› About & Contributions
Iliana Carlos - Website layout + code, job resources + market outlook + landscape of queer studies and archives, first draft writing of skills + tool standards
Ariana Vargas - Interview scheduling, website code, professional responsibilities, digital tools, necessary skills + additions to political challenges/invisible labor, copy-editing
Lewis Vidaña - Annotated bibliography, images, canva presentation, technological adaptations, additions to introduction paragraph, AI guidelines
› Links to Job Resources
National Council on Public History
Society of American Archivists, the site also has a list of other job boards including those for more generalized museum/libraries/archive resources that may be found here.
List of archival job boards/resources through the /Archivists subreddit.
› Five Ways to Understand the Profession: An Annotated Bibliography
Caswell, Michelle. “Seeing Yourself in History: Community Archives and the Fight Against Symbolic Annihilation.” The Public Historian 36, no. 4 (2014): 26–37. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2014.36.4.26.
This article by Caswell documents her experiences with helping create SAADA, a fully digital archive of South Asian American histories. We found this article useful because it details struggles similar to what OUTWORDS faces, both regarding being a community archive and being a fully digital, remote archive. She also discusses the importance of community archives in filling in the gaps in history where the stories of marginalized people were not told, much less kept and taught into the present. Finally, there is an additional connection in SAADA’s “First Days” collection, which contains oral histories of South Asian immigrants recounting the stories of their first few days in America, similar to OUTWORDS’ oral histories of queer elders.
https://community-archives.gitbook.io/toolkit/introduction/getting-started
This gitbook provides advice and tools for starting a community archive both for those with no community archive experience or some. It discusses tips for building a collection, creating connections with the community, conducting outreach events, and more. We found this resource helpful because it provides a glimpse into what working in the community archives field might be like, complete with potential challenges and considerations, as well as possible work professionals might do such as creating community events.
Sheffield, Rebecka Taves, Jeannette A. Bastian, and Andrew Flinn. “Archival Optimism, or, How to Sustain a Community Archives.” Chapter. In Community Archives, Community Spaces: Heritage, Memory and Identity, 7. Facet, 2018. https://doi.org/10.29085/9781783303526.002
This book chapter discusses the challenges of sustaining community archives after their inception and proposes the concept of archival optimism to explain why community members work, often without compensation, to keep these projects alive. She draws archival optimism from the concept of queer optimism proposed by Lauren Berlant and posits this optimism as being at the heart of archival theory, being the pervading idea that the work of preservation is worthwhile. She then discusses the challenges that are faced by community archivists and volunteers, namely the constraints of space, money, and expertise. We found this chapter useful because it both provides a practical outlook on the limitations of community archives, while also exploring solutions for combatting burnout, such as focusing less on archival work and more on collective practices such as workshops and healing circles.
https://www.dpconline.org/digipres/implement-digipres/community-archives-dp-toolkit
This toolkit by the Digital Preservation Coalition provides community archives with basic steps and recommendations for the digital preservation of their collections, designed to fit a variety of needs and levels of preservation. We found this resource useful because many community archives lack the resources for a physical space and archive for their collection and must operate in the digital realm solely. Digital preservation is therefore integral to ensuring the longevity and safety of their collections.
https://oralhistory.org/principles-and-best-practices-revised-2018/
This resource provides best practices for conducting Oral History interviews and provides information for both interviewers and participants. We found this resource useful because our chosen institution, OUTWORDS, focuses on collecting oral histories of queer elders. We felt that this resource gave us a better understanding of the work and considerations that go into these interviews and their archiving. Furthermore, it is very possible that those thinking of going into other community archive organizations will need to know these tools as well.