WITNESS, Author at WITNESS Blog

Lawsuit to demand Cheney papers be made public Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) (with others) has filed a lawsuit to challenge Vice president Dick Cheney’s position, supported by NARA, that his office is not part of the Bush administration, and thus not subject to the Presidential Records Act of 1978. See the Washington Post for more. September 10, 2008
SAA2008: A few final notes Back from SF, to the office, first day of school, general fall craziness. I want to post just a couple of other notes re SAA before I move on to other topics. The session “Returning Displaced Archives: Legal and Ethical Perspectives” moderated by Trudy Peterson. The panelists, to whom scenarios (hypothetical and actual) were put […] September 4, 2008
SAA2008: Random notes I did the Internet Archive “tour” Weds morning – nothing to tour really, as befits a digital archive; a colleague said, “they have a building?” – but presentations and Q&A in the Presidio office about the Books program, NASA Images project, and Archive-it, a subscription service allowing customized website crawling/archiving for organizations. A few things […] August 30, 2008
SAA2008: Meaning, Justice and John Dean I started the day with “What, Why, How? Archival Meaning in a R/Evolutionary Age” which featured three excellent papers exploring meaning, purpose and collective identity for archivists. I especially liked Scott Cline’s paper which explored what he called “archival being” the core values of which are faith, radical self-understanding, intention, and integrity; and illustrated via […] August 29, 2008
SAA2008 I will be in San Francisco all of next week for the Society of American Archivists annual meeting. Of particular note: Global Issues Forum on “Archival Ethics and Social Justice: What is our Professional Responsibility?” Consisting of panelists and open discussion, the forum will begin by considering the “Key Propositions and Questions,” presented in the […] August 22, 2008
I-Witness Video, archives & advocacy Saturday’s Times had an update on the continuing efforts of the city of NY to force I-Witness Video to turn over hundreds of hours of videotapes shot during the 2004 protests at the Republican National Convention. For those unfamiliar with this story, this small group of activists mobilized hundreds of citizens with video cameras with […] July 29, 2008
My vacation I’m back from a road trip with family through PA, WV, VA and KY (really not the summer to do this, although gas was a lot cheaper down south). Along with some hiking and biking and fabulous roadside dioramas, I had the pleasure of making a short visit to Appalshop, the legendary arts, media and […] July 3, 2008
Day Two continued This has been a great day. It’s exciting for WITNESS staff to see first hand how people react to hearing about the work WITNESS and WITNESS partners are doing. There is a real sense of gratitude from the people passing by, and a real interest in getting involved. I spoke on a panel about Arts […] June 14, 2008
Bonnaroo Day Two Things are off to a good start in the world of WITNESS. We were on the radio in Tuscon, Arizona. And in Bonnaroo land. 92.9 The Mountain’s morning talk show host invited us on this morning to talk about the work we’re doing around the world. Apart from thanking Bonnaroo for enabling WITNESS to have […] June 13, 2008
20 Minutes til Vampire Weekend Hi Folks, Thursday night. Hot. Bonnaroo. If you build it, they will come. We build the WITNESS tent. And concertgoers are visiting us in droves. YAY. We’re projecting our short WITNESS promotional videos (which talk about the work we’re doing) on the top of our tent. Many people have also been signing our postcard to […] June 13, 2008
Saad Eskander Guardian interview The Guardian online has an interview with Saad Eskander, Director of the Iraqi National Archive and Library. The former Kurdish resistance fighter returned to Baghdad in 2003 with a freshly minted Phd from the London School of Economics, and was appointed soon after. It is an almost unimaginable job under heartbreaking and terrifying conditions; he […] June 9, 2008
DVB posts interview with Burma cyclone survivor From DVB (via The Guardian, which has an interactive guide here, and is posting updates here) UPDATE: Burma pages from ReliefWeb, IRIN, Alertnet and Global Voices. May 7, 2008
U Conn HR archives symposium notes now online Now available on the Thomas J Dodd Research Center website are the proceedings of the meeting on human rights archives held March 3 & 4. Two notable outcomes of the conference include a new listserv, and the creation of a Human Rights Archives Information Portal. A prototype of the portal is currently being created by […] April 29, 2008
Writers share videos from the Hub at PEN World Voices Festival We’re very pleased to be a part of 3 events at this year’s PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, held annually in New York City. I’ll be moderating the first event on Apr 30 and is for high school students (details here) and includes authors Uzodinma Iweala, Amanda Michalopoulou, Patricia McCormick, Kashmira Sheth, and […] April 29, 2008
Archivists demand return of seized Iraqi documents The Society of American Archivists (SAA) and the Association of Canadian Archivists (ACA) have released a joint statement calling for the return of five sets of records seized from Iraq during both Gulf conflicts and now in various US locations. They are (from the statement): Records seized by the U.S. military and intelligence agencies during […] April 22, 2008