Announcing An Archivist’s Tale

Geof Huth, "Stoen 18: In s taken" (2018)

My wife Karen Trivette and I (Geof Huth) are beginning a podcast in which we will interview archivists. We hope to talk to archivists across the country, and maybe further afield, and archivists of all types, doing all kinds of work. We want to present the broad spectrum of archivists and the records they hold.

We even created a prospectus that laid out our goal for the podcast ("Capture the diversity of voices in the archives profession") and our plans (about two podcasts a month, with a set of two questions we will ask everyone). We also purchased and received all of the equipment we need and have identified a hosting service. We even finished a first practice run just before I began editing this for this new blog. 

Last week, we held our first planning meeting, as opposed to the various informal conversations we have held. Being archivists, we actually developed a set of metadata we would collect for each podcast, and indicated which of these would always be spoken during each episode. We even wrote a description of our podcast:

Archivists in conversation with archivists, discussing their work and passions and how they care for the historical record and present the storied past. 

The hardest part for us was coming up with the title for the podcast. We went through many, at least ten, before ending up with this: An Archivist's Tale. We chose this because it tells the potential listener that every episode will present the tale of an archivist, however she or he wants to present it, so we can hear the voices of our profession and present those voices to the world. 

Karen, by the way, came up with the title of the podcast, the phrasing of the goal (which paraphrased something I had written though she hadn't seen or heard it), and most of the description of the podcast. So I'm just taking over for the writing of the announcement. 

We expect each podcast to be about 45 minutes to an hour in length, depending on the conversation, and we hope to have about two out a month, but we're not sure how easy that will be for us, since we keep quite busy as it is. 

The first podcast will be Karen and me talking together, so it will be what I call a co-interview of two archivists. We expect our first guest to be Brenda Scruggs Gunn, who now works at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Also, Bob Clark, now of the Rockefeller Archive Center has agreed to join us. I've also spoken to all the members of the Steering Committee of the Archives Leadership Institute about talking to them during those times when Karen and I will be with them this year. 

Anyone who would like to contact us about this podcast can reach us at archiviststale@gmail.com.

So that's it. Expect some podcast content in a few weeks, since we probably won't have all the equipment until next week.

voices of archivists