Meet the 2019 Executive Board Candidates: Sue Tyson, Treasurer

The VRA annual election of officers will take place November 1-30, 2019.  Members will receive an email on November 1 with instructions for accessing the ballot.  Please vote and show your support to the candidates and participate in the governance of the Association.

About the Candidate

Sue Tyson is an archivist at the California State Archives, where she develops physical and digital exhibits; conducts outreach to a wide range of constituencies; staffs the reference desk; and creates metadata for digital collections. She also serves as assistant administrator of the Western Archives Institute, a two-week archival education program. Previously, she has worked as a project archivist at the Huntington Library, the Getty Research Institute, UCLA, and the University of Southern California; as a metadata consultant and project cataloger for the California State University Japanese American Digitization Project (CSUJADP), a multi-campus digital collection initiative; and as a Mellon Postdoctoral Digital Scholarship Fellow at Occidental College. Before beginning her archival career, she was a librarian at USC. She holds Post-MLIS certificates in Archival Studies (UCLA) and Digital Information Management (University of Arizona) and an MLIS degree from San Jose State University. She also earned Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in German Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an M.A. in English from California State University-Sacramento.

Sue is a member of multiple professional organizations including the Visual Resources Association; Society of American Archivists; Society of California Archivists; Association of Moving Image Archivists; Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP); American Library Association; Association of College and Research Libraries; Organization of American Historians; and American Studies Association. She has served as a member of the VRA’s Identity Task Force (2018-2019) and of its Education Committee (2016-2018), and is currently a member of the Society of California Archivists’ Nominating Committee (2018-2020) and of its Labor Task Force (2019-2021). Recently, she also served as the California liaison to the Society of American Archivists’ Visual Materials Section (2013-2019).

Her interests include visual resources as critical parts of the cultural record; digital collections building and management; metadata and issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion; organizing public programming and events; and pedagogical uses of digital and archival/special collections resources. She has given numerous presentations at conferences, including one at CAVRACon in Santa Barbara on the CSU Japanese American Digitization Project (2015). She has also chaired, moderated, or served as a presenter on panels at conferences including the Society of American Archivists; Society of California Archivists (general and regional annual meetings); and L.A. as Subject’s Annual Archives Bazaars. Publications include “Building a Statewide Archival Collaborative: The California State University Japanese American Digitization Project,” co-written with Maureen Burns and Gregory Williams (Visual Resources Association Bulletin, Vol. 42, Issue 1, 2015), and three articles for the SAA Visual Materials Section’s Views newsletter: “The Landscape Design Worlds of Florence Yoch and Lucile Council” (with Erin Chase, May 2018); “Practices of Looking: Occidental College’s Visualization and Visual Materials Faculty Learning Community” (November 2013); and “Visual Materials Prominent at Organization of American Historians’ Annual Meeting” (July 2013).

Goals

I am running for the office of Treasurer of the Visual Resources Association not only because I seek to help shape the VRA’s budget and apply my efforts to ensuring its financial health, but also because I would like to have the opportunity to work with colleagues on the board to guide the VRA’s future directions and initiatives to serve current and potential new members. In addition an expansive curiosity, conscientiousness, and ability to grasp new concepts quickly, a major strength that I would bring to this position is that of perspective: As an archivist who has worked a great deal, though not exclusively, with visual assets, I can well understand the needs of people who seek education and support from – and desire networking possibilities with – visual resources professionals, but whose primary field is not one of those traditionally associated with the VRA, such as Visual Resources or Art Librarian.

There are so many of us out there who need the VRA, whether they know it or not: archivists and librarians not just from academia and the arts and humanities, but also from the governmental, nonprofit, and corporate sectors; from the sciences; and more. However, I know that scant time and lack of professional support to attend conferences means that people often must make choices, such as attending only ones in their primary field (in my case, the Society of American Archivists’ and the Society of California Archivists’ annual meetings). Given these factors, as well as broader realities of increasing job insecurity – not least because of the growing trends towards contract- and project-based labor, a phenomenon that is prevalent in many fields – I understand that the VRA is likely to face challenges in maintaining its financial health, since much depends on revenues from memberships and conferences.

That said, my own need to learn as much as I could about visual assets, and my desire to get to know people who work with them, led me to the VRA, which I joined in 2014 because I was impressed with its potential to provide access to the wide range of educational opportunities I needed to do my job well. I have learned and benefited so much in my years of membership in several ways: by taking part in discussions while serving on VRA committees and task forces including the Identity Task Force and Education Committee; by having the opportunity to attend the VRA’s regional conferences and meetings (CAVRACon and Southern California Chapter meetings); and by consulting VRA’s website and listserv for all sorts of information needs.

I would be eager as Treasurer to work with my board colleagues both to maintain the high quality educational and networking offerings the VRA currently has and to work on ways for the VRA to continue opening the door to new members from a wide range of disciplines. I would strive to work for a VRA that is inclusive; that embraces and has something to offer to emerging as well as seasoned professionals; that offers educational opportunities that can meet people where they are – either regionally, in chapters, or online – in addition to providing for the excitement and benefits of annual conferences; and that welcomes fresh ideas, questions, and contributions from visual resources practitioners in all fields. For these reasons, I think I would make an effective and responsive Treasurer and VRA board colleague.