, and the uses of knowledge (open)

CFP – (Digital) Retrospectives on Historiography from Africa: Decolonization, the African press, and the uses of knowledge (open)

Editors: Noemi Alfieri (CHAM, NOVA FCSH-UAc; Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, U. Bayreuth), Cassandra Mark-Thiesen (Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, U. Bayreuth)

The history of knowledge production in Africa is a rising topic in the backdrop of growing awareness of the uneven globalization of intellectual thought. Focusing on the era of decolonization in Africa, a growing number of scholars are especially exploring historiography as read in periodicals such as pamphlets, magazines, journals or newspapers (Mark-Thiesen, Alfieri, Thioub, Coquerey-Vidrovitch and others). They provide important impetus for understanding the link between media and emancipation,
political democracy, freedom of choice, self-awareness, and selective association.

This special issue of Práticas da História reflects on contemporary epistemological possibilities and constraints in the writing of history. Therefore, it welcomes both contributions that dwell on African journals (scholarly, literary, artistic and ephemeral periodicals) from the 1950s to 1980s, and on the histories behind said periodicals. We look forward to contributions that explore different and contested visions of decolonization and future-making for the African continent and its diaspora. We also invite articles investigating differently situated historiographies from Africa: that use local vernacular by incorporating idiom, local imagery, myth and folklore; that relate to the present or the deep past. We also encourage more nuanced takes on the “nationalist historiography” that when viewed as a monolith was so dominant at the time. For instance, Pan-Africanism and Négritude, while revolutionizing the political assets of the continent, remained contested as intellectual projects. Finally, articles problematizing the current conceptualisations of such historiography as either “colonial”, “traditional”, “radical”, eurocentric”, “afrocentric”, “Africa-centred”, and so forth, are highly welcomed.

Finally, on methodology, and given the current wave of digitisation and digitality, the guest editors encourage reflections on processes of digital preservation and recirculation of historiography from Africa, including their implications for Africa-based and African diasporic knowledge production in the arts, literature, and scholarship. How about their impact on the expansion of the public arena and community empowerment? How are online platforms fostering a re-positioning, re-calibrating and re-thinking of these bodies of knowledge from Africa? And what potentialities lie in the future? In short, we are interested in contributions that dwell on contemporary and future receptions of the above-mentioned publications and journals in the digital sphere.

Proposals (maximum 500 words) must be sent by 30 April 2024 to praticashistoria@gmail.com . Proposals must be accompanied by a short biographical note. The acceptance or refusal of the proposal will be communicated by 15 May 2024. The articles of accepted proposals must be submitted by 31 July 2024. Contributions in both English and Portuguese are welcome.

Contact Information

Noemi Alfieri: noemialfieri@fcsh.unl.pt ; Noemi.Alfieri@uni-bayreuth.de

Cassandra Mark-Thiesen: cassandra.mark-thiesen@uni-bayreuth.de

Contact Email

praticashistoria@gmail.com

URL

https://praticasdahistoria.pt/digital-retrospectives-historiography-africa

Call for Volunteers: H-HistBibl Listserv

Join us in making H-HistBibl bigger, better, and more useful!

H-HistBibl is an international network of librarians, archivists, curators, and other scholars and practitioners interested in the practice and study of bibliographic, library and cultural heritage services to support the study and teaching of history. In line with the guidelines of our parent non-profit, H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences online, our network is an open, moderated forum that makes all its digital content available for free and is committed to academic and editorial best practices. We are free from spamming, trolling, and narrowly self-promotional behaviors. Our content circulates directly to our subscribers around the world.

Service with an H-Net network like H-HistBibl can be an excellent way to support scholarship and pedagogy, gain experience and academic connections, and drive the field forward. H-Net provides quick and helpful online training to our editors and sustains an editorial support network.

If you are interested in joining our volunteer staff, please note that we require that all volunteers: 1) have regular internet access; 2) can read and write English well; 3) can work collaboratively with other scholars as well as independently of them; 4) remain in regular communication with the rest of our staff and H-Net via email; and 5) are active in our fields of study and practice.  If you haven’t already done so, please take some time to acquaint yourself with the topics we cover.

We are always eager to correspond with scholars and practitioners who believe they might be interested in volunteering, so please do not hesitate to contact us with questions at editorial-histbibl@mail.h-net.org

Open Positions

We are very interested in volunteers who can help develop the following projects and initiatives.

Announcements: we would welcome support with circulating academic announcements to our subscribers. This work is light and routine in nature, but interesting as it helps us stay current with significant issues of interest to subscribers. It can be particularly helpful to junior scholars and other academics seeking to gain a broad view of the field. Duties include browsing H-Announce for relevant posts (like calls for papers) and monitoring relevant submissions to H-HistBibl.

Subject editors: editors in these positions focus on tracking discussions about topics relevant to H-HistBibl that can be found in informed public media, such as through scholarly publications and blogs, news reporting, social media, and more. The work involves publishing posts on H-HistBibl on a regular basis, weekly or semi-weekly, pointing to an interesting resource and briefly summarizing it.

Subscriber Engagement: we would welcome an editor to help oversee the approval of new subscriptions to our network, with an emphasis on requiring new subscribers to fully complete their user profiles. 

Advisory Board Members: advisory board members actively support our editors, help with subscriber recruitment, remain in reliable email communication, advise on the scope and projects of H-HistBibl, and mediate any disputes that arise. Ideally, they may propose new initiatives and offer improvements of ongoing efforts.

We encourage candidates who will further advance the goal of fostering a diverse and inclusive online community.

More information about joining and volunteering with H-Net is available at Join H-Net.

To Apply

Please email a single PDF containing the following to editorial-histbibl@mail.h-net.org : 1) Your C.V., including current contact information. 2) A description of about 250 words explaining your areas of expertise. Before applying, please update your H-Net profile if you have not already done so (see the Updating your Profile guide for more information).

New Issue: Archives & Manuscripts

The most recent issue of Archives and Manuscripts (Volume 51, Number 1) was published in December 2023. This is a special issue Guest Edited by Adrian Cunningham titled ‘Documenting Australian Society Redux’.

The full issue is available online, and always open access. Print copies will be sent to members in early 2024.

Vol 51 No 1 (2023): Documenting Australian Society Redux

Documenting Australian Society: Progress Report on an Initiative of the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Committee
Adrian Cunningham

Documenting Australian Society – Performing Arts Community of Practice
Jenny Fewster

Honouring Stories of Struggle: Reassessing Australia’s Records of Disadvantage – Hearing the Voices of Those Who Struggle
Robyn Sutherland

Building a Participatory Archive With an Australian Suburb: Case Study of Canberra’s Biggest Bogan Suburb, Kambah
Louise Curham

COVID-19: What Needs to be Documented? Insights from the Pneumonic Influenza of 1918–1919
Anthea Hyslop

Documenting COVID-19 in Australia: An Interdisciplinary Perspective
Terhi Nurmikko-Fuller

CFP: Making Nature: The Labor of Natural History

Inspired by the APS Museum’s upcoming exhibition Sketching Splendor: Natural History in America, 1750-1850 the American Philosophical Society is organizing a two-day conference that will explore the ways humans have imagined, depicted, and constructed representations and knowledge about the natural world over time. The conference aims to bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, scientists, naturalists, and collection professionals, as well as artists, filmmakers, climate activists, and others to consider the different forms of labor and expertise that have contributed to shaping past, present, and future understandings of nature as well as the place of humans within it. The conference will be held in-person at the Society in Philadelphia on June 6-7, 2024.

The program committee invites paper proposals from scholars in all fields as well as scientists, curators, artists, educators, collections stewards, and others whose work bears upon this theme. The committee especially welcomes proposals that situate natural history in a wide range of geographic and historical contexts.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

  • The economic, social, and political implications of natural history collections and collecting practices over time.
  • The role of institutions, including botanical gardens, zoos, arboretums, libraries, museums, aquariums, and others, in shaping scientific and public understandings about the natural world.
  • The impact and contributions of local and Indigenous labor and expertise within natural history projects.
  • Critical studies addressing the relationship between natural history and empire.
  • Studies of how nature and the natural world inform art, music, film, literature, and other creative pursuits in the past and present.
  • The role of images, visualizations, and other non-text based approaches in conveying ideas about nature and natural history.
  • Discussions about specific techniques and craft knowledge used in the preservation and display of natural history.
  • The needs and opportunities of digital tools and platforms for past, present, and future work in natural history.
  • The impact of climate change and extinction narratives on understandings and depictions of nature.
  • Papers exploring decolonial and antiracist approaches to natural history.
     

Applicants should submit a title and a 250-word proposal along with a C.V. by February 15, 2024 via Interfolio: https://apply.interfolio.com/137229

All presenters will receive travel subsidies and hotel accommodations. Presenters may also have the opportunity to publish revised papers in the APS’s Transactions, one of the longest running scholarly journals in America.

For more information contact Adrianna Link, Assistant Director of Library & Museum Programming, at alink@amphilsoc.org.

Contact Information

Adrianna Link (alink@amphilsoc.org)

Thomas Johns (tjohns@amphilsoc.org)

Contact Email

alink@amphilsoc.org

URL

https://www.amphilsoc.org/making-nature-labor-natural-history-june-6-7-2024#par…

CFP: Spatial Humanities 2024

Call for Papers

Spatial Humanities 2024

Bamberg University, Germany, 25th–27th Sept 2024

https://spathum.uni-bamberg.de

We are delighted to announce that the 5th Spatial Humanities conference will be held in Bamberg on September 25th to 27th 2024.

Abstract submission deadline: 15th Feb 2024

Spatial Humanities 2024 welcomes submissions on all aspects of using geospatial technologies in humanities research, methodological innovations, and applied research that develops our understanding of the geographies of the past. We welcome contributions from anyone working on computational approaches to spatial questions in the humanities and arts. These disciplines include, but are not limited to, history (including fields from social history such as historical demography and environmental history), archaeology, heritage and conservation studies, literary studies, classics, linguistics, art history, anthropology and religious studies, as well as from interdisciplinary and/or technical fields including GIS, digital humanities, computational linguistics and computer science. Abstracts should be between 750–1000 words for full papers and 500–750 words for posters.

This year the conference will take place in Bamberg, Germany, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Accordingly, the conference will feature a special session with a focus on Spatial Humanities and Heritage. Heritage has spatial dimensions and heritage processes are linked to place: architecture and urban conservation, the listing of historic buildings, sites, cultural landscapes or heritage districts. Maps of heritage ‘assets’ and archaeological sites shape the way we perceive and understand places, as well as their cultural identity. How can these be studied to reveal cultural boundaries and exclusivity in heritage discourses? How can innovative multi-layered maps show alternative and diverse aspects of heritage?

We are delighted to announce that this year’s keynote speakers will be Francesca Ammon (University of Pennsylvania) and Ross Purves(University of Zurich).

Themes

Proposals are welcomed on, but not limited to, the following themes:

  • Gazetteers, e.g. urban, regional, national and international
  • Artificial intelligence, e.g. computer vision, NLP, deep learning, etc.
  • Spatial explorations of narratives, literary and imaginary places
  • GIS and spatial analysis including 3D modeling and spatial statistics
  • Deep mapping, experiences of places
  • Territorial representations, transgressions, subalternity and boundaries
  • Mapping mobility, spatial connections and networks
  • Linking the map and the text: mixed-method approaches
  • Geospatial ‘collections as data’, enrichment and annotation
  • Historical maps and georeferencing
  • Environmental humanities: landscapes, waterscapes and the blue humanities
  • Linked Open (Geo)Data
  • IIIF applications for maps and spatial data
  • Labs notebooks, workflows and infrastructure
  • Data mining, visualisation and the challenges of geolocation
  • Building, mapping and spatially analysing heritage inventories

Venue

Bamberg University, Markusstraße 8a, D-96047 Bamberg, Germany. The conference will be held in person.

Early Bird Rates

Full registration costs 170 €, reduced to 120 € for students including teas & coffees and lunches days. The conference dinner can be booked in addition.

Student Bursaries

To help support PhD students attend the conference we will be offering fee waivers to the three abstracts judged by the organisers to be the best. If you would like to be considered for this please mark this in the appropriate place on your submission. Note that we may require proof that when the abstract was submitted that you were registered as a PhD student.

We plan to offer a childcare service.

For further information see: https://spathum.uni-bamberg.de/

Email of the conference: spathum@uni-bamberg.de

Organisers

The Spatial Humanities Conference Association

Institutions organizing: Bamberg University, Centre for Heritage Conservation Studies and Technologies (KDWT)Ghent Centre for Digital HumanitiesLancaster University Centre for Digital HumanitiesDigital Humanities Lab, Universidade NOVA de LisboaNorthumbria University Architecture & Built Environment; and the UrbanMetaMapping consortium.

Contact Information

Carmen M. Enss on behalf of 
The Spatial Humanities Conference Association

Institutions organizing: Bamberg University, Centre for Heritage Conservation Studies and Technologies (KDWT)Ghent Centre for Digital HumanitiesLancaster University Centre for Digital HumanitiesDigital Humanities Lab, Universidade NOVA de LisboaNorthumbria University Architecture & Built Environment; and the UrbanMetaMapping consortium.

Contact Email

spathum@uni-bamberg.de

URL

https://spathum.uni-bamberg.de

Call for Presenters: SAA Preservation Section

SAA Preservation Section: Seeking Presenters!

The Preservation Section is seeking presenters for short talks (5-10 minutes) on the theme of advocacy for preservation as a core archival value.

Have you played a role in leading preservation projects or programs? If so, we’re interested in hearing about your successes as well as lessons learned in raising the visibility of preservation projects and programs.

Potential topics related to advocacy:

-Funding:  Strategies for those seeking grants, donations, and institutional funding.

-Communication:  Effective ways to present the results of projects and programs.

-Awareness:  Raising public awareness of preservation in the archival mission.

We’re also very interested in proposals for joint sessions with other SAA sections, to explore how to raise the visibility of preservation in relation to other core functions in archival work.

Proposals will be be considered for a session to be held in conjunction with our section annual meeting and for our ongoing series of informal Coffee Chats open to all interested SAA members.

If you’re interested in presenting on these or other topics related to preservation advocacy, please send a brief proposal to: 

Peter Botticelli (peter.botticelli@simmons.edu) by February 15. Also, please email me with any questions!

CFP: Thinking in Community: “Universities and Power” Through Research and Practice

Call for Presentations
April 12th-13th, 2024
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Minneapolis, Minnesota

In what ways have colleges and universities historically been involved in the reproduction of power? That question is at the heart of our two day symposium. Higher education often serves as an important vehicle for economic and social mobility. However, these same institutions are also imbricated in the reproduction of social power and inequality. How can we make sense of these tensions? How can we explore the tremendous good that higher education does without overlooking the harm?

This symposium is less of a traditional gathering of academics and more of a space to engage various elements of the university in questions that affect all of us. Therefore we intend to reach a broad audience and we encourage students, administrators, archivists, historians, higher education studies, ethnic studies, american studies, and related fields to apply. Priority will be given to students, junior faculty, early-career scholars, and
staff, but all are encouraged to apply.

We are seeking 10-12 minute roundtable presentations that speak to any of the following questions or themes:

Research/Archives
● In what specific ways have colleges and universities been imbricated in inequality?
● How and who should research these tensions? What lines of inquiry should be opened What methodological tools should we employ?
● How should this research be presented, disseminated, and engaged with?
● What are some of the challenges to doing this work?
● What are the possibilities and impossibilities for redress?

Teaching/Mentoring
● How can faculty and instructors incorporate these issues and contradictions into their classes? Either via syllabi or creating new classes or experiential learning, etc.
● Reflections on how power operates in a classroom setting
● Calls for a reorientation within mentoring, teaching, or administration that correct past injustices

To submit a proposal, click here.

For those selected, travel & lodging will be covered and a modest honorarium will be provided. Also, if interested in attending or keeping up with developments surrounding this event, please let us know here.

Proposals Due: extended to Friday, February 16th
Organized by:
Yalile Suriel, Assistant Professor of Universities and Power, University of Minnesota
Ellen Holt-Werle, Institutional Archivist, University of Minnesota
Aaron Alvarado, Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota
Sponsored by: Imagine Fund, Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Inspired by: Boston University’s Critical University Studies Symposium
If you have questions, email us at universities-power@umn.edu.