Greetings DVAG community! Blue Schuler was awarded the Delaware Valley Archivists Group Annual Society of American Archivists (SAA) Travel Grant to attend the 89th Annual SAA Meeting from August 24-27th in sunny Anaheim, California! Blue submitted a powerful application seeking to inspire, engage, and transform with archivists across the US!
Not only was Blue a conference attendee, they were a poster presenter!
As found in the SAA program, Blue’s phenomenal poster “Pink Collars and Glass Escalators: The Role of Femininity in Librarianship” sought to: synthesize research around the topic of ‘pink collar’ jobs, a name given to occupations in which the majority of the workforce is female. The field of librarianship is heavily associated with women and seen in the public view as a woman’s career. This brings it’s own unique challenges for women and men who pursue a career in libraries or archives, including but not limited to how they are treated by their peers, supervisors, colleagues, and subordinates. Additionally, the ‘glass escalator’ phenomenon is explored, in which men in pink collar jobs rise the ranks more quickly than women do. The information science field being perceived as a feminine field while our country is based in a patriarchal hegemony, leads to information science professionals and their line of work as not being taken seriously by the general public. The research conducted for this poster seeks to answer questions on how these attitudes came to be and what we can do to move towards a legitimization of the field by being aware of these attitudes.
And now, to hear more about this poster, the conference, and the perseverance despite an unfortunate, untimely injury… I’ll pass the mic to Blue!
This year I was awarded a travel grant by the Delaware Valley Archivists Group to help support my in-person attendance at the Society of American Archivists Annual Conference in Anaheim, California. This is only my second time attending the conference, but I felt it was extremely important for me to go in person, this year especially. I’m rather early in my career, and have been through a lot of professional changes over the past year. In August of 2024, I was a Library and Archival Manager at a county historical museum in Texas. It was only this past summer that my family and I picked up everything to move to Philadelphia, PA. I know how beneficial regional archivists groups can be, so I joined DVAG even before I moved as a way to network and get to know the people in my new archives community.
After going to the SAA annual conference for the first time last year, I knew it was something I’d want to do again in the future. I even submitted my graduate research poster which I entitled “Pink Collars and Glass Escalators: The Role of Femininity in Librarianship” for consideration to be presented at the conference. Earlier this year, SAA informed me that my poster was accepted, and I had the opportunity to present it in person! It was very important to me to take advantage of the opportunity for an in-person presentation so that I would be able to talk about this topic with other professionals in the field who might be just as passionate as I am.
Though my workplace funded my attendance last year, I’ve moved on to a whole new role at a new institution in a new part of the country. So while I secured a job as a Special Collections Technician at West Chester University, in West Chester, PA, I hadn’t started yet and didn’t know for sure whether my employer would be able to support my attendance. And that is when I turned to DVAG and applied for the Travel Award, which I was so honored to receive.
I registered for the conference, reserved my hotel, and booked my flights, but it was only three days before I had to leave when I unfortunately tripped and fell, landing on my foot wrong and causing it to fracture in two places. However, I did not let that stop me. My doctor cleared me to attend as long as I was sure to not put any weight on my foot, and so on to Anaheim I went. It was a busy three days, jam-packed full of sessions, forums, networking opportunities, and many thought-provoking conversations to be had with colleagues. Not to mention the two sessions where I was able to present my poster alongside other graduate students and professionals in the field.
I decided I would try to attend as many sessions as possible that would not be recorded. This included ones with pretty sensitive subject matter such as the recent attacks on archives in the country over the past year. The attendees in these sessions were able to have open, honest, and productive conversations. It was really beneficial to speak with people from different types of institutions in different political climates and learn about how they’ve navigated through trials they’ve been faced with. I also attended the Diversity Forum, where my fellow attendees had conversations on how all of the changes in the field have affected them, whether they be early- career, mid-career, or late-career professionals. My biggest takeaway from these sessions and conversations was keeping the faith and knowing that we can weather this storm. There are still good things happening. People are receiving funding and community support in new ways, and I even feel like I was able to transition to a new role in the field quickly enough after moving thanks to my mentors and support system in the field. Overall, I learned so much and I have a new outlook on the future of archives and the archival community. I’m positive about where we’re headed, as long as we put in what we hope to get out.
On behalf of the DVAG community, thanks so much Blue for sharing your experience with us! Keep up the incredible work!
Delaware Valley Archivists Group 