Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York

ART Awards - Call for Nominations

Monday, April 30, 2012 8:38 PM | Anonymous member

Each year ART presents four awards during Archives Week. These awards recognize Outstanding Support of Archives, Innovative Use of Archives, Archival Achievement, and Educational Use of Archives.

We invite members to submit nominations for worthy colleagues, archival organizations, and innovative projects. The awards acknowledge distinguished work and long term achievements in our profession. Nominees must be members of ART or operate within the New York metropolitan area.

For more information about the awards, and to submit a nomination, please use the form here. The Awards Committee will be accepting nominations through May 18, 2012.

This year's Awards Ceremony will take place on Thursday, October 11th at the New York Junior League, following a reception at 6:00pm.

New Volunteer Opportunities!

Tuesday, April 24, 2012 10:41 PM | Anonymous member

Please check out our updated list of volunteer opportunities here.

New York History Blog Post: Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration

Thursday, April 12, 2012 3:54 PM | Deleted user

The following post originally appeared in the New York History Blog, and is reprinted below:

Music legend and songwriting luminary Woody Guthrie was born on July 14, 1912, and this year marks his centennial birthday. To celebrate, the Grammy Museum, the Guthrie family,Woody Guthrie Publications and the Woody Guthrie Archives have planned an international program of events, including tours, concerts, festivals, and conferences.

Ryan Anthony Donaldson of the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York (ART) recently had the chance to ask Tiffany Colannino a few questions about the Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration. Tiffany is the Archivist with the Woody Guthrie Archives, currently located in Mount Kisco, New York, as well as the newly appointed ART Advocacy Chair.

ART: How did the centennial partnership between the GRAMMY Museum, Guthrie Family/Woody Guthrie Publications, and Woody Guthrie Archives come about?

TC: The centennial partnership between the GRAMMY Museum and the Woody Guthrie Archives has deep roots. For starters, we are both non-profit organizations committed to the history of American music. The Archives’ mission is to perpetuate Woody Guthrie’s life and legacy through the proactive preservation of his Archival material, whereas the GRAMMY Museum’s mission is to explore and celebrate the enduring legacies of all forms of music. Although these missions differ, with the Archives’ focus on preservation and research, and the GRAMMY Museum on public programs and activities, our two organizations can work together to use these archival documents to bring Guthrie’s life to a broad audience.

But it’s more than just our missions that link us together: Robert Santelli, Executive Director of the GRAMMY Museum, is actually a former researcher at the Woody Guthrie Archives. Since 1990, Santelli has researched in the Archives in support of several Woody Guthrie book projects, including his 2012 work This Land Is Your Land: Woody Guthrie and the Journey of the American Folk Song. He has maintained an active working relationship with Nora Guthrie – President of Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc and Director of the Woody Guthrie Archives – for over 20 years.

In a recent press release, Nora Guthrie comments on this partnership, remarking: "Because of its deep enthusiasm for Woody's creative legacy as well as the underlying influence he's had on so many musicians and songwriters in all genres of American music, the GRAMMY Museum is the obvious choice to help us celebrate the legacy that he created."

The centennial celebrations will include concerts, conferences, and exhibits across the United States, Canada, and Europe. We’ve launchedwww.Woody100.com as a one-stop-shop for all of our North American events, and www.Woody100.de for our European events. In addition to the events we are planning with the GRAMMY Museum, these sites also list the Grassroots events that Guthrie fans and supporters are planning across the world, including lecture series, concerts, hootenannies, and exhibits. In addition, there are many new releases – books, films, and musical albums – including many based solely on material from the Woody Guthrie Archives, set to launch in 2012 to help celebrate Guthrie’s centennial, and perpetuate his legacy.

ART: In terms of centennial celebrations for Woody in the New York area, there will be a concert at Brooklyn College as well as a conference at Penn State University in September. What topics relating to Woody Guthrie would you like to see explored at the conference?

TC: That’s a tough question, because there are so many facets of Woody Guthrie’s life yet to be explored! However, the great thing about the academic conferences being planned for this year is that rather than focus solely on a specific aspect of Guthrie’s life, each conference will use Guthrie as the starting point to open a discussion on a broader, contemporary theme. The theme for each conference will be selected by the host institution, allowing them to decide on a topic that is of direct relevance to their local community.

The 2012 Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebrations will include four large academic conferences: Tulsa, Los Angeles, Penn State, and Brooklyn.

The Tulsa conference, Different Shades of Red: Woody Guthrie and the Oklahoma Experience at 100, used Guthrie as a stepping stone to discuss Oklahoma politics. At the University of Southern California conference, Woody Guthrie’s Los Angeles: A Centenary Celebration, we’ll talk about Los Angeles in the late 1930s, where Guthrie worked for several local radio stations and wrote for various newspapers after fleeing the Dust Bowl. Woody At 100: Woody’s Legacy to Working Men & Women, the Penn State conference in September, will use Guthrie to focus on the labor movement and unions, while the theme for the Brooklyn conference, also in September, is yet to be announced.

ART: It has been announced that the research collection of the Woody Guthrie Archives will be relocating from Mount Kisco, NY, to Woody's home state of Oklahoma in 2013. How is the planning coming along for it?

TC: In 2013, the Woody Guthrie Archives will relocate from Mount Kisco, New York to a permanent home with the George Kaiser Family Foundation in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As a native Oklahoman, this move will truly bring Guthrie’s life full circle!

The Archives will be located in a repurposed warehouse – the Tulsa Paper Company – along with other arts oriented organizations, and I have had the opportunity to walk through the building site several times. Work is already underway, and it is exciting to see the Archives’ new home come to life! I have had meetings with the building architects to review design plans and requirements, discussing the archival needs to be taken into consideration during the design phase. This relocation to Tulsa will ensure continued researcher access to the material in the collection, and the long-term preservation of over 10,000 pages of documents held in the Woody Guthrie Archives.

More information on Woody Guthrie centennial events is available online.

Advocacy Alert: NJ State Division of Archives and Records Management

Thursday, April 05, 2012 10:51 AM | Deleted user

CLICK HERE FOR FULL ACTION ALERT

The Issue: The proposed FY2013 state budget released by NJ Governor Chris Christie calls for splitting the State Division of Archives and Records Management (DARM), transferring its records management program to the Department of the Treasury and leaving the State Archives behind in the Department of State. This proposal would sever a function of government that was integrated nearly a century ago, at the urging of New Jersey’s history community, to ensure public records preservation and improved government accountability. Separating these integrated and interdependent functions will seriously hamper the effective management of records and archives for State and local government, and put New Jersey’s documentary heritage at risk.

Contact: Call, write, fax, or e-mail the following individuals and your district legislators urging them to transfer the State’s Archives and Records Management programs to the Department of the Treasury as one agency. At least send a short email to the NJ Governor or call:

Governor: Hon. Chris Christie, Office of the Governor, P.O. Box 001, Trenton, NJ 08625-0001	Tel. (609) 292-6000
	Fax (609) 292-3454
	E-mail Chris.Christie@gov.state.nj.us

New York History Blog Post: "A New Face for the Associated Press" by Nick Pavlik

Monday, April 02, 2012 11:59 AM | Deleted user

Nick Pavlik has written a post for the New York History blog on the Associated Press Archives and about the recent ART monthly program at AP:

http://www.newyorkhistoryblog.com/2012/03/nick-pavlik-new-face-for-associated.html

DORIS Sign-On Letter Update

Sunday, March 11, 2012 6:30 PM | Deleted user

We are nearing 1,500 signatures for the sign-on letter in support of NYC's
Dept. of Records and Information Services. Thank you to all who have helped with this advocacy effort! The sign-on letter deadline is soon, so please sign-on today- http://bit.ly/yeO7q8.

"For The Record" March 2012 Edition Now Available!

Friday, March 09, 2012 4:18 PM | Anonymous member

The ART Board invites you to check out the March 2012 edition of For The Record: News From The Archivists Round Table.

You can access For The Record within your browser here.

For The Record provides members with the latest news between meetings and will keep members informed in-between issues of Metropolitan Archivist, our semi-annual publication.

For future editions, we encourage you to subscribe if you have not done so already.

Here is a direct link to sign up: http://bit.ly/wnO7T1

You will have the option of receiving For The Record as HTML, text, or in mobile format.

Emma Curtis serves as Editor, and all content is compiled by the ART Communications and Outreach Committee.

Please contact Ryan Donaldson, Coordinator, Communications and Outreach Committee at outreach@nycarchivists.org with any comments, questions, or suggestions.

ART Member Nick Pavlik Joins the New York History Blog

Wednesday, March 07, 2012 11:23 AM | Deleted user

We are pleased to announce that ART member Nick Pavik has joined as ART’s Editor for member contributions to the New York History blog. Providing “historical news and views from the Empire State,” New York History reaches nearly 2,000 people each day via Email, RSS, Twitter, and Facebook updates.

Nick is a recent graduate from the MLS program at Queens College, CUNY, and is now the archivist for the 92nd Street Y. Founded in 1874, 92Y is one of New York's preeminent cultural institutions, conducting a wide range of community programs and presenting performances, readings, discussions, and lectures from world-renowned political leaders, scholars, literary figures, and performing artists. Prior to joining 92Y, Nick was a member of the project team for "Uncovering the Secrets of Brooklyn's Nineteenth-Century Past: Creation to Consolidation," an archival survey project at the Brooklyn Historical Society that resulted in the creation of hundreds of online descriptive records for BHS's unique and invaluable collections. Nick has also worked as an intern at the archives of the American Museum of Natural History and the New York Transit Museum.

On the New York History blog, Nick will be posting content related to ART’s activities and events, as well as general NYC archival news and updates. Nick’s posts so far include articles about NYC’s Department of Records and Information Services as well as a Q+A with Tessa Fallon of the Human Rights Web Archive at Columbia University Library. He welcomes your ideas for future content, and can be reached at nickpavlik@gmail.com.

Please Help the NYC Department of Records and Information Services

Sunday, February 26, 2012 6:04 PM | Deleted user

At the behest of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the New York City Council has proposed legislation (Int. 486-2011) that would eliminate the autonomy of New York City’s Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS), the agency that is responsible for the records and archival documents produced by past and present City governments.

Please add your name to the sign-on letter to oppose the proposed legislation, and advocate for the preservation of DORIS as an autonomous records agency, with the financial support and professional respect it deserves. The sign-on letter is located at http://www.nycarchivists.org/doris_petition. Every signature matters. Help New York City, as an international cultural and financial leader, and the place with the greatest variety and highest density of archives in the world, set the standard for how a democratic government preserves and makes accessible its documentary heritage.

Our full position statement on the proposed Legislation (Int. 486-2011) is available through this link.

Are You Interested in Running for the ART Board?

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 3:07 PM | Anonymous member

At this time, The Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York would like to bring to membership's attention our upcoming annual election for open Board positions. Elections will open at the end of May and the winners will be announced at our business meeting in June, however, we invite members to inquire about open positions now.

Board positions are a two-year commitment. Being on the ART Board is a wonderful opportunity to give back to the profession, volunteer within the local community and to network with fellow archivists. If you are interested in running for open positions, or know of anyone who would make a good candidate, please email the Membership and Nominating Committee at membership@nycarchivists.org to begin a conversation, and learn more about the opportunities on the ART Board.

Thank you, and we look forward to your participation!

Best,

Heather F. Ball
Membership and Nominating Committee Coordinator, ART