News

#JoinCAA2021

The Chicago Area Archivists annual membership drive has begun! We have PRIZES and INCENTIVES for both new members that join and existing members.

From February 1 until March 15, we will be highlighting the benefits of CAA membership, sharing stories from current members about why membership matters, and offering prizes and incentives to those that join and help spread the word.

JOIN AND WIN!

The first 10 new members to sign up during the drive will receive a FREE CAA JOURNAL. It’s customized with the CAA logo, spiral-bound and lined—perfect for managing your archives to-do list.

Join online—annual dues are only $15.00.

REFER AND WIN!

Refer a friend or colleague to join CAA, you will be entered into a drawing with a chance to win gift card prize.

Any member who refers a friend or colleague to join CAA during the drive will be added to the pool, and we will pick 2 winners at random at the members meeting in March.

When new members sign up, they can simply add your name to the Referring Member field.

Refer your friends early so they have a chance at winning the CAA swag! They might win, you might win...It’s a potential WIN-WIN.

LATE ENTRY PRIZES!

If you think you have missed the window of opportunity to qualify as one of the first 10 new members to join, there will still be incentives to join later in the drive—including a drawing with a chance to win additional CAA swag!  

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay tuned throughout the drive for more on why you should #JoinCAA2021

Did you hear that CAA is on Slack? 

Are you wondering what Slack is?

Slack is a messaging platform where CAA members can share and discuss anything archives-related that crosses our personal feeds - news, upcoming events, professional resources. It’s also a place for questions and general professional support. 

CAA Slack is also used as a gathering place for live discussion during certain events, such as CAA Reacts. (Look out for news about one of these events soon!)

How to join

Check out the CAA Slack FAQ page for instructions on how to join, and tips for using the application.

Stop by #general and say hi!

Enjoy the next story in our web series submitted by Paul Blobaum of Governors State University Archives.

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In March 2020, Governors State University extended its Spring break one week, and returned to online delivery.  The Library has been closed since March, and there are no plans to reopen. After being solo for 3 years I had just hired a FTE in December 2019 with the plan to take over Archives coordination following my planned retirement in 2021.  We kept ourselves busy wrapping up GSU 50th Anniversary observance projects, not the least of which is a major historic video digitization project of over 125 reels, begun in April 2019.  We had planned to use Media Communications students to do final production work, collect metadata, and publishing to our digital repository; but I wound up having to do it myself.  I taught myself to edit digital video MP4 and MOV files using open source software (Avid Composer First), on my Archives remote workstation using VPN and Remote Desktop.  Following numerous technical problems, I was able to publish very large files using modified URLS in Dropbox to our Digital Commons repository, OPUS, at https://opus.govst.edu/video.  Archives projects were farmed out to library staff needing work projects they could do at home, so we are able to do projects that would never get done for another 50 years, such as data entry of legacy tractor-feed printouts of video and audio tape collections, inventory and metadata for 50 years worth of 35mm color slides, and metadata for digital collections.  Also, I taught myself the open source programs OBS Studio a Virtual Dub, and have been digitizing VHS historic VHS tapes from the archives at home, resolving numerous technical issues with audio/video synchronization by trial and error, and pluck.

Online learning and working remotely will continue well into 2021.  We venture to campus when we have to, to use Microfilm or to locate physical materials in the processed and unprocessed collections.  In May I began hosting a Tuesday afternoon coffee hour for our library staff colleagues on Zoom, which continues.  On a hot July evening, I hosted a Russian Fulbright scholar who was doing research on American suburbs from 1950s-1960s at the University of Kansas.  The scholar made a special overnight trip to Chicago just to see the Park Forest 1950s Museum housed at St. Mary's Church in Park Forest, and I volunteered to pick him up from the University Park train station, give him a tour, and return him to the train station so he could catch a train to Omaha Nebraska the next morning. We took off our face masks just for the photo.  The year has been surreal but we are getting a lot of long standing projects done!!  

Left: Alexandr Zhidchenko, University of Kansas Fulbright scholar.  Right: Paul Blobaum, Governors State University

Please enjoy this week's story which was submitted by Jerice Barrios from the North American Province of the Cenacle. 

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Quarantine began for me at 2pm on March 17, 2020. As soon as I received the go-ahead from my supervisor, I packed up my laptop and files, got on the train, and headed home. During the three-month mandatory lockdown, my primary emotion was gratitude. I was grateful to be in profession where working from home was an option. I was grateful to the Cenacle Sisters for considering the Archives an essential service. I was also grateful to my family who supported me, giving me an “office space” and weaving their lives around my schedule.  

I had never really worked from home before, so I needed all the help I could get. In the first weeks, I learned just how much self-discipline it takes to log eight hours of work when all you really want to do is stay in bed reading the latest coronavirus news on your phone. My love/hate relationship with Zoom meetings began during this time: yes, a Zoom meeting is better than nothing, but I definitely get tired of only seeing people through little electronic boxes.

Baby Yoda was my work from home desk mascot.

When lockdown restrictions lifted in June, my assistant and I were informed that we were expected to return to the office. For the most part, I was glad to be able to get out of the house and back to some semblance of “normal,” even though I was very aware that the coronavirus was still out there, and still as dangerous as ever. Also at that time, the political situation in Chicago was volatile. Our planned June 1 return to the office had to be postponed for a week because our downtown building was boarded up due to the riots in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.

Working in the Loop is a stark reminder that we are living in a very specific cultural and economic moment. With so many office workers absent, downtown businesses and restaurants are shutting down. Some may return, some may not. Uncertainty is the mood of the times. With COVID-19 cases increasing again, we may be headed for a second mandatory lockdown, but in the face of the unknown, I believe more than ever in the importance of archivists as the keepers of the historical record. History gives me hope: Chicago has survived disasters before, and we will survive COVID-19 as well.

Closed and boarded up restaurants are becoming a common sight in downtown Chicago.

This week's story is submitted by April Anderson-Zorn from the Dr. Jo Ann Rayfield Archives at Illinois State University.

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I’m south of the suburbs in Bloomington/Normal, IL at Illinois State University.  Before the pandemic, I commuted from Champaign, Illinois, to Normal.  My husband was working at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, so we rented a house for a time.  Then, late last year, I became pregnant.  His contract ended early this year (he works in tech theatre), so we decided to move back to Bloomington.  The day we signed the papers to buy our 95-year-old house was the day the Governor put the shelter-at-home order in place.  Our plan to move the following weekend was pushed up to the next day!  We panic-packed our house and moved while I was seven months pregnant.  Then, in late May, I had complications that sent me to the hospital in Champaign, which resulted in the healthy (but month early) birth of our daughter, Evelyn.  All of this while I was working from home!  I ran the Archives, assisted faculty and students where we could with reference requests, and launched our COVID collecting site.  Honestly, I think this is the busiest I’ve ever been, despite working from home.

Having said that, my new co-worker is quite adorable.  

Also, our local NPR station did a story about our pandemic experience:

https://www.wglt.org/post/best-things-worst-summer-buying-house-and-having-baby

Enjoy the next story in our web series submitted by Allison Schein Holmes of WTTW/Chicago PBS and WFMT Chicago.

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When rumors of the lockdown started, I had to prep my new team for remote working.  I was already set up at home; for three days a week, I worked remotely in the afternoons.  One staff member was able to transition while another had some complications.  They were already not comfortable with the office's technology, so setting them up with a new laptop was a whole other challenge.  While they have gotten better since the pandemic started, I often have to troubleshoot with someone who does not always know how to explain the issue.   Our organization was not wholly equipped to send everyone home with working machines, so many had to take their desktops since laptops were becoming scarce!

I have found that I get into the "office" an hour earlier, making me way more productive than ever!  I was able to process over a thousand backlogged files due to having large chunks of time with no interruptions.  My coworkers are a little noisy, though, and insist on following me wherever I go. That is a challenge! 

I have learned how to bake bread and signed up for a CSA weekly delivery to improve my cooking skills since we are not going out as much, or sadly, a few places that we love have been affected by the pandemic.  While I enjoy working from home, I miss the tapes and the people I work with. I hope that I will return to the office once a week for about a month to keep digitization moving, but as another lockdown is approaching, I am not sure how viable that will be.

The Programming Subcommittee invites you to submit a story for our Chicago Archives in the Time of Covid series. This written series will be published on the News Section of the CAA website and will be an opportunity for members to share how your work and life has been affected by the pandemic. This has been a very complex and difficult time for many; we have also seen so many stories of hope, love, and perseverance. Through it all, many of us and our places of employment or school have tried to adapt to this new reality to continue our work as best as we can. We would like to chronicle how this has impacted our CAA community and hear from our members what life has been like these past 8 months.

If you are interested, please share a few paragraphs with us about your work and life since March and a photo that is representative of your experience (e.g. yourself at your new work-from-home station, something interesting you have been working on, a newly adopted pet, etc). We have included a few prompts below to help, please feel free to answer any or all of these questions, or respond in your own way without the prompts. You can send replies or questions directly to me at elisefariello@gmail.com.

• How did your work change during the pandemic? If you shifted to working from home how has your employer or school handled the transition?
• What are some of the difficulties you have faced working in this new environment? What are some of the benefits?
• Did you become an expert sourdough maker, learn how to knit, or run a virtual marathon? Please feel free to share any personal accomplishments or news, new hobbies, or skills you have gained over these past eight months.

CAA members are sharing stories of how the pandemic has affected their lives and work. Here is the first story of our web series submitted by Drew Davis from the College of American Pathologists.

Pandemics, Anniversaries and Preschool

COVID-19 has presented a unique challenge to archivists. As professionals whose fates are bound to our collections, COVID forced some of us to forge a new workflow apart from the physical materials in our repositories. Other archivists currently face the loss of their position and the difficult task of seeking new employment during a pandemic. COVID continues to touch archivists and their loved ones on both ends of this spectrum.

My experience falls somewhere between these extremes. My organization, a nonprofit medical association, is approaching our 75^th anniversary next year. To commemorate, we are producing an updated organizational history edited by one of our former presidents. My original task in this work was to conduct historical review of this publication, while my supervisor served as a staff-member liaison and managed the financial and contractual aspects of the project. Unfortunately, my supervisor sadly and unexpectedly passed away from a non-COVID related medical complication in March of this year. Her death occurred at the same time that our organization shifted to remote work, and I had to simultaneously adjust to working from home, reporting to a new supervisor and taking on many of my former supervisor’s project duties.

 In addition, working from home with young children has proved extremely difficult. My children (aged 3 and 5) both started remote preschool in September, and on many days I must unexpectedly leave my “office” (our basement) to help corral them back into their virtual classrooms. Other times of day I find myself trying to focus on a task while the sound of little footsteps patter back and forth across the ceiling above me. There has been more than one occasion where my children have been “surprise guests” in a staff meeting. While I did receive permission to come into the archives one day a week to work on reference requests, it is unclear if that permission will be rolled back as Illinois infection rates climb back up.

I have settled into a COVID working routine, and with the help of a part-time assistant archivist have been able to maintain the workflow of the archives and our historical publication despite working (mostly) offsite. While I consider myself extremely lucky that I still have an archives job, I cannot deny that I yearn for the days when personal coworker interaction and work in my stacks were the norm.

The Chicago Area Archivists Steering Committee would like to announce a new pilot program, the CAA Resume Review.

Members can participate in two ways:

1. Members can volunteer to review resumes and provide comments to members submitting their resumes for review.

2. Members can submit their resumes for review and receive comments from fellow CAA members.

If you would like to volunteer to review resumes, please fill out the following form:

Resume Reviewer Volunteer Form

If you like to have your resume reviewed by fellow CAAers, please fill out the form below. Since this form will require you to upload files, you will be asked to sign into your Google account.

Submit Resume for Review

Members at all stages of their careers are encouraged to participate!

If you volunteer to review resumes, you will be sent one to two resumes with no contact information and asked to return comments to the service coordinator.

If you would like your resume reviewed, it will be assigned to a CAA volunteer who will provide comments and suggestions through the service coordinator.

CAA will make every effort to keep reviewers and reviewees anonymous, but we cannot guarantee anonymity.

As this is a pilot program, we will set a deadline for the first round of reviewers and reviewees to submit by October 30, 2020. CAA hopes to offer additional rounds if the pilot program is successful and utilized by members

.If you have any questions, please contact Ashley Howdeshell at CAAResumeReview@gmail.com.

As of September 1, 2020, the Steering Committee has approved a change in prorated initial membership length for new members and renewal periods for existing members:

All renewals and new memberships received on or after September 1 will be applied to the following year.

If you're a new member, this gives you 16 months for the price of 12! If you're renewing, you now have even more time to renew your membership (we'll still send you the usual reminders).

More details about joining CAA or renewing your membership can be found here.