NDSA Announces 2023 Slate of Candidates for Coordinating Committee
NDSA is happy to announce the 2023 slate of Coordinating Committee (CC) candidates. Elections will soon be held for three (3) CC members. The CC is dedicated to ensuring a strategic direction for NDSA, to the advancement of NDSA activities to achieve community goals, and to further communication among digital preservation professionals and NDSA member organizations. The CC is responsible for reviewing and approving NDSA membership applications and publications; updating eligibility standards for membership in the alliance, and other strategic documents; engaging with stakeholders in the community; and working to enroll new members committed to our core mission. The successful candidates will each serve a three year term. Ballots will be sent to membership organization contacts in the coming weeks. (Only one vote per organization.)
Michael Barera
Michael Barera has been the Assistant Archivist and Digitization Specialist at the Milwaukee County Historical Society (MCHS) Research Library since June 2022. This position ranges broadly from traditional archival responsibilities such as digitization, processing, and reference to unique and often innovative programs and projects related to Milwaukee history, including creating questions for and calling Milwaukee History Trivia Nights at local breweries and leading historical kayak tours on the Milwaukee River. Michael earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in history from the University of Michigan in 2012 and obtained a Master of Science in Information (MSI) in both Archives and Records Management (ARM) and Preservation of Information (PI) from the University of Michigan School of Information in 2014. Prior to taking his current position at MCHS, he previously served as an Assistant Archivist at the Texas A&M University-Commerce Libraries (from 2015 to 2019) and as the University and Labor Archivist at the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries (from 2019 to 2022). He has been a Certified Archivist since 2016.
Michael is running for NDSA Coordinating Committee for two primary reasons. The first is to bring the perspective of a small but innovative county historical society to the committee. The second is to learn from the committee and engage more deeply with NDSA as a whole, with the ultimate goal of learning more born-digital and digitization best practices that can be realistically implemented at MCHS and thus raise its level of practice.
Chelsea Denault
Chelsea leads the Michigan Digital Preservation Network, a program of the Midwest Collaborative for Library Services with support from the Library of Michigan. As the MDPN’s Coordinator, she works to build a community-centered statewide service focused on leveraging shared resources and expertise to make digital preservation affordable and accessible to all cultural memory institutions. As part of her efforts, Chelsea provides guidance and training on digital preservation in Michigan and leads the MDPN’s policy development and member recruitment. She also serves as the PI for the MDPN’s IMLS-funded grant to explore simplifying digital preservation workflows and provide training for non-technical users at under-resourced institutions in Michigan and beyond. Chelsea has served the NDSA on the DigiPres Conference Planning Committee (2021-2023) and the Long-Term Conference Planning Working Group. She also represents the MDPN in the Private LOCKSS Network (PLN) Community, and contributes to the Cross-PLN Technical Committee and the Shared Messaging Group. Before joining the MDPN, Chelsea was a public historian engaged in community outreach and collections work, and she holds an MA and a PhD in Public History/US History from Loyola University Chicago. Chelsea is guided by the MDPN’s commitment to small, underserved organizations, and is interested in representing their needs on the Coordinating Committee.
Brenna Edwards
Brenna Edwards is currently Manager for Digital Archives at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin. Previously, she was Project Digital Archivist at the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University. She has a BS from Tennessee Tech University and an MSLS from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Outside of work, she can be found either reading, knitting, or watching movies – some of them at the same time!
Having been involved with the 2022 NDSA Staffing Survey and helping plan the 2022 NDSA Conference, Brenna is interested in joining the Coordinating Committee to help further expand the goals of the organization. She has also recently worked with an on-campus digital preservation group focusing on the NDSA Levels and how they can be best implemented across campus. Brenna has also served as co-leader for the DLF Born Digital Description in Finding Aids subgroup of Born Digital Access Working Group to document various ways born digital materials are described in finding aids across a variety of institutions.
Thomas Pulhamus
Tom is the Digital Technology Librarian at the University of Delaware, where he has worked for the past fifteen years. He started as a salaried staff member before his position was professionalized in 2018 and he assumed his current title. Tom works on various facets of digitization and digital preservation for the UD Library, Museums and Press. Currently that work includes developing a digital preservation plan for the UD Library, Museums and Press as well as incorporating reparative justice and harm reduction practices into digitization and digital preservation workflows. Tom is deeply interested in issues of representation and access in digitization and digital preservation and sees the chance to serve on the Coordinating Committee as an opportunity to advance the key operational values of inclusiveness and collaboration. He has served on the DigiPres Planning Committee since 2020 and is also currently a member of the Long Term Conference Planning Working Group. Tom has a BA from Rutgers University, an MA in English from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana and an MLIS from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Danielle Spalenka
Danielle Spalenka is the Digital Preservation Librarian at Indiana University. She provides vision and leadership in the development of digital preservation strategies for departments on the IU campus. She has over 10 years of experience providing education, outreach, consultation, and assessments related to preservation and digital preservation, with a focus on smaller institutions. She has been involved in the Digital POWRR Project in various roles since 2013, including instructor and Project Director. Danielle holds a BA in history from Saint Mary’s College (Notre Dame, IN), and earned her MA-LIS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Jessica Venlet
Jessica Venlet works as the Assistant University Archivist for Digital Records and Records Management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries. In this role, she is responsible for a variety of things related to both records management and digital preservation. In particular, she leads the processing and management of born-digital archival materials.
Jessica is drawn to participation with NDSA because of how valuable the resources and network are to her work and to the profession overall. She has recently participated in working groups for the 2019 Levels of Digital Preservation Reboot (assessment subgroup), the 2021 NDSA Staffing Survey, and the 2023 NDSA Excellence Awards. She is excited about the possibility of joining the coordinating committee and contributing to the continued development of the NDSA organization and all its associated programs and working groups.
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