Lydia Loriente

Last week I attended the Designing the Archive conference, co organised by the ASA, ARANZ, ICA and PARBICA. This blog post is to jot down a few reflections on what I learned and experienced at the conference, and to give a few insights on doing professional development while on maternity leave. It was a big conference so I’m selecting just a few things that stood out to me. That is not to say that the presentations I missed or did not write about here were not important.

I’m on maternity leave and I chose to self-fund to attend. I could not pass up the opportunity to attend such an international conference when it was happening in Australia (I’ve previously attended ICA conferences in South Korea (2016) and Mexico (2017)). I’m finding that keeping my professional network active, and continuing to think about the profession, is helping to keep me sane and adjust to my new life as a parent with balance. Those first few months of first-time parenthood were really hard as not only was I learning what to do to care for a child, but I was also mourning being immediately (though temporarily) excluded from my usual network, professional community, routine and role/identity.

The first event I attended was the Australian Society of Archivists (ASA) University Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting, since I work at a University. I realised in the first few minutes that:

A ) my brain was a little rusty as I had to think for a moment, what do all those words like appraisal and accession mean? At first I felt like everyone was speaking a foreign language since the last few months have all been (reusable) nappies, breastfeeding, babywearing and nursery rhymes.

B ) I really missed using my brain for work stuff and I enjoyed hearing everyone’s updates on what projects they were working on and what challenges they were facing.

It was clear from the first day at the Welcome Reception that the conference organisers had made genuine efforts to be inclusive of Indigenous cultures and perspectives. It was great to have that embedded into the conference and to have a Welcome to Country to open the first day of presentations. Jennifer O’Neal from the University of Oregon provided in their presentation a list of authors that we should all read regarding Indigenous knowledge systems: Cheryl Metoyer, Ally Krebs, Miranda Belarde-Lewis, Marisa Elena Durante, Sandy Littletree, Camille Callison, Kim Lawson, Kirsten Thorpe, Shannon Faulkhead, Loris Williams, Angie Abdilla, Tasha James, Cassie Willis, Lauren Brooker.

It was clear from many presentations that as a profession we are able to admit and acknowledge that archives and archival practice is not neutral. That we have got it wrong and often continue to get it wrong. I have been hearing these messages for the last few years from the profession since I started attending conferences, but it is not always clear what can be done to improve the situation. An approach that seems to be helping is participatory research – including in your projects the people that the records are about or affect. The session presented by Belinda Battley, Seren Wendelken, Gregory Roland and Joanne Evans, Chaired by Nicola Laurent, showed the benefits and necessity of doing so. This was also covered by Elizabeth Shepherd’s talk on human-centred recordkeeping and the MIRRA project – memory, identity, rights in records, access. There is a short video about the project available to watch online.

It was such a rare luxury for me to be baby free at times during the conference (with my partner parenting bub, armed with a stash of expressed breastmilk) that I chose not to live tweet much of what I watched. I have been multitasking and pulled in all different directions so much this past year, that I wanted to really just be in the moment and watch without any distraction, even though for me Tweeting also doubles as my note-taking. As a side-note, the only reason I have two hands free to type this article today is because I’ve settled my baby to sleep on me in a baby carrier (I discovered early on that babies are programmed to protest being put down to sleep alone, quite rightly to ensure their survival in the forest, but that they quickly and easily fall asleep when tired and held in arms or in a baby carrier).

The first keynote, Michelle Caswell, had me nodding along to almost every word they said. She presented an approach to rethinking appraisal theory from a feminist perspective. She said things that needed to be said and heard, including criticisms (quite rightly) of white supremacy and the patriarchy. I’m looking forward to reading her paper on it. As a sneak peak, here’s a quote from the abstract about what is feminist standpoint appraisal:

“In valuing the unique insights gleaned by people on the margins, feminist standpoint appraisal refuses the notion that archivists from oppressed communities must overcome their positionalities to meet institutional goals and professional demands for neutrality, but rather, values and leverages the insights gained from outsider status, viewing the attendant insights as assets, rather than as detriments, to the archival endeavor. Furthermore, feminist standpoint appraisal calls on archivists who inhabit dominant identities to acknowledge their oppressor standpoints and actively work to dismantle them.”

Michelle Caswell’s abstract and full article is available online.

The morning and afternoon teas went for 45 minutes, and lunch for 1 hour, which I really appreciated. It was enough time to catch up with people and make new friends, and to take my time eating the delicious catering (the food was superb!). It also gave me time to walk to the parent’s room and pump milk so that I could leave bub with my partner for longer. There were times though that I needed to pump or spend time with bub away from the presentations, and I would have appreciated if presentations were streamed into the parent’s room, which is routine at some conferences.

When I booked my conference ticket I registered for the conference dinner without thinking through how that would work with a baby. I generally find that they are very unsettled when away from me in the evening (and much more settled in the daytime when we are apart). So I decided to pop bub in the baby carrier and get there right on time, so I could enjoy the event before it got too loud or we both got too tired. We have introduced solids using the Baby Led Weaning (BLW) approach, which avoids purees and spoon feeding and starts with finger food at around 6 months (For further info on baby led weaning, see the book by Gill Rapley). This meant bub could share my meal with me which made things easy. I also had someone kindly watch bub for a bit so I could have a few minutes to eat baby-free, which I was grateful for.

On the last day of presentations, Keynote Camille Callison was not afraid to speak her mind and to be honest about what we need to do to genuinely honour and include Indigenous voices in archival thinking and practice. While she was introduced as a librarian, she said that she calls herself a cultural memory activist. She noted that Western systems and approaches to recordkeeping do not work for a lot of Indigenous knowledge. Also that it took a long time in Canada for Indigenous oral histories to be recognised as evidence/records, compared to written documents. She emphasised that relationship building is essential to reconciliation.

The ICA runs a New Professionals program to support and encourage those with five or less years in the profession. It was great to see the program participants presenting on the last day of the conference. It’s wonderful to see the ICA supporting newbies to attend conferences and to network and be mentored. It was the ICA program which inspired me to co-establish, with Emma Harding, a student and new professional program locally within the professional association RIMPA. You can read more about the ICA’s program online, and about recent RIMPA Noobs initiatives too.

The last session I saw before the closing ceremony was on archives and data: opportunities and risks. Anne Lyon’s talk highlighted just how important records can be to national security and culture in Australia. She defined national identity data as records held in both public and private locations, assets around culture, history, identity, legal records. Births, deaths and marriages, court decisions, and more. She said it is a national security issue that this data has been undervalued. I look forward to reading her report which is available for free online. During question time, she was asked what records managers and archivists can do when information security is often seen as a technical IT issue and we are left out of the discussion. Her advice was to just turn up or invite yourself to meetings to ensure you are included.

While it was challenging to attend an interstate conference with a baby, it helped immensely that my partner took time off work and travelled with us, and parented bub for much of the conference. Though I did bring bub into some sessions. Attending wearing a baby sparked some interesting conversations around childcare and parenting. There were many references to Annabel Crabb’s writings on the matter such as her book ‘The Wife Drought’, and more recently, her Quarterly Essay, an extract of which is available online.

The call for papers is now open for the ICA 2020 Abu Dhabi Congress to be held 16-20 November, with the theme Empowering Knowledge Societies. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it, but I do hope I can find a way, financially and logistically!

Me attending the conference with my baby. Photo credit: Jenny Scott (thanks so much Jenny for taking some nice pics of me babywearing at a conference!)

Last week I attended RIMPA Live in Melbourne, the annual conference that used to be called RIMPA inForum. This year is RIMPA’s 50^th birthday, and my third inForum/Live. It has been over a year since I published something to my blog, as I have been busy growing a tiny human and then looking after them. I wanted to keep my brain active on work stuff while on maternity leave, and I have been using my RIMPA membership to do that. I stayed on the Victorian Branch Council and participated in the Victorian State Seminar, which was held earlier this year. I felt very welcome and encouraged by the branch leadership to attend the State Seminar with bub, which gave me confidence to attend RIMPA Live. This blog post is to capture a few highlights and to share my experiences trying to do professional development with a baby. Many presentations ran parallel to each other, and I was not able to attend everything, so there would be many presentations and ideas I cannot comment on. You can also see what others thought about the conference by looking up #RIMPALIVE2019 on social media such as Twitter.

Childcare is hard to come by, plus with exclusive breastfeeding it is not easy to be away from bub for too long, so I attended with baby for most days. I saw more of the conference when I had bub with me, as I could feed them while watching presentations (which also often kept bub quiet and/or put them to sleep). The day we were apart, I missed presentations when I had to go pump, and I had to leave early because there is a limit to how long I was prepared to be away from bub for (public pumping, like public breastfeeding, is protected under Australian law, but due to the logistics of it I prefer to pump in private). While common to do at conferences, unfortunately presentations were not being streamed into the private room made available for myself and another attendee who needed to pump.

I began the conference on the Tuesday by facilitating the Networking and Information Session for people who are new the conference, new to the profession, or just want a rundown of what to expect during the week. I presented with bub attached to me in a baby carrier (babywearing for the win!). Later that evening I attended the Welcome Reception. I had trouble networking as the music was too loud, it was hard to hear people and my throat was getting sore from trying to strain to speak loudly.

The Wednesday was Day 1 of presentations. There were many seasoned professionals presenting, reflecting on the last 50 years of the profession and how things have changed. There were also some professional speakers from non-records backgrounds, covering topics like leadership and adapting to change.  After many trips down memory lane on Day 1, Day 2 covered some innovative projects and approaches to professional practice. Such as Sandra Ennor’s work to appraise and manage large sets of research data by applying existing records management tools and theory to new areas. And Siân Sewell’s talk on deciding to work in the records and information management industry, where she noted the importance of networking to promote your records management program and get buy-in. She identified four keywords to inform our professional practice: be relevant, collaborative, influential, and innovative.

Day 2 was my childfree day and included me chairing ‘The future of the profession – RIMPA Noobs panel discussion’, with panellists Megan Cappelleri, Rebecca French, Siân Sewell, Chris Simpson, and Susannah Tindall. The discussion focused on the need for more formal and informal mentoring, on the job and formal training, and job security. We also talked about how newbies who enter the profession with a qualification have been trained in innovative approaches to professional practice, which may clash with how their workplace is currently running their records management program. There were some good ideas mentioned on how to better support and get value out of new professionals, such as:

• When a more senior staff member has a speaking or writing opportunity, they could get a more junior staff member to co-write or co-present part of it as a learning/mentoring opportunity
• For managers to consider sometimes sending more junior staff to industry training and events, so they get the experience, and can report back on learnings to the team
• Newbies should not hide their previous qualifications or experience in other industries and roles, as that is where they learned or demonstrated valuable transferable skills such as customer service, project management, commitment to study and lifelong learning and more.

The view from my private pumping room

I really enjoyed the opening presentation of Day 3 by Matt O’Mara, on the need to innovate our approach to records and information management. The take-home message was that as information professionals, we need to insert ourselves into the right networks and conversations and be seen as trusted advisors and strategic enablers. Another highlight was Helen Palmer’s workshop on change management. She highlighted the human side, that we have to be mindful of the impact change can have on people. And that change is not always negative. The talk by Susan Bennett and Chris Colwell on leading information governance in the digital age was inspiring. They said that records and information managers are well placed to step up and lead information governance in organisations. They noted the importance of leadership and soft skills like influencing and strategy to complement technical skills. They saw information governance not as records and information management by another name, but as a multidisciplinary ‘super-profession’.

Throughout the conference I had many people come up to me to say hi to bub and say positive things about me attending with a baby. I think I met more people than I usually would, as babies are a great conversation starter. Many commented on how rare it was for new parents/carers to attend conferences, and that I was setting a good example that they are welcome if they want to attend. I only had one person say something negative to me, which included referring to bub as ‘really annoying’ and saying that I was being ‘confronting’ (the irony of confronting someone and accusing them of being confronting!). The encounter was a surprise for me, as they requested that I do exactly what I had already been doing, as if I had not been doing just that: if bub gets noisy (happy noisy or sad noisy), leave the room immediately and return when they are settled again. I did not know what to say other than, ‘that’s a reasonable request, and I am doing that, so I don’t know what else to say’. It was a blip on the radar as far as my overall experience goes, but I reported my encounter to management in the hope that it does not happen again to me or anyone else. **Edited to say, I have no intention of naming the person, so that they have the opportunity to save face. I strongly believe in ‘know better, do better’ and giving people the opportunity to bounce back. I’ve certainly make mistakes before and would not want to be identified for such. We all make mistakes and my point was never to identify the person, only to share my experience and how I navigated it.***

I do not need to explain how damaging an interaction like that, especially from someone holding a senior position, could be to a parent or carer’s confidence, mental health, and likelihood of leaving the house with bub again for some much needed social interaction.

While overall I felt supported to be there, I made a list of a few things I thought of that could make conferences even more parent/carer friendly:

• Have a diversity and inclusion policy that states that parents/carers are welcome at the event and will be accommodated (to empower parents/carers to stand up for themselves in case someone does feel the need to say something negative to them)
• Provide a space to pump (or breastfeed) that is private, has electricity and a fridge, and ideally a microwave in case one needs to sterilise equipment and bottles
• Ensure high chairs are available at meal times (I had trouble getting one for the one sit-down meal I had requested it for)
• Provide a play space where children can be noisy and stretch out
• Live stream the audio, and ideally video too, of at least the main presentation room, into the feeding/pumping/play room(s)
• Provide free or affordable childcare onsite, since it is difficult to organise private childcare to fit in around the conference span of hours, or if you have travelled for the conference you will not have access to your usual childcare options.

The 2020 conference will be held in Canberra. I encourage you all to start thinking about what you can present. What research have you done or could you do before then, or what projects could be written into a case study? And if you are a parent or a carer, and want to attend, I hope I have given you some ideas of how it can be a positive experience and empowered you to ask for whatever you need to accommodate you.

Babywearing helped me settle bub on the move and not take up too much space on peak hour public transport