In the article What’s Wrong with Digital Stewardship: Evaluating the Organization of Digital Preservation Programs from Practitioners’ Perspectives (2020), a study conducted in 2018 unveiled certain issues that archival practitioners found to be hindering the staffing and efficiency of their program’s digital preservation methods. Amongst the thoughts expressed by the participants via interview were concerns about microaggressions, prejudice, and misogyny within their work environments. [1] Though incidents of misogynistic and prejudice behavior are found in a multitude of career pathways, many archives and special collection practitioners today push for diversity of staff within their work and research spaces. In one of these interviews, an anonymous participant pointed out a negative factor of the nature of tenure. The participant stated that due to the tenured status of the practitioner they work with, when they hear said staff member making misogynistic comments towards others,
This week, my classmates and I discussed the myriad of ways that archival and special collections staff can advocate for the vitalness of their work as well as the ways that they may take action to connect with the public through outreach activities. This conversation reminded me of the appraisal activity that I completed while at Temple’s SCRC this past October. During this activity, I looked through the “Arthur Hall Papers”: a collection that contained papers and documents about the renowned choreographer of African dance, Arthur Hall, who traveled around Philadelphia to teach young children African dance within schools and other spaces of youth learning. With the size of Philadelphia and the variety of programs that take place today centered on youth learning and community activities, could collections like the Arthur Hall Papers be utilized to show Temple’s surrounding communities how the SCRC’s retainment of papers like these are integral to the success and fruitfulness of futur