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June 2, 2020 - Comments Off on BLACK LIVES MATTER

BLACK LIVES MATTER

Dear LAAC Community:

Police brutality in the United States is a systemic and longstanding issue that disproportionately affects Black communities, resulting in state-sanctioned terror and death. This is not something LAAC feels neutral about: Black lives matter.

We are a collective of individuals who are committed to pursuing anti-racist work in our professional and personal lives. We support activists and organizers who put their lives at risk and push forward the message that these injustices against the Black community are wrong. 

In addition to physically protesting there are a number of ways to support sustainable transformation of communities during this time. Donate funds, sign petitions, call your local politicians, engage in and develop anti-racist practices. We include here a list of just some resources, some of which are archives specific and some of which are not. 

If you are documenting protest activity we strongly implore you to rely on ethical guidelines such as those put forth by Witness and DocNow, and employ tools that blur faces and identifiable traits. Do not put others' lives in danger in your pursuit of documentation- not everything needs to be archived the moment it happens. Our commitment is to that of our Black colleagues and neighbors first. 

As a collective, we will continue to use our skills and resources to seek and promote social justice. LAAC is committed to dismantling systemic white privilege and to advocating for Black lives.

In solidarity,
Los Angeles Archivists Collective Leadership + Founders

RESOURCES

Organizations
Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment: This grassroots organization aims to register voters and empower Californians to advocate and vote for economic, racial, and social justice.

Black Lives Matter- Los Angeles: Los Angeles Chapter “guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location.”

Black Visions Collective: “Since 2017, Black Visions Collective, has been putting into practice the lessons learned from organizations before us in order to shape a political home for Black people across Minnesota.”

Tools
Dismantling White Supremacy in Archives: Content produced in Professor Michelle Caswell’s Archives, Records, and Memory class, Fall 2016, UCLA. Poster design by Gracen Brilmyer.

Image Scrubber: “This is a tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests.It will remove identifying metadata (Exif data) from photographs, and also allow you to selectively blur parts of the image to cover faces and other identifiable information.”

Activist Archivist Zine: Created by Kali Lawrie and Published by the LAAC Community Outreach & Advocacy Subcommittee, December 2016

Protest & Bail Funds Organizations 
The Bail Project: With locations in Compton, Van Nuys, and San Diego, as well as offices or partnerships in cities from coast to coast, the Bail Project is one of the largest and most established bail funds.

Los Angeles Bail Fund: Led by Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and supported by White People 4 Black Lives. 100% of donations go to the bail fund.

Local Budget Funds/Organizations
People’s City Council Freedom Fund: The L.A. activist group Peoples City Council stages protest actions on a variety of issues around social and economic justice. Recently, the local group has been lobbying for a city budget that reduces the share of public funds used to pay for the LAPD.

People’s Budget Los Angeles: An “alternative to the Mayor’s proposed 2020-21 budget. Our document and data both reveal a clear referendum: invest in universal needs (e.g., housing security, public health/health care, mental health and wellness, etc.) and divest from traditional forms of policing.”

Ways to donate directly to the families of those who have recently been victimized by the police: 
Ahmaud Arbery (GoFundMe, I Run with Maud)
George Floyd (GoFundMe, Memorial Fund) 
Tony McDade (GoFundMe, Memorial Fund)
Sean Reed (GoFundMe, Memorial Fund)
Breonna Taylor (Change.org, Petition, Louisville Community Bail Fund)

March 16, 2020 - Comments Off on A Message To Our LAAC Community About COVID-19

A Message To Our LAAC Community About COVID-19

Dear LAAC Community:

First and foremost, we hope that everyone is staying safe and doing their best to practice self-care as we all attempt to navigate this stressful and confusing time.

We want to highlight community resources that are available for archivists and information professionals who find themselves impacted by COVID-19. Members of the LAAC community are invited to contribute to this list here: COVID-19 Community Resources for Archivists.

We also want to remind folks that the LAAC community is a valuable network of caring archivists. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to the community if you find yourself in need of assistance. We are all in this together and we will get through it together!

Thank you to everyone who has already registered for the March 22 Community Planning Meeting, which will now be held online. Details for joining the Zoom meeting are included below—please note that you have the option to attend via phone or via computer. We will be introducing our new leadership and brainstorming potential remote activities which still bring LAAC community members together. 

Stay safe and take good care, everyone!

Sincerely,
The LAAC Steering Committee

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January 21, 2020 - Comments Off on Call for Pitches – Acid Free

Call for Pitches – Acid Free

ISSUE 11: FICTIONS

Image via Universal Pictures

Acid Free, the online quarterly magazine of the Los Angeles Archivists Collective, welcomes contributions for its upcoming issue. Acid Free seeks to be a smart, complicated, non-academic forum for a variety of voices and issues in our field, to ground archivists locally and regionally while also keeping an eye toward larger conversations and landscapes.

The theme of our Winter 2020 issue will be FICTIONS, which can be broadly interpreted through an archival lens. Possible topics may include: literary archives, research, or other topics involving artistic production and genre; systemic issues and the stories we tell ourselves within the profession; myths, lies, truth-telling, and subterfuge; creative speculation and ways of imagining; or other takes on the theme. Articles can highlight documents, collections, or exhibitions; explore local landmarks; share projects and stories; or address other theme-related archival subjects and issues.

Pitch us your idea by telling us in a few sentences what your article is about and how it relates to FICTIONS and archives. Please keep in mind our submission guidelines and check out current and past issues of Acid Free for examples. We are a visual magazine, so make sure your topic lends itself to plenty of images!

Pitches will be accepted through February 3, 2020 at: acidfree@laacollective.org.

Responses will be sent out the week of February 10th.

Thanks from the Acid Free team.

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January 17, 2020 - Comments Off on 2020 LAAC Candidate Bios

2020 LAAC Candidate Bios

Candidate Bios for LAAC Leadership Positions

Steering Committee, Events Chair, Publications Chair, Outreach Chair

 

More info about positions and the election process can be found in our bylaws.


Voting ends 1/31/2020. Thank you for your participation!

 

Steering Committee (3-year term)

Sarah Wade

Sarah Wade is a Special Collections Archivist at the Getty Research Institute. She earned her MLIS with an advanced certificate in archives and her MS in art history from Pratt Institute in New York. Prior to joining the GRI in 2018, Sarah worked in a variety of special collections repositories, including the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Library and Archives, the Boston Public Library Rare Books & Manuscripts Department, and the Frances Mulhall Achilles Library at the Whitney Museum of American Art.  

 

Events Subcommittee Chair (1-year term)

Azatuhi Babayan

Azatuhi Babayan is currently the L.A. as Subject Resident Archivist at USC and consults in her free time. She received her MLIS from UCLA in 2017 and holds a B.A. in English from UC Berkeley. As a lifelong resident of the Los Angeles area, she is drawn to community- and neighborhood-based archives in the city because of the culturally and historically layered landscape, teeming with vital stories that speak to the past and can help envision futures. Azatuhi has been involved with LAAC since 2016 and with the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project since 2018. As Co-Chair of the Social Events subcommittee, she looks forward to cultivating programs that serve and foster a symbiotic relationship between local archives, community organizations, and LAAC members.

Jasmine Larkin

Jasmine Larkin is currently the Accessioning Archivist at UCLA Library Special Collections. She received her MLIS with a specialization in Archival Studies from UCLA, and previously held positions at the Getty Research Institute and New York University. She has been an active member of the Events subcommittee for the past year coordinating tours to the Getty, the California African American Museum, and the Western Costume Company.

 

Outreach Subcommittee Chair (1-year term)

Rachel Rosenfeld

Rachel Rosenfeld is the Accessioning Archivist for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, Margaret Herrick Library.  She received her MLIS from UCLA in 2012, and started her work at the Oscars the same year. Before obtaining her graduate degree she previously held archive-related positions at the Directors Guild of America, the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, the Museum of the Moving Image, Bonhams & Butterfields, and the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. 

 Her interests include movies, television, the internet, Los Angeles history, and dogs. She has been a member of LAAC since its founding, but is excited at the opportunity to become more involved. 

 

Publications Subcommittee Chair (1-year term)

Lori Dedeyan

Lori Dedeyan was most recently a Processing Archivist at UCLA Library Special Collections.  She received her MLIS in 2014 and has worked in special collections ever since, previously at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley.  She enjoys writing on the intersection of art and archives and has done so in the past as a contributor to LAAC’s magazine, Acid Free. 

 I have been a member of the Publications Subcommittee for the past year and have enjoyed learning about its work during that time.  One of the year’s highlights was working as a part of the Acid Free editorial team to bring its tenth issue, Roots, to fruition.  This lovely issue also brought about an invitation to represent the one true Acid Free on a panel at the Acid-Free Art Book Fair. 

 It’s been a pleasure to learn from and work with my fellow subcommittee members, and look forward to drawing on this experience, as Publications Subcommittee Chair, to help guide the evolution of our work as we think about new projects for the coming year. 

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December 11, 2019 - Comments Off on LAAC Call for Nominations

LAAC Call for Nominations

The Los Angeles Archivists Collective (LAAC) is accepting nominations for the following positions, with terms beginning in January 2020

  • Steering Committee member (3 years)
  • Outreach Subcommittee Chair (1 year)
  • Publications Subcommittee Chair (1 year)
  • Events Subcommittee Chair (1 year)

These positions will provide LAAC members with an opportunity to lead and contribute to future programming efforts, as well as engage, collaborate, and build relationships with the other local archivists and professional organizations. For a complete description of the duties and responsibilities carried out by these positions, see the LAAC bylaws at https://www.laacollective.org/about/bylaws/

Steering Committee

The Steering Committee coordinates the organization’s meetings; presides at all meetings and seeks members to serve on subcommittees. The Steering Committee will also form ad-hoc groups as needed which include, but are not limited to, the Holiday Party/Fundraising committee; Nominating committee; and Scholarship committee.

Subcommittee Chairs

Subcommittee Chairs organize subcommittee meetings for 3 recently reorganized areas- Outreach, Publications, and Events to ensure subcommittee activities are scheduled and executed, and report to the membership on their progress at each meeting. If desired, Subcommittee Chairs may appoint a co-chair. More information about each subcommittee can be found on the LAAC website. 

The deadline for nominations is Friday, December 20, 2019 (self-nominations are encouraged). Please note that current students may not be elected to Steering Committee or Subcommittee Chair positions but may serve as members of subcommittees. 

To submit nominations, email hello@laacollective.org with the nominee name and position. Include a short biography and candidate statement detailing current work, professional interests, and ideas for the candidate's role in LAAC (approximately 200 words). The online ballot will open the week of January 6, 2020.

In addition, LAAC seeks the following subcommittee members:

  • Outreach, 3-5 members
  • Events, 3-5 members

Members are not elected--they volunteer to be active subcommittee members. Terms are for 1 year. Students are especially encouraged to participate in these positions - LAAC is interested in having local student representatives from UCLA, San Jose State, University of North Texas, and USC.

Each subcommittee will meet in-person or virtually three times a year, and check in with other local professional organizations to avoid duplicate efforts and/or identify potential collaborations for projects or events. For more information, see the Subcommittees section on our about page at https://www.laacollective.org/about/.

To sign up for a subcommittee member position, email hello@laacollective.org by Friday, January 3, 2020 and specify which subcommittee you are interested in. Please also include a few sentences about yourself.

We look forward to receiving your nominations and applications. Please feel free to email with any questions: hello@laacollective.org.