News

  • 19 Dec 2018 11:25 AM | Jill Waycie

    As 2018 winds down, we'd like to share some news about our members and remind you that CAA's membership year ends with the calendar year, so now is a great time to renew! Just login, click "View Profile" in the upper right hand corner of the page, and click the "Renew" button to the right of your profile.


    Audra V. Adomenas, President, Lithuanian Archives Project, Chicago, IL has been nominated as Central United States Ambassador for the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA). IASA was established in 1969 in Amsterdam to function as a medium for international co-operation between archives that preserve recorded sound and audiovisual documents. IASA is a growing and dynamic organization, which aims to create an international network of cooperation among like-minded professionals. For questions regarding IASA membership, or how you can get involved, please contact Audra by phone at: 312-940-3940 or by email at: LithuanianArchivesProject@gmail.com. There are many exciting opportunities for us in the Midwest to participate in this important work internationally. In October, Audra attended the IASA Conference, which was held in Accra, Ghana. See below for a photograph of Audra with IASA colleagues at the Department of African Studies, University of Ghana. 

    IASA has members from 70 countries representing a broad palette of audiovisual archives and personal interests which are distinguished by their focus on particular subjects and areas, e.g. archives for all sorts of musical recordings, historic, literary, folkloric and ethnological sound documents, theater productions and oral history interviews, bio-acoustics, environmental and medical sounds, linguistic and dialect recordings, as well as recordings for forensic purposes. 


    Rebekah McFarland, archivist for the Sisters of the Living Word, and Nancy Freeman, director at the Women and Leadership Archives at Loyola University Chicago, received honorable mentions in SAA's 2018 Archives Short Fiction Contest! Take a reading break and check out Rebekah's "Ester Jones Diaz", and Nancy's "Risk Versus Benefit"!


    We're always looking to highlight the work our members are doing. Let us know your or your colleagues' news at info@chicagoarchivists.org or by emailing the co-chairs of the Outreach and Member Engagement Subcommittee: Brittan Nannenga (brittan.nannenga@northwestern.edu) and Jill Waycie (j-waycie@northwestern.edu). 


    Image description: Audra V. Adomenas, in bright green sweater, with IASA colleagues at University of Ghana, Department of African studies. To the right of Audra is Lindsay Kistler Mattock, University of Iowa. 

  • 03 Dec 2018 9:37 AM | Brittan Nannenga

    CAA now has a way to easily share photos taken by members at our many great events: tours, presentations, workshops, COA, Day of Service, meetings, parties, happy hours, etc.

    Images can be uploaded to the new shared photo folder, where they will help document and promote these CAA events.

    We encourage you all to start the photo sharing with your images from the annual holiday party this Wednesday!

    Please be sure to check out the ReadMe in the folder, for information about CAA’s photo policy, adding images, and photo use/takedown requests.

    Questions or comments? Let us know! info@chicagoarchivists.org


  • 29 Oct 2018 2:51 PM | Jill Waycie

    Chicago Open Archives 2018 is winding down, but there's still time to visit the remaining events and listen to more podcasts! 

    The final roundup of podcasts includes: Greer Martin talking about making connections through COA, Michelle McCoy discussing surprise learning experiences at Chicago Public Library, Andy Bullen discussing archives as a labor of love through his work with Pullman State Historic Site, Jeanne Long talking about Chicago Collections' involvement with COA, and a conversation with Michelle Rinard of the International Museum of Surgical Science.

    Check the interviews out on Soundcloud here, and find the list of current and past COA events on our Events page. 


  • 12 Oct 2018 10:46 AM | Jerice Barrios



    CAA thanks all who attended the tour of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum on September 21. 14 people attended and experienced a guided tour of the recently re-designed galleries that showcase the lives and inspiring social justice work of Jane Addams and her colleagues.



    If you missed this event, don’t worry – there will be more events throughout the year at a variety of dates, times, and locations.

    Have an idea for a CAA event? Contact the CAA Programming Subcommittee at info@chicagoarchivists.org with your suggestions.

  • 10 Oct 2018 2:56 PM | Brittan Nannenga

    Charla Wilson, Archivist for the Black Experience at Northwestern University Libraries, has an “Up-and-Comers” feature in the October issue of the MAC Newsletter.

    In her article, Charla discusses the origins and uniqueness of her position at Northwestern and how she has helped document and preserve the history and presence of black students, faculty, staff, and alumni at NU.

    You can read the article here:MAC Newsletter.pdf

    MAC members can access the full issue here.

    Hathaway Hester, archivist at the National Association of Realtors, did an interview earlier this month for Real Estate Today, a nationally-syndicated radio show and podcast about the real estate industry.

    She talks about Chicago Open Archives, NAR’s Archives, and American Archives Month in the interview.

    The whole show can be found here.

    Hathaway’s segment is also on Soundcloud here.

    Cathy Popovitch of the Illinois State Archives was recently awarded a Victoria Irons Walch Emerging Leader Award. Popovitch received the award at this year’s CoSA/SAA/NAGARA joint meeting in Washington D.C.

    The purpose of the award is to “encourage the development of an emerging leader in state and territorial archives.” As part of the award, recipients receive a travel stipend to attend the annual CoSA meeting. Eligible nominees are individuals who have worked in a state or territorial archives less than five (5) years and have never attended a CoSA Annual Meeting.

    Congratulations to Charla, Hathaway, and Cathy!

    Are you publishing, presenting, organizing, or otherwise working on something professionally awesome? Let us know about it! Email info@chicagoarchivists.org or the co-chairs of the Outreach and Member Engagement Subcommittee: Brittan Nannenga (brittan.nannenga@northwestern.edu) and Jill Waycie (j-waycie@northwestern.edu). 


  • 26 Sep 2018 8:54 AM | Jill Waycie

    Chicago Open Archives 2018 is fast approaching! Just one more week until #askanarchivist day (10/3) and 10 days until the first Chicago Open Archives event (10/6)! 

    To get you in the COA frame of mind, four more interviews are up in the COA podcast series: Catherine Grandgeorge talks about the Newberry Library's work with COA, Julie Wroblewski discusses her experience with COA at the Chicago History Museum and Benedictine University, Ashley Gosselar with the University of Chicago talks about open archives, and Sara Chapman talks about Media Burn and its COA events.

    Check the interviews out on Soundcloud here, and find the list of over 20 COA events on our Events  page. 

    (Check out our Facebook and Twitter pages too for more COA promotion!)

  • 06 Sep 2018 9:08 AM | Brittan Nannenga

    As part of this year's Chicago Open Archives, a few members of the Special Events Subcommittee have been working on a series of audio interviews with local archivists who have hosted COA events in the past.

    In the first three interviews, we hear from Virginia Jung, Community Archivist for the Benedictine Sisters, Julie Lynch, Librarian from the Northside History Collection of the Chicago Public Library, and Meg Hall, Director of Archives and Records at the Archdiocese of Chicago's Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Archives and Records Center.

    You can listen to the interviews here.

    It’s not too late to host your own COA event! The registration deadline is Friday, September 7. You can find more info and a link to register here.


  • 30 Aug 2018 3:55 PM | Jill Waycie

    The Chicago Open Archives (COA) Brainstorming Session happened earlier this month. CAA Steering Committee Member and representative from the IL State Library Andrew Bullen joined us to talk about the Illinois bicentennial. He shared many resources for archivists, historians, students, researchers and the public, and provided the summary below. If you missed the event, but are interested in the COA theme, we hope you find this helpful!

    ---

    The Illinois State Archives and the Illinois State Library are celebrating the bicentennial in a variety of ways. The State Library has developed a directory of authors who were born in or lived in Illinois (http://www.illinoisauthors.org/). Recently, we have moved it to a database platform that allows us to (among other things) map authors to cities and towns all over the state. The Archives and the Library along with Illinois State Historical Society has developed an Illinois authors book of the month club. For August, the book is “Bloody Williamson” (http://www.illinoisauthors.org/cgi-bin/illinoisAuthors/getSpecificAuthor.pl?uid=7809). We have also collaborated with to create an Illinois Authors poster featuring the names and home locations of more than 200 Illinois authors. The poster will be out shortly.

    The Illinois State Historical Records Advisory Board (http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/archives/ISHRAB/ ) has chosen the bicentennial as its theme for its statewide October Archives month poster.

    The Archives will shortly unveil an on-line exhibit featuring the 100 best documents at the Archives. The exhibit is designed to showcase the 200 year plus history of the state of Illinois and features such documents as the four Illinois Constitutions, several Lincoln documents and records related to the I & M Canal, the founding of Chicago and the Haymarket Riot. The Archives has been a part of the Illinois Bicentennial Commission from its beginning and has actively worked on its projects. 

    The Library has an online directory of Illinois Businesses that have been in  existence for at least a century at http://www.idaillinois.org/digital/collection/ilcenbus/search/. The recognition of efforts include a celebration of Centennial (1918) efforts as well. The Library has digitized a number of works from the Centennial (http://www.idaillinois.org/digital/collection/p16614coll44/search/) and has digitized the official state opera written for the Centennial, “The Masque of Illinois” (http://www.finditillinois.org/scalar/the-masque-of-illinois/).

    Finally, 2018 is also the Centennial of another important event in Illinois’ history, the ending of the First World War. Both the Archives and the Library have been a part of the official World War One Illinois Centennial Committee (https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/illinois-wwi-centennial-home.html).

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    For more information on COA 2018 and to register, please visit our page.

    Thank you to Andrew and all who attended!
  • 23 Aug 2018 11:23 AM | Jill Waycie

    Nathalie Wheaton, Archivist at Rush University Medical Center Archives, assisted Brenna Farrell in her work on a recent Radiolab episode. 

    The episode, “Poison Control,” explores the history and function of poison control centers.

    The first poison control center in the United States was developed in 1953, led by pharmacist Louis Gdalman, at St. Luke’s Hospital, a predecessor hospital of Rush University Medical Center.

    You can learn more about Louis Gdalman and the origins of poison control centers in this blog post Nathalie contributed to the Rush InPerson blog:

    https://rushinperson.rush.edu/2018/08/13/life-saving-poison-control-centers-have-origins-at-rush

    To listen to the Radiolab episode:

    https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/poison-control


    Viatorian Community Archivist (Clerics of St. Viator) Joan Sweeney sends this summary of Archon Day, led by the Archon Users Collaborative: Archon Day 2018 was held at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, on June 29 with participants from institutions in Illinois, Minnesota, Kansas, and Ohio. Next year we hope to enable participation from Archon users outside the Midwest by hosting a virtual meeting. Archon users hail from New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and other states from the West and the South.

    The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the future viability of Archon, the availability of alternative tools; their utility for Archon users in particular; and the Archon Users Collaborative future work in 3-5 years.

    The group formed teams focusing on research, code development, and user community communication. Each team has specific objectives and welcomes new team members.

    Ideas that were generated include:

    - Explore updating Archon code to work with PHP 7, building off what Calvin College has already completed.

    - Hold Archon Day 2019 virtually and work on communication to get others outside of the Midwest actively involved.

    - Create a comprehensive directory of Archon users to include international institutions for posting on our website.

    - Find partners and look for funding for future development.

    For the full meeting report and for more information, visit http://archonusers.blogspot.com.


    Morgen MacIntosh Hodgetts, Special Collections Instruction Librarian at DePaul University, co-authored "Teaching the Teacher: Primary Source Instruction in American and Canadian Archives Graduate Programs," published in the Spring/Summer 2018 issue of American Archivist. Read it here: http://americanarchivist.org/doi/full/10.17723/0360-9081-81.1.188


    Are you publishing, presenting, organizing, or otherwise working on something professionally awesome? Let us know about it! Email info@chicagoarchivists.org or the co-chairs of the Outreach and Member Engagement Subcommittee: Brittan Nannenga (brittan.nannenga@northwestern.edu) and Jill Waycie (j-waycie@northwestern.edu). 

  • 21 Aug 2018 2:09 PM | Brittan Nannenga

    Amber Dushman, Meghan P. Kennedy, and George Kutsunis recently shared their thoughts on starting and maintaining association archives, collecting digital materials, and leveraging historical assets in an article in the August issue of Association Forum Magazine. You can read the full article here.

    Congratulations to Amber, Meghan, and George!

    This article was a joint effort by archivists of CAA’s Membership and Association Interest Group. If you are interested in learning more about the interest groups, please visit their page. Joining an Interest Group is easy! Email info@chicagoarchivists.org for more information.


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