Something about those who don't learn from history...

Some years ago, ten-plus, our local public library reorganized staff. The full time Alaskana expert was no longer really a fulltime local expert position. And a few years later, he retired. And his position wasn't replaced. There had been others who had it as a portion of their job, but nobody really full-time. Hours for that section of the library, which was physically segregated from the rest of the library, were cut substantially.

I'm tempted to say "Crickets" but the truth is I wasn't really paying serious attention myself--enough troubles of my own at the time with budgets and staffing--and I don't know how much really was said about it, how much public outcry happened. Maybe there was some and it just didn't go anywhere. Whatever the outcry was, it didn't change the outcome.

A few years later, our professional archivist heading up our local National Archives branch retired. Along with a few of the other long-time workers. Some of those positions were sort of refilled, but not entirely.

Again, I'm tempted to say "Crickets" but the truth is I wasn't really paying serious attention myself--enough troubles of my own at the time with budgets and staffing--and I don't know how much really was said about it, how much public outcry happened. Maybe there was some and it just didn't go anywhere.

I know the use levels at the NARA branch had been dropping for some time, I don't know what the use of the collection/space at the public library had looked like but I'd gotten the impression that maybe it had dropped some too? I don't know, that's purely speculation.

Flash forward a bit to about 4 years ago. The National Archives is facing budget shortfalls, looks around at the least used vs most expensive facilities vs existing staffing, decision made, our branch gets closed and most of the stuff gets shipped about 1200 miles away (some very few collections were removed from federal custody and placed with public institutions in state but the details of that are quite nuanced and long and not worth delving into at this point).

Not crickets. Massive public outcry. Fair enough. I'll admit, it kind of went through my head that maybe we should have been yelling about this a tidge bit earlier, like at the time of the no replacement for the retiree level, but we didn't. Game over, NARA is gone. FYI: it's still having massive funding issues on the federal level, too. The cuts continue.

Flash forward to recently. City library has a flood in their local collections space, the circulating materials that survived the flood are moved to other parts of the library, it speeds up a master plan to move the collection to a not-so-segregated space closer to other library collections, word gets out. Massive outcry. There's something special about that space! We need the expertise of the Alaskana specialists! I'm not mocking this attitude, I happen to agree, about the expertise at least. And I'm wondering why we didn't fight it when we had a fighting chance to fix it, back when the last expert left 10 years ago and wasn't replaced. Or even before that, as the staff of seven full-time subject experts dwindled. Or the facilities types were allowed to defer the maintenance on the space because of budget cuts and things that were regarded as higher priorities. We all know the longer a position goes unfilled, the less likely it is to ever be filled again. And the longer a facility goes without upgrades or maintenance, the more expensive it gets to overhaul it, especially if it's a space that's going to need some specific environmental conditions aimed at long-term preservation of materials.

Here's some other things some of you have maybe noticed but haven't really understood to be a possible forecast for the future of locally focused collections (archives collections, library collections, museum collections and by the way no, none of those are interchangeable terms) here and elsewhere in state. Ready for it?

The library for the local universities? Hasn't had a full-time Alaskana librarian for over 15 years. Currently the work is being shared among several librarians with the retiree still putting in a fair amount of time of her own on a volunteer basis but certainly it's not the same level of effort as had been happening when this was a full-time position. Several other library positions have fallen vacant and have been cut. Not to mention that the parking lots and parking garages at the university are expected to be self-funded (no tuition dollars, no state appropriations) so the cost of parking is steadily increasing proving an obstacle to access. And yes, we pay for parking too, it's not just the community members and students suffering from this.

Our State Archivist position went unfilled for well over a year. We have one now, thankfully, and it appears their staffing is finally full up over there not that they couldn't use more, but I didn't hear much, if any, public outcry over that position while it was vacant.

Our State Library and State Museum has a bunch of unfilled positions, many of them working with their Alaskana and historical materials. Who's yelling? Who is pushing the Legislature to get them the funding they need to fill those positions?

The archives of the state's flagship university library has two people (including one retiree convinced to come out of retirement temporarily) doing the work with textual and photographic archives that used to be done by several people not five years ago, not to mention many other vacant and now gone positions elsewhere in the library, including the head of that department that encompasses the special collections at that university. Those vacant jobs aren't being advertised so it's probably a fair assumption that they won't be, either. Because of a flood that damaged the space (thankfully not the collections) well over a year ago, they've been operating by appointment only and their website will tell you that it's due to continue til next February because apparently the renovation keeps getting delayed and delayed and delayed and the delays aren't coming from within the library. The 600 pound gorilla of archives in the state is accessible to researchers by appointment only. By Appointment Only. Does anybody else have an issue with this?

Our local museum's library and archives just had a librarian leave. The remaining staff can't/won't talk about what might be happening with that position, but I'm wondering what the Museum's administration would say about their plans to replace that individual. Know what I think? I think the job line will be repurposed elsewhere in the Museum and there's not a darn thing the others in that department can do about it. Will somebody please ask the Museum's administration about this? And then publicize the answer?

And these are some of the most visible, purportedly well-funded orgs in the state. This doesn't even include the many cultural, tribal, historical libraries, archives, and museums all over Alaska that have been struggling for a very long time and continue to struggle because they don't get the financial and other support they need to do what they do. Occasionally they're able to hire or train staff for the work that needs to be done but then because of other shortages, those specialists end up working the reception desk or providing security for one of the exhibits because there's nobody else there to do it. These institutions are doing incredible work in the face of huge challenges, but it's not til they've closed that anybody seems to notice and then it's often far too late.

And I'm betting all of the rest of these institutions in the state that don't appear to be in crisis are one employee retirement/departure from going into free fall. It's that bad out there, folks.  And it's a state-wide problem.

Are you asking why we, the people who work at these institutions aren't saying anything? Asking for help earlier?

Often we can't. It can be dangerous for us to try and drum up public support for a program in crisis: if the outcry is sourced back to one of the employees, and the administration is embarrassed by it, do you really think most of these employees are going to chance their jobs? But it's not even fear of retribution, really. Honestly. When your program is in that level of crisis that you're doing all you can do just to keep the doors open and the email and phone answered and point people to the stuff they need/want to use and put as much online as possible because people think if it's not online it might as well not exist, but yet nobody is giving you the insane amount of money that putting stuff online costs so you have to skip other required work to do it, you honestly have no additional time to go out and try and get attention. You're way too busy trying to get the work done. Or possibly job searching so you don't have to go unemployed if the worst happens and your repository closes. And besides, who is going to pay attention to you anyhow? Administration? The legislature? The workers in these institutions can't advocate at the level that really needs to be done because almost everybody who hears that assumes we're just trying to protect our jobs. Those in public institutions are probably actively forbidden from budget advocacy. If our users, our researchers, our public don't defend us, if they don't feel we're necessary enough to defend, our resource allocators certainly aren't going to defend our budgets. And while librarians, archivists, and curators tend to be a pretty generous bunch when it comes to sharing our time and expertise in support of colleagues who need our assistance, most of us aren't working for institutions that support us spending time on other institutions that aren't us.

Are you seeing an institution in crisis? Want to protect your local library/archives/museum from going down this path?

Increase your visits. Increase your use of stuff. Make sure you attribute it correctly. Encourage others to use it. One of the common threads in some of those above examples? Was decreasing use and the lack of the staff's ability to prove that these collections were being used. And lack of public recognition from users. That cool photo up on the Alaska's Digital Archives? Probably took about a half hour minimum of some worker's time to put up (multiply that by the 90,000+ items up on the Digital Archives) and that doesn't even include the $30-65,000 a year it has taken over the past 15 years just to maintain that website. Make an effort, please, to learn about the largely invisible labor that it takes to make this stuff available and what that labor realistically costs. Share that information. And when you download that image and use it in whatever, cite it properly. And contact the institution who put it up and let them know what you're up to with it so they can prove that this is an effective use of their time when they do have a chance to have these conversations with their resource allocators.

Thank the people who are doing this work. Thank them publicly. Write their administrators and your legislators and explain why what they do is important.  If you have some money, even $5, donate some money earmarked to their departments in thanks for the work they do and if you have to earmark it further, earmark it for things that are not currently being funded (like employee development travel or expensive specialized supplies) instead of operational aspects that should be funded by administration like staffing and collection materials. Ask your librarians/archivists/curators: they'll gladly tell you what things they need but will never get under their regular funding. It's amazing what you can buy with enough $5 donations.

Here's an Attila rant: skip the next paragraph if you don't want to hear the things we need you to stop doing:

Please stop telling us that if we'd just do exhibits, we'd get the attention we need. People have to be coming into the building to see exhibits. And if we don't have the funding to do our normal work, where in the heck are we going to get the funding to create a proper exhibit? Why are you under the impression that those don't cost money and time? Please stop telling us to just put everything online: take the time to learn why that may or may not be the answer and how much that actually costs. Hint: it's phenomenally more expensive than you think it is. Before you yell at us for a decision we've made, take a moment to talk to us about why we did that and be respectful of an answer that revolves around making the best of a bad situation while, especially in public institutions, trying to ensure we respect some basics about the functioning of public institutions like equal access. Remember that hosting events costs money and time and may cut into other services for us. Please stop telling us to seek out grant funding: grant funding is great for short term projects but we can't make it work for programs where the funding runs out but the work and the costs don't, like digitization. Plus have you noticed that a lot of granting agencies don't have as much funding anymore either? Please stop telling us our collections don't have what you need in local documentation: talk to us about what documentation exists and help us bring it in so you and others can benefit from it. Please don't say: just hand that stuff over to this other organization, they can do the work. Chances are they don't have the funding/support/staffing/mission to take it on either.

Please think about how to show the benefits of the things you've used from local information resources. Don't just rely on abstract concepts like "history is important!" Your average person who is worrying about the next meal, the next job shift, the next rent check, isn't going to view that as relevant to their lives. Think about how you can demonstrate how what you've found in a library, in an archives, in a museum has had a real, tangible effect on people recently, on people now.

Please remember that our ability to advocate for ourselves and for our professional colleagues may be limited and may not be heard. You will always be a louder voice for us than we ever can. Please: go talk to your librarians/archivists/curators. Listen to what they say and try and work for what they say they need; within the context of what you need, of course. Go press the funders--whether that be the city, the borough, the state, private organizations, or all of them. Donate what you can and not just for your own access: for the access of anybody else that could use those materials but who don't have your financial wherewithal.

Above all, speak up before the place you love, the resources you use, the resources you'll want to have access to in future, are having to reduce hours and access. That's a very hard slope to get away from. Once they're gone, they're unlikely to come back. In the meantime, we'll be doing what we can, as we always do, hoping that we'll be able to beat the trend.

The Archival Quilt!

Okay, so here's the deal. I'm auctioning off this quilted throw as a fundraiser for the Society of American Archivists. SAA isn't sponsoring this in any way, this is just me as a member of the org. Proceeds will be given as unrestricted funds to the SAA Foundation.

Bid in the comments. Minimum bid is $100. Please, no bidding increments of less than $1.00. No anonymous bids (how will I know who won? Make sure your bid--or the first if you bid bunches--has something that will allow me to find you if you win.) Bidding will be closed on February 17, 2017 at midnight, AST. Highest bid at that point wins. I'll get in touch with the winner to confirm details. Winner will make the payment directly to the SAA Foundation and send me a copy of the receipt at which point I'll ship the quilt to the US, APO, or Canada address the winner designates.

The quilt is 62"x62", not bed size, but a good size for curling up on the couch. There's about $150 worth of fabric and supplies in it. I've put ~80 hours of work into it. The circle/squares are hand appliqued. The squares, borders, and binding are machine-sewn. It's hand-quilted. All by me. (I didn't weave the fabric as you might have guessed). The fabric and batting are 100% cotton. It's machine washable--use the gentle cycle and cold wash only with a gentle detergent--and can be tumble dried on cool.

And here's the story behind the quilt.

I learned to do the circle applique thing a few years back. I really don't like applique work, much less hand applique work, but for some reason I got into these circles. Especially after I discovered how portable the circle/squares were (meetings, airplanes, etc). And then last June I was in a local quilting store and tripped across the patterned fabric from the circles. And thought: archives-themed fabric? Perfect. And started in. Below are some of the stages in the construction. If you want to go through the whole story, I have an album of photographs on my Facebook page you can wander through.

It's been worked on in Grand Rapids MI (Meijer Botanical Gardens), Chicago IL, Atlanta GA, Juneau AK, Anchorage AK (mostly), Seward AK, in airports, homes, work meetings, hotels, car dealerships, doctor's offices and on the occasional outdoor bench.

The original fabric

Cutting the squares

Applique layers are glue-basted,

drawing the lines for applique

Applique work

Appliqueing at Meijer Gardens,

Grand Rapids MI while

waiting for my family to show up

Appliqueing on the Seward waterfront

while waiting to go out on a wildlife

watching cruise

Sewing the circle-squares

together for the quilt top

The central top pieced

Attaching a flange and the

border

Quilt top, backing, and binding strips

ready to go

Backing, batting, and top laid

out and basted, ready for

quilting

Have needles, thread, scissors

and thimble for the quilting

Quilting in progress,

at a doctor's office waiting room

All done!

Do you have my stuff?

If you've run across this posting by virtue of googling a serial number or something of this cool thing you just got, you may be in possession of stolen property. I'm hoping you'll be willing to talk to me about its possible return.  I'll cover shipping and discuss a reward. See info at the bottom.

In Seattle last week, my rental car got hit by a smash and grab right across from SeaTac at about 6:30 am when I was having breakfast at a local restaurant. The damage to the car was covered by insurance, but my backpack and its contents were not.

So basically that sucked. Because I had some fairly valuable stuff in that backpack and I'm out the full replacement price of all of it, and that doesn't even touch the stuff that isn't replaceable.

First up was my fairly new (last November) Lonovo multi-touch tablet.

(That photo is from the Lenovo website.) The serial number for the one that is gone is HA0FN63F. By the way, I hope you managed to find a charger on the aftermarket if you're planning to keep it. Lenovo takes about 3 months to ship them. Or if you want, I've got two and without the tablet, there's not much point in my having them so we can probably arrange some sort of a deal.

Second up was my very old iPad2. Like 4 years old. The serial number on that was PD367LL/A. The back was engraved with Attila the Archivist. Okay, I was thinking of replacing that anyway since the battery life was getting pretty short, but I have to say, I'm really really really sad about losing the black leather Rebecca Minkoff cover. That cover is the reason the iPad is as old as it is. It saved the thing from multiple drops off furniture. I'd really like that back, as worn out as it is.

Here's the one that really hurt, financially. My two year Swarovski EL 8X32 binoculars, serial number F833848302 . Really, truly, I cannot afford to replace these.

Next up, something else I can't replace. This ivory and carnelian stretch bracelet. It's one of a kind.

I bought it from the artist at the Alaska Native Heritage Center's holiday bazaar. Here's some information you might not know: walrus ivory is legal to sell/own in the US IF you have a permit to sell it (the artist did) and IF when you buy it, it comes with a receipt documenting the sale (which I have.) Being in possession of this bracelet or the ivory from it is going to add a few levels to the possession of stolen goods charge that could be levied against you if you were to be caught with it. Please, instead of that, will you just contact me (or see below for alternatives) so I can get it back?

I had a signed copy of the Sibley's Guide to Birds of Western North America too. Yeah, I know it's not worth much and it was pretty worn, but it was signed by the author and having to redo all my notes in it is going to be a pain. My name, email, and phone number are inside the front cover.

Most everything else in the backpack was negligible though there's a few other things I'd like back. I had a crocheted shawl under way with about $50 worth of cream/peach cotton yarn and I'm bummed about losing that (I was almost done!). And the handpainted northern lights-themed silk scarf that I bought in Seward AK last year. Most of the clothing that was in there was aging, but if you'd like to donate that to a thrift store--along with the backpack itself--that's fine by me.

By the way, if you're not comfortable with contacting me directly, I get that. If you'd prefer to return the stuff to the King County Sheriff's Dept, this is my case #: C16011798. They'll be happy to take it in. Or if you don't even want to get that close to an official source, will you please drop it off at a local library with a note referencing either the URL of this blog post or the King County Sheriff's Dept and the case #?

If you're a library worker and you get this, please contact me or the King County Sheriff's Office? I'll be happy to arrange for pickup/transport/whatever is needed. (Also, I'll happily make a donation to your library.)

And yes, next time I renew my auto coverage, I'm going to be looking a little more closely at the coverage in case of theft. Although I really have to hope this will never happen again. It was--is--pretty distressing.

Thanks. --ABS

Birding on the edges

Birders are weird. Probably in a lot of ways, especially to non-birders, but what I discovered some time ago while hanging out with a lot of my birding friends is that most seem unwilling to self-identify as birders. It's like being a birder is a claim to some sort of level of expertise they haven't quite achieved yet.* They always have somebody else to point to who is better, just because that person has been to a location they've never been. Or whatever. It's just weird.

I'm willing to admit I'm a birder. I'm not a very good one, but I will admit to it. I haven't yet gone on a vacation solely for the purpose of looking for birds, but it has in the past couple of years been in the top two reasons for some of the trips I've taken. I think at that point, you just have to claim the label and move on.

I came late to birding, relatively. I'd moved to Alaska and gone on a few wildlife watching cruises. And something clicked one day in 2004 while I was listening to a tourist rhapsodizing over identifying a crow in Seward by a call. Seriously? A crow? She'd traveled thousands of miles and was excited about a crow? A northwestern crow, different from the American crow more common in the contiguous US. And suddenly I realized I was seeing birds here that other people took once-in-a-lifetime expensive trips specifically to see. So I started tracking, sporadically, what I saw, or at least the more exotic ones. Then a few years after that around 2007-2008, I started filling in some blanks and by 2011, I was recording the list a little more assiduously. You can tell: that's the year I start writing in more of the "dickey birds" as one birder friend puts it when annoyed at her inability to identify them (LBJs: Little Brown Jobs is perhaps the more common phrase for those).

Tree swallow at Potter Marsh (Anchorage, AK)

It's also a weird list because it is dependent on the date I first documented having seen the bird. So while I've seen whooping cranes some years ago, I don't have a date on that occasion so they aren't on my life list yet. I have a Northwestern crow in 2004, an American crow in 2011 (I grew up in Seattle. I saw American crows daily in my childhood). An emperor goose (check out that range!) predates an American goldfinch. I saw a common eider a year before I saw a wood duck, that mainstay of the Midwest and east coast and which, I'd like to point out, I still haven't seen in mating plumage. The list displays a few errors of documentation such as when in 2015 I realized that though I'd seen a number of great horned owls over time including having been strafed and screamed at by one in the 1990s, I hadn't bothered to put down an exact date. Also it only includes the ones I can verify having seen with possible distinguishing marks, rather than just winging by at high speed or only hearing. (Add the Pacific wren and golden-crowned kinglet for the just-heard listing).

Northwestern crows. No, I can't really see the difference, either.

In conversations with birders friends elsewhere, I realized what a weird list it was, by virtue of having been started in Alaska. And I decided to list it out not by species but by year, to see how well it reflected the Alaska bias. And it did. It also reflects the bias of my traveling, like to a friend's wedding in Hawaii for a long weekend in 2011, and how much time I had on those trips to bird or not, depending on I was with and their tolerance for "hey, wait, I want to figure out what that is" and definitely dependent on whether the person I was with was a birder who could spot and identify and teach me what I was looking at. It reflects the bias of one of my regular birding companions who is  apparently fascinated by shorebirds, which despite my every effort I rarely can identify without copious assistance. It's definitely heavy on the west coast, since that's where I've done the preponderance of my travel, but also reflects an occasional foray further away such as a trip to FL in 2011. I am grateful that when I go visit those elsewhere friends, that they find my "Western Kingbird? How cool!" amusing and will stop the car so I can get a good look.

The list so far. At 265, I have a long way to go to get to the 900+ birds that occur in North America and Hawaii. If I never get to the full count? I really am okay with that. I'm not obsessive about this. In the meantime, it's good for my memory and gets me outside a lot more than I'd probably otherwise do. Not such a bad reason to call myself a birder.

2004

• Pelagic cormorant
• Bald eagle
• Black oystercatcher
• Tufted puffin
• Northwestern crow
• Common raven

2005

• Greater scaup
• Ring-necked pheasant
• California quail
• Red-necked grebe
• Red-faced cormorant
• Killdeer
• Arctic tern
• Thick-billed murre
• Kittlitz’s murrelet
• Rhinoceros auklet
• Horned puffin
• Belted kingfisher
• Blue jay
• Steller’s jay
• Black-billed magpie

2006

• Harlequin duck
• Sandhill crane
• Black-capped chickadee
• Red-breasted nuthatch

2007

• Trumpeter swan
• Mallard
• Canvasback
• Willow ptarmigan
• Pigeon guillemot
• Marbled murrelet
• Grey jay
• Bohemian waxwing

2008

• American wigeon
• Northern shoveler
• Brown pelican
• Great blue heron
• Hudsonian godwit
• Mew gull
• Western gull
• Black-legged kittiwake
• Common murre
• Rock dove
• Downy woodpecker
• Violet-green swallow
• Bank swallow
• European starling
• Yellow-rumped warbler
• Dark-eyed junco
• Common redpoll
• House sparrow

2009

• Canada Goose
• Barrow’s goldeneye
• Common goldeneye
• Common loon
• Merlin
• White-crowned sparrow

2010

• Gadwall
• Green-winged teal
• Ring-necked duck
• Long-tailed duck
• Northern harrier
• Lesser yellowlegs
• Greater yellowlegs
• Short-billed dowitcher
• Long-billed dowitcher
• Great grey owl
• Tree swallow
• Snow bunting

2011

• Muscovy duck
• Northern pintail
• American white pelican
• Anhinga
• Double-crested cormorant
• Tri-colored heron
• Snowy egret
• Great egret
• White ibis
• Turkey vulture
• Black vulture
• Osprey
• Peregrine falcon
• Pacific golden-plover
• Rednecked phalarope
• Ring-billed gull
• Spotted dove
• Hairy woodpecker
• Western scrub-jay
• American crow
• Chestnut-backed chickadee
• Brown creeper
• Northern mockingbird
• Common myna
• Summer tanager
• Savannah sparrow
• Lapland longspur
• Northern cardinal
• Pine grosbeak
• Japanese white-eye
• Zebra dove
• Yellow-billed cardinal
• Saffron finch
• Yellow-fronted canary
• Common waxbill
• Java sparrow
• Peafowl

2012

• Greater white-fronted goose
• Snow goose
• Eurasian wigeon
• Cinnamon teal
• Redhead
• Lesser scaup
• Black scoter
• White-winged scoter
• Surf scoter
• Common merganser
• Ruddy duck
• Pacific loon
• Pied-billed grebe
• Horned grebe
• Eared grebe
• Western grebe
• White-faced ibis
• Red-tailed hawk
• American coot
• Black-bellied plover
• American golden-plover
• American avocet
• Black-necked stilt
• Willet
• Whimbrel
• Long-billed curlew
• Semipalmated plover
• Pectoral sandpiper
• Franklin’s gull
• Bonaparte’s gull
• California gull
• Herring gull
• Glaucous gull
• Ivory gull
• Parakeet auklet
• Mourning dove
• Eurasian collared-dove
• Barn owl
• Snowy owl
• Northern flicker
• Horned lark
• Cliff swallow
• Boreal chickadee
• Marsh wren
• American dipper
• Ruby-crowned kinglet
• Townsend’s solitaire
• Varied thrush
• American robin
• American pipit
• Orange-crowned warbler
• Grasshopper sparrow
• Song sparrow
• Western meadowlark
• Yellow-headed blackbird
• Red-winged blackbird
• House finch

2013

• Brant
• Common eider
• Bufflehead
• Redbreasted merganser
• Hooded merganser
• Wild turkey
• Red-throated loon
• Cattle egret
• Golden eagle
• Semipalmated plover
• Solitary sandpiper
• Spotted sandpiper
• Dunlin
• Least sandpiper
• Wilson’s snipe
• Common snipe
• Red phalarope
• Glaucous-winged gull
• Parasitic jaeger
• Long-tailed jaeger
• Alder flycatcher
• Barn swallow
• Arctic warbler
• Grey-cheeked thrush
• Red-whiskered bulbul
• Eastern yellow wagtail
• Yellow warbler
• Wilson’s warbler
• Northern waterthrush
• American tree sparrow
• Fox sparrow
• Lincoln’s sparrow
• Golden-crowned sparrow
• Lesser goldfinch

2014

• Emperor goose
• Mute swan
• Wood duck
• Arctic loon
• Black-footed albatross
• Sooty shearwater
• Pink-footed shearwater
• Black-vented shearwater
• Fork-tailed storm petrel
• Brandt’s cormorant
• Black-crowned night heron
• White-tailed kite
• Rough-legged hawk
• American kestrel
• Marbled godwit
• Black turnstone
• Surfbird
• Sanderling
• Western sandpiper
• Heermann’s gull
• Elegant tern
• Caspian tern
• Aleutian tern
• Pomarine jaeger
• Cassin’s auklet
• Short-eared owl
• Black-chinned hummingbird
• Anna’s hummingbird
• Acorn woodpecker
• Nuttall’s woodpecker
• Black phoebe
• Say’s phoebe
• Northern shrike
• Hutton’s vireo
• Oak titmouse
• Mountain chickadee
• Bushtit
• House wren
• Bewick’s wren
• Western bluebird
• Hermit thrush
• Townsend’s warbler
• California towhee
• Spotted towhee
• Rufous-crowned sparrow
• Common grackle
• Great-tailed grackle
• Brewer’s blackbird 

2015

• Chukar
• Clark’s grebe
• Sharp-shinned hawk
• Swainson’s hawk
• Wilson’s phalarope
• Lesser black-backed gull
• Forster’s tern
• Great horned owl
• Burrowing owl
• Rufous hummingbird
• Western kingbird
• Eastern kingbird
• Loggerhead shrike
• Purple martin
• California thrasher
• Chipping sparrow
• Brown-headed cowbird
• Bullock’s oriole
• Cassin’s finch
• American goldfinch

It's been a fun time. I hope to continue adding to the list--it'll be interesting--to me, anyhow--to see how the yearly additions ebb and flow numbers-wise. Presumably at some point I'll only be able to add one (or none) in a year. And I'm starting to affect the people around me, though with varying results. My brother will now text me from a vacation to describe a LBJ. I'm not sure he really cares what the answer is, but he is paying more attention. My parents, who find this a very weird hobby for me to have, are paying more attention too. My mom has a similar reaction to my brother--she'll describe for me to identify--but my dad is less interested in identifications. He continues--and probably always will--to respond to every duck he sees that isn't a mallard with the statement "Oh, we used to have those at the pond on the farm. We called them mud hens." He once described a male hooded merganser in full mating plumage as a mud hen! Oh well, as long as on the occasions I'm in their vicinity, they tolerate the occasional quick stop to see something little flitting in the bushes, I'm okay with the whole mud hen thing. Honestly, I find it kind of amusing.

Emperor geese. My dad would probably call them mud geese.

*Of course, one other decent reason for not admitting to being a birder is the stereotype expressed best (and in NSFW language) by Luke Dempsey in A Supremely Bad Idea when he writes what he'd like to say to people when they ask him what he's doing: "Seriously, folks, I'm wearing khaki, I have binoculars strapped to my chest, and I am clearly unfuckable. What does it look like I'm doing?"

In memoriam

I found out yesterday that Bert Rhoads had passed away. Many people might know Bert as the AOTUS (Archivist of the US) during the Nixon administration, but to me and a number of people he was also our first archival educator, guide, and mentor.

If I'm a decent archivist, a huge percentage of that is due to Bert Rhoads. (If I'm not, that's on me.) I am enough of an archivist to know that the snapshot of two years spent taking classes and meeting with him is hardly representative of his life as a whole, but the man I first met in the summer of '91 was a kind, positive, encouraging, funny, and highly intelligent educator, archivist, and gentleman.

One of my favorite class memories was the day he was lecturing about forms management. Now this is not normally an entrancing subject, none of us were gripped, and Bert was clearly in "read only" mode as he went through his lecture notes. All of us were madly taking down notes (or possibly daydreaming) when Bert read a sentence that began "It goes without saying." And he stopped there. It took a few seconds for us to figure out he had stopped speaking and once all eyes were upon him, he looked up at us, back down at his script, back up at us and said "Well, I guess it doesn't." Followed by much laughter and much more engagement--from all of us--with the topic. And while I don't remember details of a lot of the daily classes, the forms management one stuck with me. I use it a lot more than I ever thought I would in my daily work life. And the whole incident taught me a little bit about using cliched phrases in writing and speaking, too.

One of my best memories of Bert and his wife Angela comes not from a professional interaction, but a social one. My second year of grad school, I was sharing an apartment with another grad student in the cohort just after mine. We lived next door to another grad student from my cohort and his wife. We decided to host a Halloween party for fellow grad students in the archives program and invited Bert and Angela. They came and spent several hours with us that evening. We were hanging out in the apartment next door, all the food was in mine, and people just wandered back and forth as they wanted to retrieve munchies. I'd made snickerdoodles mostly because I had all the ingredients for them and didn't have to go shopping on my very limited budget.

After a while a pattern became evident. Every 15 minutes or so, Bert would get up, wander next door, and come back with a snickerdoodle or two in his hand. Eventually Angela noticed and said [I paraphrase here] "What is up with you and those cookies?" Bert replied: "I love snickerdoodles." While she just stared at him he added: "They're my favorite cookie and you never make them." As the discussion ensued (I use the gentlest possible term for the conversation) it came out that Angela had never made Bert snickerdoodles because he'd never mentioned to her how much he loved them. Keep in mind that they'd been married over 45 years at that point.

I have no idea if Angela started making snickerdoodles for Bert (I couldn't blame her if she never did) but after that, every time I had a class presentation I made a point of bringing them in. I'm pretty sure it didn't affect my grades.

I didn't have a lot of interaction with Bert after I finished up my coursework at Western. He retired, actually retired, a couple of years later. I struggled, a lot, post-school with writing a thesis while juggling 2-3 jobs, none of which had anything much in the way of leave benefits. Several times I thought about just chucking the whole degree thing. At some point I must have said something about that to someone who was in a position to tattle to Bert. And he wrote me one of the most encouraging letters I've ever received. I didn't have the wherewithal to pull it out last night and re-read it, but the short version is that he told me that while he understood my frustration, my potential was such that it would be a pity if I didn't finish the degree. It was enough. I couldn't bear to disappoint him (though he certainly never phrased it that way) and I figured if this guy, this man who had withstood everything Richard M. Nixon had done to recordkeeping, thought I had something, I should probably trust his instincts.

I only had one interaction with Bert after that. A number of years later, after I'd finished my thesis and gotten an actual professional rank job, I had the occasion to call him as a member of a search committee to obtain a reference for a job candidate who had taken classes with him. It all started out as a standard, uniformative pro forma type of reference check, when Bert got honest. I won't tell you what Bert said about our candidate, but in one sentence he dissected the candidate's entire personality vis a vis professional maturity. It wasn't judgmental, it wasn't damning, it was just a clear statement of who this person was at this time and made it clear to us that this individual wouldn't be a good fit right now. I still wonder if Bert would have said that if it was anybody but me on the other end of the line. I guess I'll never know, now, but that doesn't matter. All I know is that every time I conduct a reference check, I pray I'll be talking to somebody with his vision, his understanding, his thoughtfulness, his clarity, his honesty, and his caring, both for me and for the candidate.

We've lost what I can only regard as one of the pillars of our profession and an all around great guy. I grieve with my fellow Western grads, I grieve with his family.

And yes, I made a batch of snickerdoodles last night and brought them into work today (at least one other of Bert's grads can indulge.) It seemed a good way to remember him.

Rest in peace, Bert. I miss you.

A flock of memories

A few years ago, I started noticing that my memory, a source of pride for me, had some weird gaps in it. Some old, some new, some more than happy to lose. But also really scary--the fright of Alzheimer's always looms large these days, doesn't it?

It's tough to know what to do about that kind of thing, but I figured exercising the memory couldn't hurt. And one of the things I'd been doing on a rather casual basis was birding, so I decided maybe I should work a little harder at it. Try and get better at identifications. See what I could see. Learn what I could learn, about behavior, habitat, calls, and identifying plumage. Plus, getting out into nature, especially when you live in a place like Alaska, isn't such a bad thing either.

I'm really very lucky to have several friends and colleagues who are excellent birders who teach me, drag me to events where I can learn more, who will laugh with me when I do a happy dance at seeing a common eider for the first time, and who will tell me that yes, that yellowlegs that called from the top of a tree above my head for about 45 minutes in late summer in Cordova until I was ready to start screaming "shut up, shut up, shut up" was indeed probably doing so to gather around him or her a group of shorebirds with whom to migrate south after the breeding season was over. And I'm even luckier that I have a job that I love, with decent leave time, that pays me well enough that just occasionally I can run away somewhere interesting for a few days to see what I can see. (And by interesting, I mean like Nome or Monterey. Not Peru or the Lake District. I don't get paid that well.) By the way, go to Monterey. Even in November. Even if you're not into birds, the scenery is spectacular if you like the rugged coastal thing and there's always the whales and otters.

There's always otters!

Despite the best efforts of my friends and colleagues, and despite some dedicated birdwatching trips this year, I'm still a pretty bad birder. It's hard to feel like I'm any good when I have to pull out the guide every time I see a loon. Or a warbler. (I think I might have finally got to the point where I can ID a song sparrow on sight.) I don't mind that, really. Tonight I finished reading Kingbird Highway by Kenn Kaufmann, which among other things, was a bit of a cautionary tale about getting too focused on numbers instead of enjoying the learning process. I don't find it hard not to get lost in the numbers, I seem to be missing whatever the genetic component for competition might be, but I do like to keep track of what and where I've seen birds for the first time.

I may not be competitive about bird counts, but I appear to have developed some compulsions regarding the acquisition of bird guides.

That's where it gets kind of surreal, actually. See, I didn't start tracking the birds I was seeing until I was in my late 30s, early 40s. I was living in Alaska by then and at least once a year taking a wildlife viewing trip out of Seward. So some of my earliest life-list birds are ones that other birders do once-in-a-lifetime trips to see. Parakeet auklets. Thick-billed murres. Kittlitz's murrelets. Seriously. I can't tell you how many crows I'd seen--and ignored because hey, it's just a crow--in Seward before I ran into somebody who was nearly frothing at the mouth at seeing and hearing one because we have Northwestern crows, not American crows like most of the lower 48. (I still couldn't swear to the difference.)

So my life list is somewhat unique. I didn't add in an American crow until 2011. My record of the Northwestern crow pre-dates that by seven years, the very first year I started writing down when and where I was seeing them. A friend from the intermountain west took me birding at the Bear River Refuge in Utah in spring 2012 and kindly concealed her utter shock at my not knowing what a western meadowlark looked like.

This is what a western meadowlark looks like. And that's a redwinged blackbird partially hidden behind the no parking sign.

Anyway, that was all a very long intro to my list of this year's birds. Again, I'm not so much with the concept of a Big Year--I'm just not that competitive, but I thought it would be an interesting look at what I'd seen in one year which, with a few exceptions, I hadn't made major efforts to go birding. I had a few trips where I didn't do any birding at all. I also didn't take my annual boat tour out of Seward this year, so some typical-for-me Alaskan birds aren't represented. But not all my lifelist additions represented here are boring-for-you birds. A short weekend trip to Kodiak this spring to celebrate a friend and colleague's achievement resulted in the addition of the Emperor goose. Take a few seconds to go check out that range map. There's a flock of them that winter every year just south of the Coast Guard base about 15 minutes by road south of Kodiak. By the hundreds. Crazy, right? And I've seen them. Gorgeous birds.

So here's this year's list. I'm putting it up in mid-November because I don't have any other out-of-state travel planned and there's nothing missing here typical to Anchorage winters, short of a Bohemian waxwing or 50. (I probably saw some in February and just forgot to write them down. That's the more innocuous non-worrying part of my memory loss. When something is so common that you know you've probably seen it a bunch of times and just didn't make a point of remembering it.) In the meantime, I've learned a few things. With the help of some amazing people along the way. Having problems recognizing surfbirds from amongst the huge numbers of similar looking shorebirds out there? They tend to prefer rocky shores to sandy/silty/muddy ones, the black markings on their tails are pretty unique, and after the one guy in Homer said "they look like the hockey players of the shorebirds" I think I may just have them figured out. Maybe. We'll see, come next spring and the shorebird migration north. 172 birds total for 2014, 49 additions to the life list--those are in italics.

Not a bad year. And you know what? I still remember where I saw most of them. That's not bad at all.

1. Avocet, American
2. Albatross, Black-footed
3. Auklet, Cassin's
4. Auklet, Rhinocerous
5. Blackbird, Brewer's
6. Blackbird, Redwinged (also bicolored variant)
7. Bluebird, Western
8. Brant
9. Buffleheads
10. Bushtit
11. Canvasback
12. Cardinal, Northern
13. Chickadee, Blackcapped
14. Chickadee, Boreal
15. Chickadee, Chestnut-Backed
16. Chickadee, Mountain
17. Coot, American
18. Cormorant, Brandt's
19. Cormorant, Doublecrested
20. Cormorant, Pelagic
21. Cranes, Sandhill
22. Creeper, Brown
23. Crow, American
24. Crow, Northwestern
25. Curlew, Long-Billed
26. Doves, Rock
27. Dowitcher, Longbilled
28. Dowitcher, Shortbilled
29. Duck, Harlequin
30. Duck, Longtailed
31. Duck, Ringnecked
32. Duck, Ruddy
33. Duck, Wood
34. Dunlin
35. Eagle, Bald
36. Eagle, Golden
37. Egret, Great
38. Egret, Snowy
39. Falcon, Peregrine
40. Finch, House
41. Flicker, Northern (yellow and red-shafted)
42. Flycatcher, Alder (heard)
43. Gadwall
44. Geese, Emperor
45. Geese, Greater white-fronted
46. Geese, Dusky Canada
47. Geese, Lesser Canada
48. Godwit, Hudsonian
49. Godwit, Marbled
50. Goldeneye, Barrow's
51. Goldeneye, Common
52. Goldfinch, Lesser
53. Grackle, Common
54. Grackle, Great-tailed
55. Grebe, Eared
56. Grebe, Horned
57. Grebe, Pied-billed
58. Grebe, Rednecked
59. Grosbeak, Pine
60. Guillemots, Pigeon
61. Gull, Glaucous-winged
62. Gull, Heermann's
63. Gull, Herring
64. Gull, Mew
65. Gull, Western
66. Harrier, Northern
67. Hawk, Harlan's/Redtailed
68. Hawk, Rough-legged
69. Heron, Great Blue
70. Hummingbird, Anna's
71. Hummingbird, Blackchinned
72. Ibis, White-faced
73. Jaeger, Parasitic
74. Jaeger, Pomarine
75. Jay, Steller's
76. Junco, Darkeyed (OR subspecies, slaty)
77. Jay, Steller's
78. Jay, Western Scrub
79. Kestrel, American
80. Killdeer
81. Kingfisher, Belted
82. Kinglet, Goldencrowned (heard)
83. Kinglet, Rubycrowned
84. Kite, White-tailed
85. Kittiwake, Blacklegged
86. Loon, Arctic
87. Loon, Common
88. Loon, Pacific
89. Magpie, Blackbilled
90. Mallards
91. Meadowlark, Western
92. Merganser, Common
93. Merlin
94. Mockingbird, Northern
95. Murre, Common
96. Murrelets, Kittlitz's
97. Night-heron, Black-crowned
98. Nuthatch, Redbreasted
99. Owl, Short eared
100. Oystercatcher, Black
101. Pelican, American White
102. Pelican, Brown
103. Petrels, Fork-tailed Storm
104. Phalarope, Rednecked
105. Phoebe, Black
106. Phoebe, Says
107. Pipit, American
108. Pintails, Northern
109. Plover, Black-bellied
110. Plover, Semipalmated
111. Puffins, Horned
112. Raven, Common
113. Redpoll. Common
114. Robin, American
115. Sanderling
116. Sandpiper, Least
117. Sandpiper, Pectoral
118. Sandpiper, Spotted
119. Sandpiper, Western
120. Scaup, Greater
121. Scaup, Lesser
122. Scoter, Black
123. Scoter, Surf
124. Shearwater, Black-vented
125. Shearwater, Pink-footed
126. Shearwater, Sooty
127. Shoveler, Northern
128. Shrike, Northern
129. Siskin, Pine
130. Snipe, Wilson's
131. Sparrow, Goldencrowned
132. Sparrow, House
133. Sparrow, Lincoln's
134. Sparrow, Rufous-crowned
135. Sparrow, Savannah
136. Sparrow, Song
137. Sparrow, White-crowned
138. Starlings, European
139. Stilt, Black-necked
140. Surfbird
141. Swallow, Tree
142. Swan, Mute
143. Swan, Trumpeter
144. Teal, Greenwinged
145. Tern, Aleutian
146. Tern, Arctic
147. Tern, Caspian
148. Tern, Elegant
149. Thrush, Hermit
150. Thrush, Varied
151. Titmouse, Oak
152. Towhee, California
153. Towhee, Spotted
154. Turnstones, Black
155. Vireo, Hutton's
156. Vulture, Turkey
157. Warbler, Orange-crowned
158. Warbler, Townsend's
159. Warbler, Wilson's
160. Warbler, Yellow-rumped
161. Whimbrel
162. Wigeon, American
163. Willet
164. Woodpecker, Acorn
165. Woodpecker, Downy
166. Woodpecker, Hairy
167. Woodpecker, Nuttall's
168. Wren, Bewick's
169. Wren, House
170. Wren, Pacific (heard)
171. Yellowlegs, Greater
172. Yellowlegs, Lesser

Long overdue bibliography

I'm nearly at two decades since I began some "serious" research into the way archives and archivists are portrayed in fiction. This research thus far has resulted in three relatively complete products: a masters thesis, an American Archivist article based on my masters thesis (though substantially cut), and a presentation at SAA-Austin.

And by relatively complete I don't mean they're the last word on the topic. At least once a year I'm approached by a grad student doing some variant on the subject and though I like to think I've had some really good ideas over the years, I know I haven't drained the well dry. Mostly I mean those are standalone products not subject to my going back and revising them. Am I likely to produce some thing new? I doubt it. My thinking has changed a lot over the years, matured I'd hope, but I don't have any current plans to go in and add something new to the discussion. At least not anything new that would require I concentrate on research and writing for more than oh, say, however long it takes me to read a novel.

That doesn't mean I've stopped reading, though. And it really doesn't mean I've stopped keeping track of what fiction I read that has archival content. What you may not know is that I have a list. Of books I've read with archival content and books I've been told have archival content. Currently the full list is comprised of 854 titles. 568 of which I've confirmed have archival content.

Scary thing? I'm well aware it's not comprehensive. For example, it contains only the first Ballantine/Morris Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences novel, and as near as I can tell, there's bunches more to go. And I haven't kept up with my James Axler reading in the past couple of years, though I have a lot of travel booked for this year and those are always great airplane reads, so maybe I will get that series caught up.

At any rate, last week yet another individual contacted me about this topic. Technically the request was for an e version of my thesis (which doesn't exist anymore) but it got me thinking about the various things I've created over the years on this topic. Especially my book list which I've pretty much been keeping confidential. And what I was or wasn't planning to do with it. And okay, the list isn't pretty, it's not comprehensive, it's not well-crafted, and I had a dozen other self-protective (ego-protective) reasons to just keep it mine.

But eventually common sense comes along and gives me a swift kick. Common sense that says: what are you saving this for? (Ans: nothing in particular.) Are you ever planning on doing another project? (Ans: yeah, but no, but yeah, but no, but yeah, but likelihood low). What's with the possessiveness? (Ans: But I spent a lot of time researching it! Me! My time! Why should I give it away? Plus it's been a private list since 2006! It's tradition now!) What happened to your alleged attitude about information accessibility? (Ans: Uh...)

And I realized I was channeling General Buck Turgidson a little too closely. "I mean, he'll see everything, he'll... he'll see the Big Board!" Yeah, I'm a little embarrassed to admit I've read some of this stuff. Then again, at least I can point to them and say "Research Project!" when somebody shakes their head over the fact that I've read Dan Brown not once, but twice. Or whatever other author, book, or series on there makes you raise an eyebrow. 

So what the heck. The product of way too many hours of work and somehow, yet, still not done and never will be, either. About an hour ago, I logged into my account on LibraryThing and hit the switch. The switch that's been set to private since I first set up my account on LibraryThing in 2006. My perpetually-in-progress archives in fiction bib is now public.

By the way, if you somehow missed it, that product I mentioned that I did for the Austin SAA? It's NSFW. No joke. And the bib contains records for the books that were the source of the content for the presentation. Plus some of the books in this list are awful. Badly written, boring, etc. Just, you know, be careful. Read at your own risk. As I suppose we always do, huh?

Feedback loops

The first time I ever heard the term feedback, it referred to that teeth-aching, ear-shattering, hair-standing-on-end sound you get coming out of a speaker when the microphone moves into the wrong space.

Sometimes I think we forget that definition even when it's the most accurate of all of the possible definitions.

Periodically, I get asked for feedback on interviews by job candidates.

You can ask. Chances are almost no one will be able to give you that feedback. HR departments tend to be fairly rabid about this. And most of us regard the survival odds of crossing our HR reps as equivalent to our survival odds if we were facing down a few Kodiak bears while wearing a raw steak parka.

But here's why I won't tell you anyhow.

Nearly all of the time, there will be absolutely no way that feedback can help you.

How could it?

An interview, with me anyway, isn't an algebra test with a pre-determined right answer to each question. It's an opportunity for the interviewer(s) and interviewee to get to know each other. Learn something about what's most important to each, figure out if there's a good match there. And to give us a basis of comparison between candidates to find the best match at the time given the candidate pool available. If you'll forgive me the romance novel metaphor, it's not about Mr. (Ms.) Right, it's about Mr. Right Now At This Speed-Dating Event.

That goes both ways, by the way. You should be interviewing the people and the position at the same time they're interviewing you, to see if it's a good enough match for you, too. (Uh-oh. Maybe that speed-dating thing is a more accurate metaphor than I'd guessed.)

Our questions and our combination of questions and even the makeup of the committee are designed for our particular position, for our particular needs, at this particular time. Even if I ask the same question in two different recruitments, I may not be looking for the same answer. And sometimes it isn't even about the answer, it's about the candidate's approach to the question, what they think the question meant. And sometimes it's about the answer. And sometimes it's about the answer to question #3 combined with the answer to #5 and contrasted with the answer to #8 and all that put up against the answers to questions 2 and 4 as answered by candidate C.

Let me give you an example. A few years back, I included the question about "If you had one word to describe yourself, what would it be?" One candidate took over 5 minutes on the question, to finally settle on 3 words (one was "outgoing.") Normally that would fall under the category of "never do this." Here's why it wasn't a candidate-killer answer: in the context of this candidate and the job on offer and the existing interrelationships in the department, well, it still wasn't great but it wasn't bad. The other candidates hadn't been as good matches and this particular candidate was an excellent match in terms of skills and personality. Mostly the committee shrugged, laughed it off, and continued on with what was one of the longest phone interviews I've ever been a party to. The candidate was indeed a great addition to the department, worked out great, and even years after she'd moved on, those that were around during those days still miss having her here and still laugh over that interview.

In that case, the word(s) she chose were important. Individually, they were all "right" answers. The method of delivery left a lot to be desired, but it wasn't enough to close off her candidacy.

It's almost never about the answer to a single question. It may be many answers accrete up to a picture of a candidate that is different than what we're looking for. At this time. In this place. It may be on a side-by-side comparison, this candidate edged out the others. It may be that we messed up the job description and/or requirement statements and we ended up with a pool heavily weighted away from what we were actually seeking and the interview questions were allowing us to bridge that gap. (This possibility keeps me up at night, BTW.) Even if I were to tell you that, what will you be able to do with that information? The next job you apply for will have a very different pool, probably different requirements, most likely a different group of people seeking different traits and skills and prioritizing those traits and skills differently than we do. 

So that's why, HR aside, I won't give you feedback. In short, there's two main reasons. First, If I tell you not to say something because it's not what I wanted to hear, who is to say that will be appropriate for the next interview you have? And second, it's usually not even that simple. It's complex theory, not arithmetic. It's a symphony, not a violin solo or even a string quartet. It's impossible for me to tease out the many variables and would often require I tell you about what other candidates did as well, and remember what I said about HR and the raw steak parka? If I told you what another candidate did, I imagine the results might look something like this.

But since I know you're not going to let the above be the last word, yes, I have heard answers I would classify as "wrong answers." I usually never know what those are going to be until I hear them. I've heard answers so wrong that every committee member appears to have spontaneously forgotten how to breathe. I've seen those moments after we hung up the phone where there's dead silence and suddenly one committee member will blurt out "Did that actually just happen? Did s/he SAY those things?"

First, if you have any misgivings, chances are that wasn't you. Only a tiny percentage of interviews will go that stupendously wrong, where the interviewee introduced us to a whole world of "wow, it never occurred to us that somebody might think that way."

I hesitate to go here, because I'm worried that many of you will read this to mean that it really does come down to there being a wrong answer and a right answer and you just need to know what the right answer is.

Seriously? Okay, then here's why I'm not going to give you the right answer, in that mythical universe where there is any such thing.

Why won't I tell you?

Because maybe, just maybe, your answer to the question matters to me. Your honest answer. The answer you believe, the answer you think, the answer you have to offer. Why on earth would I want you to lie in response to an interview question? What good does that do me?

Really, if you hate working with the public, I need to know that. I don't want you to say "Oh, I love working in teams" if you'd rather stab your eyeballs out than to cooperate with a colleague. I need to know that you want to focus on 10% of the job description and will do almost anything possible to avoid doing the other 90%. Yes--I'm not going to hire you if you can't play well with others. Or if you are going to try and spend all of your time getting out of processing collections. You're absolutely right. But think for a moment: how does it benefit either you or me if you lie, I hire you, and then I find out six months later that somehow none of your ongoing collection description projects show any progress but the reading room chairs suddenly have coordinated slipcovers? What positive outcome can result from that scenario, workload-wise?

So be honest. Listen well to the questions, answer them to the best of your ability and recognize that sometimes, no matter how well or poorly you think you did at that interview, the results will not reflect that performance assessment.

It's not just about you. It's about you and us and everybody else we've talked to. And there's no way you can account for all those variables. The only way to guarantee a specific interview outcome is to not show up to it.

Will somebody please kill that mic?

The fantasies of Attila

I have this archival placement fantasy.

My archival fantasy is that the first job out of grad school is in a medium to large size archives where the new person has giving, caring, and more experienced archivists available to act as professional mentors.

My archival fantasy is that this job pays enough that the worker can afford rent. And food. And make payments on student loans.

My archival fantasy is that this job provides the ability to really dig into the basic work of archives (processing AND reference) but also to take part in the broader work of the archival profession (appraisal, donor work, outreach, teaching, digital projects, and whatever the future might hold).

My archival fantasy is that the first professional position is a resume builder, not a placeholder.

My archival fantasy is that the position allows the archivist to learn about the wider world of archival work so they can make a conscious decision about their career directions rather than just being forced into a direction based on the focus of the position or their inability to translate it into a new and better job.

My archival fantasy is that every archivist regards their first professional position as a stepping stone, not necessarily something to be turned into a permanent sinecure nor something to be survived.

My archival fantasy is that university administrations take partial responsibility for the ability of their graduates to be placed post-degree. [The corollary fantasy is that funding allocator for universities stop regarding professional degrees solely as an income-generating resource. Another corollary fantasy is that students thinking about enrolling demand to see longitudinal placement statistics specific to their course of study.]

My archival fantasy is that any archives with 3 or more professionals on staff decide they have an obligation to pay the profession forward and have at least one of those positions dedicated to professional development of a new archivist. [The corollary fantasy here is that they also take ownership of their job descriptions and fight the good fight with HR and Admin to advertise the job they actually have on offer and then do everything in their power to hire appropriately credentialed employees.]

My archival fantasy is mine and not to everyone's tastes.

My archival fantasy has a very narrow scope and may not be all that practical in the real world.

My archival fantasy is what all fantasies are, and presumes I'm perfect, incredibly flexible, and capable of achieving all of the above, all at once.



But I also have fantasies about the USDA rewriting the food pyramid and putting raspberries and chocolate as one of the foundational levels so FWIW.

Moonlighting with Northwest Archivists

One of my side gigs is to serve as chair of the NWA Professional Development and Education Committee.

Truth be told, I'm trying to get out of it. I've had this job for a couple of years and made--to my mind--too little progress on it. It's much too important to be left to somebody like me, especially right now when I've got a few too many other committees that I'm chairing with actual outside imposed deadlines and work that could have an immediate and important effect on relaxing my future workload. Not that there's really a committee right now, since I haven't gotten it together to convene one (despite actually having some people volunteering to be on it. I know. It's very sad. And I am ashamed of myself.)

But before I handed in that resignation to NWA, I did want to complete at least something committee-wise, so I wouldn't feel like a complete and total loser. So this summer I set up a survey for the NWA membership: asking what they actually want from pre-conference workshops. I'm hoping to have this piece of it moved over to the NWA site since that really should be the host for NWA survey responses, not my personal site. But in the interim, here's some results from the survey. I had 62 responses, 60 from NWA members. Given that NWA has a current individual membership count of 164, that's a pretty great return rate from the NWA membership (over 1/3.) Clearly, this matters to you all.

Preferred length of workshop:

Nearly 55% said it depends on the content, preference among those who stated something other than "depends on content" runs toward half-day to full-day. Despite the fact that no one chose two days as their preferred length, I wouldn't assume that two-day workshops are completely out of the picture, but their content would have to be of fairly high interest to get sufficient attendees.

The food question: Assuming catering will add to the cost of the workshop, what did people want?

68% wanted coffee/tea/water.

54% wanted snack breaks for workshops over 4 hours.

Less than 10% wanted a sit-down lunch supplied, though 26% wanted the option of boxed lunches.

Based on this and the comments, I think it's safe to say that catered food would need to come with an opt-out option, at a minimum.  Also that food is important, but the ability to do some selection would be preferable. This could be achieved through making sure the workshops are held somewhere that a variety of food options are available.

Cost of workshops:

I provided 3 options. Must be under $75, could be up to $150 if length and content warrant, could be over $150 if length and content warrant.

20% of respondees said that workshops needed to remain under $75.00. 27% said they could be over $150 if length and content warrant. (The rest fell with the middle selection). Though this is difficult to analyze, I think the committee should take from this that in general cheaper is better, but exceptions could be made.

ACA accreditation:

Nearly half of respondents (47.2% of those that answered the question, 40% of all respondents) requested workshops come with ACA re-certification credits. This is relatively easy to obtain for workshops, ACA has a form on their website that needs to be filled out in advance. http://www.certifiedarchivists.org/members-area/archival-recertification-credits/  Given that nearly half of respondents want this, and presumably it wouldn't affect the rest one way or another, I think we need to ensure that this is an option for most, if not all, of the workshops offered.

Priority for the level of content: broadbased basics, entry-level but focused, or mid-high level specific:

Nearly 3/4 of the respondents said that the focused topics are of high priority. The remaining chose them as medium priority. Broadbased basics were of low priority to most respondents (nearly 90%, 5% each chose them as medium and high priority). Generally the high-low priority followed the spectrum of focused development-related topics to broadbased generic "archival basics." One commenter noted: "Basics are important for the conference to be welcoming to people new to the profession, but mid-high level specific keep more experienced folks engaged. A balance is optimal." At the same time as there was a clear preference for more focused topics, the comments provided were clear that not all focused topics were of interest to attendees and sometimes they were too focused. In terms of taking the Education Committee's marching orders from this: I would assume that a spectrum of workshops offered over time or at the same time might be the way to handle this so as to meet the broader needs while ensuring that those who do need the very specific high level subjects can also obtain them. It might require coming up with a short-range to medium-range prioritization plan for workshop offerings, also with keeping some flexibility in terms of offering topics that may vary in order to meet the needs of the broadest range of the membership.

Topic specific: what do people regard as medium to high priority? The question was structured by giving respondents a list of 22 different topics from which to choose (also allowing them to make suggestions in a comments field, since my brainstorming was unlikely to be a comprehensive list of potential topics). Respondents could chose low, medium, or high for a priority status. These are the suggested topics that were medium to high priority for a significant majority of respondents (i.e. less than one-third of respondents chose them as low priority)

• 98% electronic records (of that, 63% said high priority)
• 93% digital curation (57% said high priority)
• 88% metadata/description standards (49% said high priority)
• 83% preservation (34% said high priority)
• 82%  a/v media (39% said high priority)
• 81% digital forensics (40% said high priority)
• 80% outreach (25% said high priority)
• 72% photographs (25% said high priority)
• 72% institutional repositories (23% said high priority)
• 70% records management (32% said high priority)
• 68% arrangement and description (12% said high priority)
• 68% grants (25% said high priority)

Source of training, does it matter and what do you prefer?

This was an open-ended question. A lot indicated no preference, or no preference with the caveat that the instructors be well-qualified to teach it (mostly for the learning experience, but also for the ability to argue for institutional funding). Of those who preferred NWA-regional instructors (7 of the 44 people who responded to the question), it was partly because of cost but also because of the ability to keep up connections/networks with the instructors post-workshop. Several mentioned that they really like some of the workshops coming from national organizations (presumed non-NWA instructors) and the reasons, if given, varied from the assumption that training from national organizations would be a simpler argument to make in terms of getting institutional support, to the assumption that we might not have local expertise, to the assumption (mistaken) that ACA recertification credits wouldn't be available for home-grown workshops.

Volunteer teachers?

I found this response somewhat discouraging in light of the interest in NWA teachers in the previous question's responses and given the concern about the costs: most nationally-based workshops are significantly more expensive than home grown. Only 5 people said they'd be willing to teach a workshop and offered their expertise on a subject (only one matched up to a topic that scored above 80% in the med-high priority range). Given that mismatch, going local—at least within the NWA membership--could prove to be a real challenge. It raises some significant question for me: is the expertise in these topics available locally? If so, how do we encourage the NWA membership to view themselves as potential educators for their colleagues? If we need to keep costs low to support the broadest accessibility, how do we build the support within the NWA organization to subsidize or reduce costs for our neediest members and still give them access to the standardized workshops offered by SAA/AMIA/ARMA/etc?

So where next? I'd like to convene a quick committee meeting for those interested in serving on the Education Committee (as chair or otherwise). At the very least, I'd like to get a RFP out for preconference workshops for the May 2014 meeting to see if we can match up any of these priorities with proposals or if we need to start talking to SAA and other orgs about what we might be able to offer from their standard catalogs of available courses. From there, it'll be up to the committee. And by the way, if you're a NWA member and interested in taking on a leadership role in the education/professional development arena, have I got an opportunity for you!