The Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York (ART) is pleased to announce an issue launch and author panel celebrating the fall issue of the newly redesigned Metropolitan Archivist, ART’s online publication. Panelists include Juana Suárez, Director of the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program at New York University (NYU MIAP), Chris Nichols, Film and Audio Visual Archivist at the New York City Municipal Archives, Toby Sanchez, Archivist and Historian at the East Midwood Jewish Center, Diane Biunno, Metadata Archivist at the Rutgers University Libraries Institute of Jazz Studies, and William Casari, College Archivist and Instruction Librarian at Hostos Community College.
The inaugural issue of the Metropolitan Archivist as a digital quarterly is organized around the thematic of the Invisible City, in recognition of the various ways in which the historic events of the past six months have made visible that which has failed to register in the mainstream consciousness for far too long. The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed our daily lives and made way for the groundswell of public demonstrations over the loss of Black lives. These seismic events have revealed aspects of our culture and society, both historical and present day, that rightfully demand to be seen and transformed. As archivists and special collections librarians performing cultural heritage work and with firsthand knowledge of the gaps and silences that profoundly shape the historical record and the narratives it supports, we ask:
How can efforts to archive lost or marginalized aspects of the historical past and to center ethics of care in contemporary practice move us towards a more ethical and equitable future?
When we think of the historical footprint of New York City, what image comes to mind now and into the future? What stories will records created during this pandemic tell? Of whom and for whom will they be?
Held in conjunction with New York Archives Week, and moderated by co-editors Emily Andresini and Amye McCarther, the panel will expand on the authors’ engagement with bringing invisible and historically marginalized legacies to light.
Diane Biunno is the Metadata Archivist for the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University Libraries. Prior to joining the Institute, Diane was at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Independence Seaport Museum (Philadelphia, Pa.), and Penn Libraries where she worked on several innovative projects that helped make archival and special collections materials more accessible and discoverable, including the Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories,OPENN, and the Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis project. Diane graduated from Rutgers University (B.A. and Ph.D.) and received a Master’s in Library & Information Science with a concentration in archival studies from Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Juana Suárez is the Director of the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program at New York University (NYU MIAP). She is a media preservation specialist and a scholar in Latin American Cinema. She holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Literature from Arizona State University, and M.A. degrees from the University of Oregon and New York University. Author of Cinembargo Colombia: Critical Essays on Colombian Cinema (2009), published in English (Palgrave, 2012), and Sites of Contention: Cultural Production and the Discourse of Violence in Colombia (published in Spanish 2010); co-editor of Humor in Latin American Cinema (2015). She is the translator to Spanish of A Comparative History of Latin American Cinema by Paul A. Schroeder-Rodríguez (Iberoamericana-Vervuert, 2020). She is currently working on a book tentatively entitled Moving Images Archives, Cultural History and The Digital Turn in Latin America. She is the coordinator of arturita.net, a collaborative digital humanities project on Latin American AV archives.
Toby Sanchez has over twenty-five years experience with nonprofit organizations, having worked as an executive director, researcher, and grant writer. Toby was the President of the East Midwood Jewish Center from 2013-2017, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the NYU School of Philanthropy & Fundraising from 1994-2014. In addition, Toby was the editor of, Dorot: the Journal of the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York from 2010-2016, and a freelance proposal writer from 1993-2012. Toby is also the author of six profiles on Brooklyn neighborhoods that were published by Brooklyn In Touch Information Center from 1987-1993.
Christopher Nicols became the film and audiovisual archivist for the New York City Municipal Archives in 2019 after getting his masters from NYU's Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program in 2017. Since then, he has worked to preserve collections containing NYPD surveillance material and original productions by municipal broadcasters WNYC-TV and Channel L. Outside of the Municipal Archives, Christopher is an active member of XFR Collective, helping to provide A/V preservation education and services to artists, activists and community organizations.
William Casari is an Associate Professor at Hostos Community College/The City University of New York and also serves as the College Archivist. In addition to his library and archives duties Professor Casari has recently focused on teaching at Hostos. He served on the committee that developed the capstone course Bronx Beautiful, and also taught First Year Seminar, an introductory course for students in their first few semesters at Hostos. Professor Casari also participated in the Hostos 50th Anniversary Committee and was responsible for bringing acclaimed author Kim Phillips-Fein to Hostos to speak about her new book Fear City, which features a chapter on Hostos Community College and the 1970s fiscal crisis. Prof. Casari completed his Master of Arts in Liberal Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center with his thesis Concourse Dreams: A Bronx Neighborhood and Its Future (2008), focusing on the built environment near Yankee Stadium. He looks forward to incorporating his interest in Bronx history while teaching Bronx Beautiful. Professor Casari is a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Simmons University in Boston.
