CARA Member Rebekah McFarland Awarded Honorable Mention in SAA's Archives Short Fiction Contest

Rebekah McFarland, archivist for the Sisters of the Living Word.
Photo courtesy of www2.archivists.org.
CARA member Rebekah McFarland was recently awarded an honorable mention in SAA's 2018 Archives Short Fiction Contest. Rebekah is the archivist for the Sisters of the Living Word and often works as a project archivist for other institutions, most recently the College of American Pathologists and the Chicago History Museum. She is also a bookbinder.

Rebekah's story, "Ester Jones Diaz," follows an archivist gradually learning more about the significance of a historical figure. Of the story, the SAA jury said: "Through a relatable main character, ‘Ester Jones Diaz’ takes us on an out-of-this-world adventure that not only addresses current archival issues but creatively alludes to issues that may face us in the future. The elegant plot progression offers a thought-provoking look at how archival material generated in our own times may appear to our distant descendants."

Congratulations to Rebekah for this well-deserved honor, and for writing a wonderful story!

MAC seeking applicants for 2019 Archie Motley Memorial Scholarship

Archie Motley
Photo courtesy of www.midwestarchives.org
Archives graduate students of color who could use financial assistance to pay for their education are encouraged to apply for the Archie Motley Memorial Scholarship. Details below.

Archie Motley Memorial Scholarship Applications Solicited

MAC is soliciting applications for the 2019 Archie Motley Memorial Scholarship for Students of Color (http://www.midwestarchives.org/motley). The scholarship is designed to provide financial assistance to students of color pursuing graduate education in archival administration and to encourage ethnic diversification of the MAC membership and of the archival profession as a whole. Two $750 scholarships, accompanied by one-year memberships to MAC, will be awarded.

In order to be eligible for a scholarship, the applicant must be of African, American Indian, Asian or Pacific Islander, or Latinx decent; must be a student currently enrolled in or accepted in a graduate, multicourse program in archival administration; and must have a grade point average of at least 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale) in his or her academic program. If the program is not listed in the SAA Directory of Archival Education, http://www2.archivists.org/dae, the applicant must provide proof of the multicourse standard by submitting copies of course descriptions from the institution’s current departmental catalog. Applicants are not required to be residents of or attend school in the MAC region.

Applications are due March 1, 2019 and must include the following documents:

Completed applications should be sent to:

Lara Friedman-Shedlov
Description and Access Archivist
Kautz Family YMCA Archives
University of Minnesota Libraries
318 Elemer L. Andersen Library
222 21st Ave S, Ste 318
Minneapolis, MN 55405
Telephone: 612-626-7972
Email: Ldfs@umn.edu

Applications must be emailed or postmarked by March 1, 2019.
Awards will be announced no later than June 1, 2019.

Honoring CARA Member Wanda V. Dole

Wanda V. Dole
CARA member Wanda V. Dole (b. September 10, 1942) passed away on November 23, 2018, after a brief illness. A Requiem Mass was held for her on December 7, 2018, at the Church of the Ascension. Several CARA members attended.

Wanda graduated from Lawrence University (Appleton, WI) with a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, in classics. She received a Master of Arts in classics from Tufts University and a Master of Science in library science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

She held library positions at the University of Kentucky, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Miami (FL), Abington College Library (Pennsylvania Sate University), the State University of New York Stony Brook, and Washburn University. She was the Dean of the Ottenheimer Library at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock when she retired. Subsequent to her retirement she was the Interim Director of Library Services at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, IL.

Wanda was very active professionally. She held committee appointments in the American Library Association for many years including serving elected terms on ALA Council. She was also an official ALA representative to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. In her role as chair of the IFLA Statistics Section, she served on the IFLA Governing Board and the IFLA Professional Committee.

She was a highly regarded speaker and authored many publications. Her areas of interest included strategic planning and assessment as well as quantitative analysis of statistics. She spoke at many national and international conferences.

Wanda volunteered as a member of the Archives and Records Management Committee of the Archives of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, and served on the Vestry of the Church of the Ascension (Chicago). In addition she was a member of the Caxton Club (Chicago).

Wanda will be greatly missed by her many friends and colleagues. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Music Fund, Church of the Ascension, 1133 North LaSalle Blvd., Chicago, IL 60610-2601.

SAA Seeks Nominations for 2018 Sister M. Claude Lane, O.P., Memorial Award

Sr. M. Claude Lane, O.P., Catholic Archives of Texas
The Society of American Archivists’ Awards Committee is seeking nominations for the Sister M. Claude Lane, O.P., Memorial Award. This award recognizes individuals who have made a significant contribution to the field of religious archives. Criteria for nomination include:

Involvement and work in the Archivists of Religious Collections Section (ARCS) of the Society of American Archivists.

  • Contributions to archival literature that relates to religious archives. 
  • Participation and leadership in religious archives organizations. 
  • Evidence of leadership in specific religious archives. 

Only individual archivists are eligible for nomination. The award is sponsored by the Society of Southwest Archivists, in conjunction with Society of American Archivists. It is named in honor of Sister M. Claude Lane, the first professionally trained archivist at the Catholic Archives of Texas in Austin, who served there from 1960 until her death in 1974. The award finalist is recognized with a certificate from SAA and a $300 cash prize provided by the Society of Southwest Archivists at the annual Society of American Archivists meeting.

For more information on the Lane Award, including past winners, see: http://www2.archivists.org/governance/handbook/section12-lane

To nominate an archivist for the Lane Award please follow the guidelines provided in the Nomination Form via the link on that page.

All nominations shall be submitted to the Awards Committee by February 28, 2019.

If you have any questions, please contact:

Helen Thomas
Outreach Archivist
Museums, Archives and Rare Books
Kennesaw State University
hhthomas8@gmail.com