S2 E2: Archivists Against the Climate Crisis

98.8%: that’s the percentage of American archives likely to encounter at least one climate risk factor by the year 2100, according to a 2018 article by Eira Tansey and Ben Goldman. In this episode, Nicole speaks with the archivists whose work SAA described as “tireless and… critical to addressing the impact of climate change on the archival profession.” Eira and Ben discuss their approaches  to climate activism and the superpowers librarians can bring to the fight for environmental justice, both within and outside of their employer institutions. 

Link to transcript

Sources and References (in order of appearance)

Note: Sources marked by ** are initiatives and writings by the episode’s guests. 

Further Reading

Behind the Mic

Nicole Ferraiolo

Nicole Kang Ferraiolo

Show Host

Nicole Kang Ferraiolo is CLIR’s director of global strategic initiatives. She was previously a program officer for CLIR’s regranting and fellowship programs. Prior to that, Nicole worked at Columbia University where she oversaw several projects including an interdisciplinary research program on global governance that focused in turn on nuclear proliferation, pandemics, religious conflict, and climate change. 

Ben Goldman

Ben Goldman

Guest

Ben Goldman is the archivist for curatorial services and strategy in the Special Collections Library at Penn State University. His research explores the intersection of archives, climate change, and the environment. He is the PI for the Repo Data Project, a project to identify, gather, standardize, and make publicly accessible United States archival repository location data. 

Eira Tansey

Eira Tansey

Guest

Eira Tansey is the digital archivist/records manager at the University of Cincinnati Libraries. Her active areas of research include the effects of climate change on archives and archivists, the role of records within environmental regulation, and the enforcement of recordkeeping laws. Her work has appeared in a wide variety of archives, history, and environmental policy journals. See more of her writing at http://eiratansey.com/.

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