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August 26, 2015 - Comments Off on In Process | My Summer Exploring the Universe and Information Science

In Process | My Summer Exploring the Universe and Information Science

In Process, our blog series that highlights the activities and experiences of current archival studies students in the Los Angeles area, is back! Our students took a summer break and some may continue to contribute, however WE ARE LOOKING FOR NEW CONTRIBUTORS! 

By Mary Priest

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Not your average workplace signage.

Summer: that magical time of year filled with beach trips, barbecues, and documentation of ringsail parachute drop testing. That is your summer, at least, if you’re a Digital Curation Intern with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). When I heard about the position in the Entry, Descent, and Landing Repository (EDLR), I thought that this summer internship would be a great opportunity to explore work in digital archives while also seizing photo opportunities with a full-sized model of the Curiosity Rover. Exposure to the immense diversity within the information science profession, however, was not something I anticipated. Consequently, thoughts of professional development have been swimming in my mind more fervently than scrawny kids escaping a cannon-balling bully at the deep end of the public pool.

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August 4, 2015 - Comments Off on Call for Submissions: “Archives 101” Zine

Call for Submissions: “Archives 101” Zine

The Los Angeles Archivists Collective (LAAC) is soliciting submissions for our first “Archives 101” zine, which will be distributed at the LA as Subject Archives Bazaar (October 17, 2015). The zine will also be available via our website as a PDF.

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Photo of Barnard Zine Library

Submissions can focus on any aspect of archives, but here are some questions that might help you get started:

  • What are archives?
  • What does an archivist do?
  • Why are you an archivist?
  • Why do archives matter?
  • What is your favorite Los Angeles archive, archival collection, or item and why?
  • Favorite archival resources?
  • Tips on finding/accessing collections?
  • Tips on DIY preservation?
  • Favorite archives related books/movies/TV shows?

We welcome written submissions of 500 words or less, as well as illustrations, photographs, and other artwork that can be published in zine form. The deadline for submissions is September 23, 2015. Submissions can be anonymous, or feel free to include your name, handle, etc.

Email digital materials (docs, jpgs, pdfs, etc.) to laacollective@gmail.com

Or snail mail submissions to:

Courtney Dean
UCLA Library Special Collections
A1713 Charles E. Young Research Library
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575

July 22, 2015 - Comments Off on Villa Aurora House & Library Tour

Villa Aurora House & Library Tour

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Please join the ARLIS/NA-SoCal Chapter and LAAC on Wednesday, August 26, 2015 at 5 PM for an exclusive tour of the historic Villa Aurora house and library in Pacific Palisades, CA, led by USC Exile Studies Librarian Michaela Ullmann.

To RSVP, go to http://bit.ly/1LrVjsk

The tour is capped at twenty-five people on a first-RSVP, first-in basis. A $5 donation to Villa Aurora along with a $5 donation to ARLIS/NA-SoCal are requested for participation.

If you RSVP after the list has been capped, your name will be added to a wait list. Sign up now! The address and parking details will be sent via email prior to the tour—carpools are encouraged.

Villa Aurora is an international meeting place for artists and intellectuals, and the residence fosters a lively exchange in the fields of literature, art, science and politics. It is located in the former home of exiled German-Jewish writer Lion Feuchtwanger, who founded "Der Spiegel" in 1908, and his wife Marta. The house stands as a memorial to all the artists and intellectuals who found refuge from Nazi persecution and had tremendous impact on the cultural life of the west coast of the United States.

The house maintains a functioning special collections and rare book library, managed by USC's Feuchtwanger Memorial Library. Read more about Villa Aurora's history here, learn more about the artist residency here, and see more photos of the breathtaking house here.

July 9, 2015 - Comments Off on Book Club No. 3

Book Club No. 3

All are invited to participate in the LAAC Book Club, where LA-area archivists and friends read and discuss publications exploring all matters archives. Books will be selected every 6 weeks by the group, and may cover topics such as archival theory and practice, historical understandings, current issues and trends in information science, informational technologies, etc....we’re open!

The summer book selection is Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala by Kirsten Weld

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Publisher's Description: In Paper Cadavers, an inside account of the astonishing discovery and rescue of Guatemala's secret police archives, Kirsten Weld probes the politics of memory, the wages of the Cold War, and the stakes of historical knowledge production. After Guatemala's bloody thirty-six years of civil war (1960–1996), silence and impunity reigned. That is, until 2005, when human rights investigators stumbled on the archives of the country's National Police, which, at 75 million pages, proved to be the largest trove of secret state records ever found in Latin America.

The unearthing of the archives renewed fierce debates about history, memory, and justice. In Paper Cadavers, Weld explores Guatemala's struggles to manage this avalanche of evidence of past war crimes, providing a firsthand look at how postwar justice activists worked to reconfigure terror archives into implements of social change. Tracing the history of the police files as they were transformed from weapons of counterinsurgency into tools for post-conflict reckoning, Weld sheds light on the country's fraught transition from war to an uneasy peace, reflecting on how societies forget and remember political violence.

The group will meet on Wednesday, August 26, from 6:30-8 pm at Canter’s Restaurant (419 N. Fairfax Ave). Participants to the Book Club will be capped at 12. Please email laacollective@gmail.com to reserve a spot.

Can’t make the meeting, but are still reading the book? Let us know!