Dinah Handel has new 20% assignment in University Archives

We are excited to share that beginning July 13, Dinah Handel, Digitization Service Manager in DLSS, will begin a new 20% assignment with the Stanford Archives. She will be working on a variety of projects that advance the Department of Special Collections & University Archives’ commitment to anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as serving as a DLSS liaison to foster collaboration across the two departments. 

In recent years, Stanford Archives has prioritized the collecting, processing, digitization, and promotion of materials documenting communities of color, gender diversity, the queer community, and people with disabilities, through our All Stanford initiative. The Archives has also developed, in partnership with the Stanford Historical Society, the Community History Toolkit Project, which has provided Stanford community members with the opportunity and means to conduct, share, and research oral history projects. This assignment will enable us to level up these efforts.

The assignment also represents an excellent opportunity for cross-organizational collaboration; we are very grateful to all of the people across the Libraries who have supported the Archives in recent months by contributing to ongoing projects, including collection transcription, web archiving quality assurance, and the creation of LibGuides (such as the recently published Black Students at Stanford). I experienced firsthand how valuable these collaborative learning opportunities can be during my assignment to the Product & Service Management team in DLSS in 2018-2019, and I am excited to enable this additional opportunity to grow our cross-organizational capacity in the spirit of One Library.

Projects that Dinah may work on over the next 6 months include: 

• Serving as liaison / Archives contact for 2-4 campus or student organizations: offering support and identifying potential short term and longer term needs that could be served by or through the Archives

• Developing and updating Spotlight exhibits or LibGuides to support research into the history of marginalized communities at Stanford, in collaboration with e.g. the Black Community Services Center, Asian American Activities Center, Queer Student Resources, Native American Cultural Center, Women’s Community Center, El Centro Chicano y Latino, Markaz, First Gen and/or Low-Income Office, or disability advocacy groups; or on student activism

• Coordinating the effort to identify, triage, and remediate the description of Stanford Archives collections, incorporating anti-racist and anti-oppressive practices, in collaboration with the Processing Archivist and University Archivist

• Triaging and accessioning digital files, prioritizing content from marginalized groups

• Planning and coordinating a Community History Toolkit-aligned oral history project

• Assisting with reference requests

When not engaged in these University Archives activities, Dinah will continue in her role as Digitization Services Manager in DLSS, facilitating projects and shaping new processes and workflows to meet the changing needs of students, instructors, and researchers in the months ahead.

We are thrilled to have Dinah on board, and to collaborate more closely with our colleagues to advance the Libraries’ commitment to anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Many thanks to Hannah Frost, as well as Tom Cramer, Roberto Trujillo, and Stanford Libraries leadership generally, for supporting this cross-organizational collaboration.