I loved speaking to Miranda. She’s an absolute jem. And I believe that the route that she’s taking is one that will revolutionize the way the archives/information studies field interacts with its staff and employers.
Pairing social work concerns with preservation is the what we should be going for. For us to look towards care and compassion for those who are doing the work alongside WORKING is (in my mind) the dream.
I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it. Miranda is a really important woman with many critically important observations and experiences. As usual, the bio is right under the podcast!
Miranda Barnewall is a film archivist who has an equal passion for the films she preserves and the people who work alongside her. She received a BA in Film Studies from THE™ Ohio State University in 2016 and a certificate in Film Preservation from The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation in 2017. Miranda’s interest lies in how to strengthen the film archiving field’s infrastructure, advocating for archivists, and how to make film archiving a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive field. While movies became her passion in high school, Miranda rediscovered her first love of reading once she had her first grown-up job. During her free time, she is most likely reading one of the twelve books piled next to her or scrolling through Goodreads adding another book to her to-read list.
******** UPDATE TO BLOG ********* Since this was recorded, my guest made some wonderful positive discoveries about herself and moved forward on them. Unfortunately, that made some of the information in this recording no longer valid and rather painful. A statement from my guest:
“I do not go by the name used in this episode or later ones anymore, and even at the time I was privately aware of the distress that name was causing me. It is completely unacceptable to ever refer to me by that name or record it in any context anymore. Also my pronouns are she/they now.”
I have thusly changed all blog information (including photo) to match her truth, and you will only find the aforementioned references within the recordings. We both felt (as archivists) that it would be a shame to completely delete the podcast but it is my responsibility to support and platform my guests and not do them harm.
I believe that changing information based on these critical life issues need to be attended to, now and always. I hope others do the same.
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I’m thrilled to pieces to welcome my beloved friend and colleague Sydney Perkins to Archivist’s Alley. More importantly, she is my first REAL GUEST from my new home base here in Paju, South Korea! I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I liked having it. She is a really special person to me in all kinds of ways and beyond talented. She is funny, charming and delightful. I wish you could all meet her in person. When I say on the podcast that I respect her and wish that I was as talented as she is, I am not even lying. She’s impressive. We should all be so lucky to be as engaged, passionate and gifted in our chosen line of work as my darling pal Sydney is. As usual, profile and bio below, plus a few frames of the super cool font presentation we talk about on the ‘cast!!!
QUICK NOTE: As I’ve been here and as things have been getting weirder and more worrisome all over the world, I decided that, as an archivist, archival activist and advocate for change (especially in terms of platforming invisible voices via my podcast) I wanted to cover how COVID-19 is hitting (or not hitting) the people in our community. So if you are reading this and you are a media specialist, historian, information professional of any kind and identify as POC, LGBTQI, differently abled, woman-identifying, or any other marginalized group that my privileged white ass may have not covered (and for which I deeply apologize), please hit me up here archivistsalley@gmail.com
Sydney Perkins is an enthusiastic film arqueervist who loves handling and researching film and thinking of creative approaches to restoration. Currently she is unemployed and probably working on a shitpost for Archivist Memes.
One of the brilliant intertitles that Sydney createdAnother one of the brilliant intertitles that Sydney createdSydney is just a rock star.
