Chris Bourg: Open Scholarship, Advocacy from the Inside & Code Switching

I’m incredibly excited to welcome Dr. Chris Bourg to Archivist’s Alley. I have been wanting to have her on my show since I started the show and to be honest, as I was editing the show, I realized that I was kinda having her as on which rarely happens! But it makes sense. I really admire her and her work so much so I do apologize if I am a little nonsensical or rambly in this episode but bear with me- I was just very excited about having Chris on.

The usual things apply- bio and links below the podcast and you should definitely follow her social media account and check out her website and writings. Highly recommend. So…enjoy!

Twitter @mchris4duke
Blog: Feral Librarian

Bio:
Chris Bourg is the Director of Libraries at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she also has oversight of the MIT Press. She is also the founding director of the Center for Research on Equitable and Open Scholarship (CREOS). Prior to assuming her role at MIT, Chris worked for 12 years in the Stanford University Libraries, most recently as the Associate University Librarian for Public Services. Before Stanford, she spent 10 years as an active duty U.S. Army officer, including three years on the faculty at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Chris has extensive experience promoting open scholarship. She is currently co-chair of the MIT Ad Hoc Task Force on Open Access to MIT’s Research, and is a member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine Roundtable on Aligning Incentive for Open Science. She is also a member of the Steering Committee of SocArXiv, an open access platform for social science research; a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers Committee to Visit the University Library, and chair of the Management Board of the MIT Press. She has served on the Board of Directors for the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), and is past chair of the Committee on Diversity and Inclusion of the Association of Research Libraries. In 2016, Chris co-chaired the MIT Ad Hoc Task Force on the Future of Libraries, which produced a bold vision for research libraries in a computational age.

Chris has written and spoken extensively on equitable and open scholarship, the future of research libraries, diversity and inclusion in higher education, and the role libraries play in advancing social justice and democracy. She received her BA from Duke University, her MA from the University of Maryland, and her MA and PhD in sociology from Stanford. 

Heather Buckley: Punk Rock Production & the Preservation of Genre Materials

So very excited to welcome my excellent colleague and friend Heather Buckley to Archivist’s Alley. Not only is she a successful horror film producer but she is a writer, historian and dedicated preservationist who works with a variety of film distribution companies to create additional features on the home releases of various genre films.

I am so thrilled to know her and to be able to have her on the show to discuss issues of genre, collecting and archival work as well as what access means within the world of these valuable materials. Our discussion runs the gamut from her own film productions to exploring our feelings about westerns and masculinity to why genre and “b-films” are just as worthy of preservation and archival treatment as any arthouse or classic silent work.

Dive on in! As usual, the bio and links are below the episode and I HIGHLY SUGGEST checking them out!! There is a LOT of great stuff to read there!!!!


Heather Buckley – Producer |  NYC/NJ/LA- is a graduate of University of the Arts with a graphic design degree and an academic focus on film history and criticism. She worked for thirteen years in the New York advertising world before bringing her creative and story skills into the film world. 
The first feature she produced, Jenn Wexler’s THE RANGER, for Glass Eye Pix and Hood River Entertainment, premiered at SXSW and played numerous festivals on an international run before its limited theatrical release in NYC and LA. THE RANGER was acquired by SHUDDER and is currently available on its streaming platform as well as Amazon Prime.  Heather’s work as a film analyst and journalist spans over a decade, with bylines in VULTURE, DREAD CENTRAL and FANGORIA. Her background in SFX work includes: CIRCUS OF THE DEAD, DEAD STILL (SyFy/Sony) and WE ARE STILL HERE (MPI). 
She is currently a Blu-Ray Special Features Producer having created documentaries for Kino Lorber, Liongate/Vestron, Arrow Films and Shout Factory releases including JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING, BARTON FINK, THE LONG RIDERS, SAW 10th Anniversary reissue, and ARMY OF DARKNESS. 
Heather’s background buoyed the marketing on THE RANGER, where Heather took the creative lead on grass roots engagement and social media campaigns.
Heather’s current feature slate includes projects from auteurs that span the spectrum of genre film, exemplary of her attraction to unique stories with strong, detailed visual aesthetics and a clear position in the marketplace.

Follow Heather!!! at:https://facebook.com/joe.spinell.liveshttps://www.instagram.com/_heatherbuckley/https://twitter.com/_HeatherBuckley
INSIDE at the Cannes Film Market:https://variety.com/2019/film/global/cannes-film-market-readies-third-frontieres-genre-platform-1203209691/
THE RANGER is on SHUDDER:https://variety.com/2018/film/global/amc-shudder-sxsw-the-ranger-1202978378/
THE RANGER Vinyl:http://creep-records-store.shoplightspeed.com/the-ranger-original-soundtrack.html
THE RANGER Novelization:http://www.haverhillhouse.com/product/the-ranger-by-ed-kurtz/
THE RANGER T-Shirt:https://atomiccotton.com/product/the-ranger-unisex-t-shirt/

Adam Piron: Media Curation, Format Fetishes & Indigenous Film Language

I could have talked to Adam for HOURS. This was a great conversation! Chatting about the film experience is always my jam but this particular podcast ROCKED. His work at LACMA is inspiring and wonderful and I strongly look to him as a programmer and film professional who balances indigenous work and activism with a real joy and passion for cinema. And that is 100% my kind of person!!

In this episode, Adam and I explore working in the field of film programming/curation (esp in Los Angeles). We focus on ideas of media archiving/preservation, temporality and examining and applying it to media and preservation in a non-hysterical manner. Public perceptions of media formats and the lack of knowledge/education is also a topic before Adam and I explore ideas in and around indigenous film identity, culture and language. DO NOT MISS THIS ONE!! 

All the info on Adam is below the link and trust me- you wanna check it out! He’s cool as hell!!

Adam Piron (Kiowa/Mohawk) is the Assistant Curator for Film at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and a member of the Sundance Film Festival’s Short Film Programming Team. He is also an Associate Film Programmer for short films at AFI Fest. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees and Programming Committee of the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, an organization devoted to building community around the moving image and the longest continuously running annual film event in North America devoted to creative non-fiction.

From 2014 to 2017, he served as a Manager for Sundance Institute’s Indigenous Program. He has programmed both features and short films for Film Independent’s LA Film Festival. He has also served on competition juries and panels for film festivals such as the Palm Springs International ShortFest, Hot Springs Film Festival, Art House Convergence, imagineNATIVE Film Festival, Big Sky Documentary Film festival and Maoriland Film Festival. He has served as a mentor for the Whistler Film Festival’s Aboriginal Filmmaker Fellowship and as a NATIVe Partner Representative at the Berlin International Film Festival. He has also guest programmed Indigenous Cinema showcases at the Borscht Film Festival and the Eastern Oregon Film Festival and has also been a reader for Creative Capital.

Follow him on Twitter:@adam_piron

Elvia Arroyo-Ramirez: the Minority Majority, Community Involvement & Our Plea to Stop Being a Jerk!

I am so glad that I am able to come back to the Podcast-waves with this episode.

Some things are a *little* out of date since we recorded this episode waaaaaaaaay back in April but most everything is still incredibly relevant and very very real.

I am so thrilled to have been able to have Elvia on this show. What she is doing in Irvine is so important and her drive to make sure that the future is a better place is so clear. I am incredibly impressed by this University archive and they are quite lucky to have Elvia. She is an incredible person who respects and values the voices that ask to be heard.

This is the rarest thing. I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed having this conversation. ELVIA IS AWESOME!!!!!

As usual, bio is below the podcast link!

Elvia is the Assistant University Archivist at UC Irvine where she is responsible for providing physical and intellectual access to University Archives and Faculty Papers. She was previously the Processing Archivist for Latin American Collections at Princeton University. She earned her Master’s in Library and Information Science (MLIS) at the University of Pittsburgh, and holds a Bachelor’s of Art in art history from UCLA. 

Michelle Caswell: Creating Archives, Making Space & Activating Records of the Now

I first met Dr. Michelle Caswell when I was at UCLA finishing my degree and I already heard how amazing she was back then.

Years later, I was lucky enough to finally get to meet Jarrett Drake in person because he was here in Los Angeles for a conference that (I think) Michelle was running and we talked a little bit about how Michelle’s perspective and work was to the things that we believed and fought for in the archiving world.

Fast forward to now.

The more things change the more they stay the same. Jarrett, Michelle and I are all still working for the same things just maybe not within the same formats or institutions and (obvs) there are many reasons for that as my podcast has shown.

I feel so grateful to have been able to sit down with Dr. Caswell and talk with her about what she does and has been doing because she is TRULY INCREDIBLE. The work that she does and the thinking that she pursues within the archives and memory field is larger than the archives and library/information world. She’s the best kind of academic: the kind who goes for access and important content over fanciness. It’s not that her work isn’t smart- it’s smart as hell!

But the fact that she produces and discusses topics and material that we can all get together on? That’s my jam!

Anyways, here’s our conversation and the bio and links are below as usual.

PLEASE check out those links!!! They are AMAZING!!

BIO: 

Michelle Caswell, PhD, is Associate Professor of Archival Studies in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where she directs the UCLA Community Archives Lab.
She is the co-founder of the South Asian American Digital Archive, an online repository that documents and provides access to the
stories of South Asian Americans. She is also the author of the book Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory and the Photographic Record in Cambodia (University of Wisconsin Press, 2014), as well as more than three dozen peer-reviewed articles on archives, memory, and communities.

Info on the event at UCLA on 2/23 https://www.saada.org/ucla

Film mentioned in the podcast: “Lavaan” by Zain Alam https://www.saada.org/wherewebelong/lavaan 
Archivists Against:
http://www.archivistsagainst.org/
Michelle Caswell:
https://michellecaswell.org/