Issue Paper

50 Word Statement

As archival institutions struggle to remain independent and operational amidst a lack of funding and resources, the labor of preserving public memory becomes an excess expenditure, often undertaken by volunteers. I will assess the mission, role, and logistical organization of volunteer-run archives in developing sustainable labor practices and future models.

A Collective Capacity: Labor and Sustainability in Volunteer-Run Archives

A full-text PDF of the paper is available here.

This paper builds off of the research and work of Bergis Jules and the Architecting Sustainable Futures project, which explores funding and organizational models for small, community-based archival organizations. I narrow the focus of this capacity-building project on the models and practices of volunteer-run archives. I survey the organizational structure of the Interference Archive, a volunteer-run community archive in Brooklyn, NY that collects activist and social movement ephemera. In recognizing the paucity of resources available for these institutions, this paper presents recommendations and guidelines, upon which various volunteer-run archives can develop sustainable models and practices that cohere to the capacity and needs of each institution.

Notes:

Throughout this paper I make reference to volunteer-run archives. For my purposes, I define them as archival institutions that are organized, operated, and built wholly through volunteered, unpaid labor.