Institutional archives with community documentation missions face problems of limited resources and community resistance in developing collections. Inspired by field experience and archival literature, the authors propose one possible solution that can be a stand-alone project or an adjunct to traditional collection development. Their distributed archives model envisions one-on-one partnerships between institutional archives and community partners to share authority over appraisal and selection while leaving custody of community collections with their creators. Institutional partners provide leadership, mentoring, and support, while community partners appraise, select, process, arrange, and describe. This article describes the distributed archives model, examines its advantages and disadvantages, and discusses it in relationship with an increased awareness of social justice concerns in archives, postcustodialism, and shared authority over appraisal between community collection creators and archivists.
In “That Damned Mob of Scribbling Siblings: The American Romance as Anti-Novel in The Power of Sympathy and Pierre,” Elizabeth Dill discusses the eruption of genre chaos in early and mid-nineteenth century American works of fiction. In order to do so, she considers the connections between two much-disputed incest romances, William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy (1789) and Herman Melville's Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (1852). Dill's interpretations show how both books refuse to fit into any genre category. The romantic yearnings of the sibling lovers in both books, Dill suggests, constitute a radical love that requires a radical language, so radical, in fact, that silence is often portrayed as the most rebellious of all forms of communication. In her readings of the two texts, then, Dill analyzes how silence in aberrant scenes of romance articulates an unspoken and unspeakable language of love. Dill thus presents the silences of these texts as revolutionary spaces. Within those spaces, Brown and Melville locate an erosion of certainty that the texts posit as an American ideal.
Academic Library Workers in Conversation is a bimonthly C&RL News series focused on elevating the everyday conversations of library professionals. The wisdom of the watercooler has long been heralded, but this series hopes to go further by minimizing barriers to traditional publishing with an accessible format. Each of the topics in the series were proposed by the authors and they were given space to explore. We encourage you to follow and share these conversations about transforming libraries with ideas from the front lines. This issue's conversation with Annmarie Magurany and Elizabeth Dill focuses on mentoring and supporting BIPOC library workers.-Dustin Fife, series editor Elizabeth Dill (ED): Annmarie, I got an idea from a Harvard Business Review article, and it got me thinking about our mentoring relationship. If you were to write a "job description" for your ideal mentor, what would that look like?Annmarie Magurany (AM): Something like this: "Help Wanted: Seeking an encouraging individual to be a mentor, as I'm an early-career academic librarian. Reporting to me, the mentor assists new librarians one-on-one in developing their career path. The mentor will divide their time between reference librarians of various backgrounds. A positive, encouraging attitude is a must as this position is about building me up. Specific responsibilities would include someone who is approachable, has good communication skills, and has the desire to work with persons of diverse backgrounds."ED: You mentioned that the mentor needs to be comfortable working with persons of diverse backgrounds. Would you, as a mentee, have a preference for a mentor with a (racial) background similar to yours? You won't hurt my feelings if you say yes.AM: Great question, and for me personally, the answer is not necessarily. While it would certainly be valuable to gain insight on the progression to leadership of a person with a (racial) background similar to my own, I would not want to unnecessarily limit my path to the seeking of knowledge. With the mindset of life-long learning, I would be remiss to only seek the experiences of specific peoples and not of all with whom I have an impactful connection and might exchange varying experiences.I think that it is valuable to see representation of oneself within leadership in any organization, especially for historically marginalized groups. It helps signal the organization is not just open to theoretical inclusion but follows through on the ideals expressed in DEI
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