Hello! My name is Alex Palma and I’m really thankful and honored to say that I was one of the awardees for the DVAG travel grant. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to travel to Austin, Texas and attend ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2019. Having the chance to go to Austin and learn from an amazingly knowledgeable and diverse selection of people in the archives field is something I’ll never forget.
For the purposes of this grant, I sought to utilize my various basic proficiencies with AV, interviewing, video editing, etc. so that I might collect and save some of the conversations I had during my four days in Austin. I brought an old DSLR and an external microphone and talked to anyone that sit still. I was especially concerned with finding individuals who could speak for specific sections or groups affiliated with the SAA. As you watch these videos, I think you’ll find a few recurrent themes~ accessibility, diversity, community work and inter-institutional collaboration.
As I upload these videos over the next several days, I hope that they foster thoughtful discussion and inspire interest in the various questions currently gripping our field. I’m pretty happy with how the videos turned out overall, but I will add that I’m just a hobbyist when it comes to filmmaking!
This first video is an interview with Conor Casey, Labor Archivist at the University of Washington. He is the co-chair of the “Labor Archives” section of SAA. You’ll find a link to the video here:
All these videos were recorded with proper consent and release forms. The music, however briefly used, was also used with explicit written permission of the creator.
Thanks again to DVAG for sending me to Austin! I hope you all enjoy the videos.
Delaware Valley Archivists Group 