Behind The Scenes at my Talk at the UK National Archives

I gave a talk at the National Archives in late January for the official book launch of Archives and Emotions: International Dialogues Across Past, Present, and Future. The book is about emotional dynamics, emotions, and emotional effects on archivists, researchers, and the construction of archives.

My long-time collaborator Kristen Nyitray and I wrote a chapter on the unspoken expected emotional labor of archivists in the United States and the way archival laborers adopt personas (masked behaviors basically) to cope at work. Prior to this publication, Kristen and I usually wrote for more data science specific publishers - IFLA, ALA, SAA, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly - and this was our first history field publication!

I had such a great experience with this talk, book, and the book editors. The book editors - Illaria Scaglia and Valeria Vanesio - made the event feel like this publication was something to be proud of. I don’t see a lot of cultural heritage professionals diving into interdisciplinary research in the way that I do. I highly recommend working on white papers, research, or other forms of publications (blog posts, ads, etc) with peers outside your own workplace, country, and field.