Community Archives, Sustainability, and Planning

Kara Craig

LIS 707: Leadership, Marketing, and Strategic Communication

Dr. Crowley

March 18, 2020

 Community archives are unique institutions that exist at the intersection of documenting

history, serving marginalized communities, and typically functioning independently from larger

and more established institutions. Sometimes. they are born out of a specific organization and

other times they may be more of a grassroots effort, being formed in response to a cultural

happening or a lack of recognition from other institutions. Archivist and researcher Andrew Flinn

defines community archives as “the grassroots activities of documenting, recording and

exploring community heritage in which community participation, control and ownership of the

project is essential” (Flinn, 2007). Flinn et. al also emphasize that community archives don’t

necessarily have to exist in the traditional sense of what we understand an archive to be. They

state that “as well as community archives you might find independent archives and libraries,

autonomous archives, oral history projects, local heritage groups, community museums,

community resource and archive centres” (Flinn, Stevens, and Shepherd, 2009). Some of the

nomenclature shifts between “independent archives” and “community archives” and that

variance extends to the form of the archive itself, that “further variety is to be found in the form

that these archives take, whether operating largely in the physical world or the virtual world as

well as in the types of archives collected”, that many community archives collect materials “that

do not conform to traditional notions of what is a record or an archive” (Flinn & Stevens, 2008).

The biggest aspect is that these kinds of archives aren’t static institutions only meant for

processing ephemera - they are dynamic spaces meant to serve and be of a community. Due to

the non-traditional nature of some community archives, we can assume that they’ll be more

susceptible to challenges impacting their success. Unfortunately, many community archives do

face challenges, from organizational structure to funding. Though, from her research, Sonia
Yaco, archivist and researcher, notes that strategies for sustaining community archives are

severely lacking in the UK and US (Yaco 2015). Developing a plan, be it marketing,

sustainability, or strategic, could effectively help community archives to address these

challenges and be sustainable. Marketing is pertinent to sustaining a library, archive, or any kind

of information institution. In this paper, I will highlight a few community archives, their challenges

in sustainability, and how some have tackled these issues.

For many information institutions, sustainability relies on many factors. And many of

them, from libraries to archives, have faced the challenge of making communities aware of the

services and resources that these spaces provide. Smaller and independent institutions are

probably all too familiar with this challenge. A budget, organizational structure, programs, etc. all

impact an institution’s ability to engage in marketing and sustain itself. In her research on

community archives, Joanna Newman outlined factors that largely seem to impact the

sustainability of community archives (Newman, 2012). Those 11 factors are:

● Governance​ - “defined legal status and authority”, a clear/outlined mission and goals
● Funding​ - “dependable”, “sustained/continuing”, “Regular budget lines for archives”
● Skilled Staff ​- sufficient number of staff to perform work; at least one qualified/educated
archives professional
● Collaboration​ - coordinates and cooperates with other similar archives and repositories
“to ensure systematic documentation of community’s history”
● Dynamism​ - “committed to growth in terms of collections and users” and “Commitment
to changing, incl. adopting new practices, technologies”
● Preservation ​- appropriate storage, work, and research facilities and “basic
conservation needs met”
● Archival practices ​- “Archives selection guided by a clear documentation objective,
collection policy and appraisal methodology”
● Community Engagement ​- “offers varied outreach activities” and “Community takes
active interest in, provides support for, programs”
● Collections
● Archivist
● External Support
Per Newman, if the above factors are present, the archive is more likely to be sustainable than if

these are absent.

When looking at some community archives, we can see how these factors manifest.

LLACE (The Lavender Library, Archives, and Cultural Exchange of Sacramento), for example, is

a “community center serving the Sacramento area through its archival collections, circulating

library of books and videos, and public programming [that] not only documents the rich cultural

heritage of queer communities throughout the Sacramento area, it also provides meeting rooms

for multiple groups” (Wakimoto, Hansen, and Bruce, 2013). As noted above, funding,

collaboration, and community engagement largely impact the sustainability of community

archives. Many community archives rely on “funding [that] comes through donations, grants,

other nonprofit organizations, and noncommunity archives partnerships” (Wakimoto, Hansen,

and Bruce, 2013). LLACE has an all volunteer board and, per their archivist, does not have a

real budget and heavily relies on donations. As a result (or because of), they do not have formal

marketing and outreach, which also heavily impacts possibilities to gain funding. Sometimes, it

is not as simple as applying for grants. Many community archives need community support to

show it is deserving of funding (Kavin, 2019). Because of this, in a kind of cycle, community

archives face many challenges when working to market and establish itself

Like LLACE, the Shorefront Legacy Center is an archive that serves the community

outside of preservation of materials. From documentary production to community activism, the

Shorefront Legacy Center operates as an organization meant to serve the Black community in

Evanston and the North Shore. And, like LLACE, the sustainability factors identified by Newman

often coalesce into a variety of challenges. In the case of Shorefront one of those being the risk

of losing their identity when partnering with more established institutions. Dino Robinson,

founder of the Shorefront Legacy Center, speaks about this in the case of a local community
archive. When working with larger institutions, these community archives risk losing control of

their archives and materials and what they stand for at the somewhat behest of a larger

institution. The collections become less accessible for the community that is meant to be served

by the archive and more for the benefit of the larger institution (Dugyala, 2018). Though

community archives may greatly benefit financially and publicity-wise from the attachment to a

larger or established institution, they could also lose their autonomy. In her thesis on community

archives, Claire Du Laney clearly states this. That with community archives “[sustainability]

means more than survival of the materials, but survival of an identity and a legacy of

misrepresentation, systemic brutality, and neglect” (Du Laney, 2019). Maintaining identity is

pertinent to the survival of community archives as it allows them to be mindful of their goals and

maintain their purpose. Despite this, Robinson acknowledges that Shorefront is mindful of long

term planning and cementing itself as a space for programming and community (Kavin, 2019).

LLACE, at the time, acknowledged working on a five-year plan, as well as more partnerships

and outreach programs (such as their partnership with oral history projects in California).

In the case of these two archives, we see how varied/inconsistent funding, lack of

strategic planning, and unequal collaboration can impact a community archive. In recognizing

these factors that are pertinent to the success and sustaining of community archives, it is clear

that having a form of a strategic plan could successfully address all of the areas impacting

sustainability. In identifying and discussing these challenges that are especially impactful on

community archives, employing the methods discussed by Jeannie Allen in her chapter

“Building a foundation for Marketing Success” would be beneficial for community archives. Allen

provides a detailed breakdown on how to market one’s library, starting with recognizing the

organization’s mission, gaining an overview of its brand and stakeholders, delegating tasks and

marketing, and developing a budget (of which could be used as a tool to gain funding for the
organization and marketing efforts) (Allen, 2015). Unfortunately, many of the institutions and

spaces that would most benefit from this may not readily have the resources available to best

tackle this kind of marketing plan, whether it be publicity and marketing teams or budget and

accounting experts. Despite this, there is still a helpful foundation provided for all information

institutions. In another chapter, we do see how a smaller public library tackles similar issues in

marketing itself with limited resources. In developing publicity and promotion measures for the

Mid-Continent Public Library in Kansas City, Heather Nicholson outlined the various ways she

approached crafting and promoting her library while on a budget. Using more affordable

resources (such as graphic design students) and taking on many hats and roles is usually what

smaller institutions have to do to successfully implement marketing and strategic plans

(Nicholson, 2015). In this case, a traditional marketing plan can still be useful while taking into

account the capacity for different kinds of institutions and organizations.

If we do acknowledge that a traditional marketing plan can be crafted to serve smaller

institutions and community archives, they should specifically be molded to fit the needs of the

archive and to address those factors impacting sustainability. In the case of the Desegregation

of Virginia Education archives/initiatives, Sonia Yaco discusses how they best employed a

“user-centered model” for the community archives. This could best be described as focusing on

those who would benefit from the service of the archive and figuring out their specific

information needs. An organization called DOVE (Desegregation of Virginia Education) was

formed by archivists at Old Dominion University to “find, catalog, and encourage preservation of

material related to the integration of schools, public, private, K-12, and post-secondary, in

Virginia from the late 1940s to the mid-1980” (Yaco, 2015). Yaco emphasized that DOVE, as a

community archive, had to strategize new techniques to meet their goals.. Their plan consisted

of the following steps: identifying stakeholders’ information needs and interests, gathering or
creating content, providing an archive, and marketing the content (Yaco 2015). Their

user-centered model not only effectively addressed the steps to establish and promote a

community archive, it also responds to Newman’s outline factors in sustaining an archive. In

developing this model, Yaco and other organizers sought to address a largely undocumented

history related to underserved and marginalized populations.

With identifying stakeholders, the DOVE archive organizers actively asked public

officials, educators, researchers, community groups, former students, and others what their

specific information needs were. Because of the diversity of stakeholders, there was a variety of

information needs to address, from simply wanting to find primary resources and collecting oral

histories related to school desegregation to how it could best be a part of the community. After

identifying stakeholders and determining their expectations, the next step that Yaco outlines in

creating a community archive was to “locate existing content and/or create new content”. In

locating and creating content, different geographical regions surveyed their respective area

repositories to determine resources related to school desegregation in Virginia. Much of this

relied on collaboration and using the professional and volunteer community as a resource in this

process.

Once it’s been determined which repositories hold materials related to school

desegregation, the results of the surveys (materials held, repository information) were compiled

into an archival catalog. The project then entered its final step: marketing the content to

end-users. The project was actively promoted to the same users and stakeholders identified in

the first step, where the catalog archive was shared via “traditional academic channels” such as

conferences, listservs, academic publications as well as community groups and educators. This

led to a collaborative event with the DOVE archive and the AARP to foster community

discussions and gather oral histories and materials which could then be added to the archive.
This effort clearly helped to grow the collection of the archive and actively benefitted the DOVE

archive through collaborative, community level, involvement.

We can see that the steps outlined by Yaco to develop and market a community archive

were successful and, if we look at other community archives, can assume that when developing

a marketing plan, it is important to be aware of the kind of institution that you are and those for

which you are hoping to do the work for. Though many community and independent archives

may struggle with funding, a strategic plan is something that can very much impact the

sustainability of these spaces. It can help to gather materials, effectively market, and lead to

collaborations where the archive doesn’t necessarily have to sacrifice its mission. Actively

employing the factors for a sustainable archive and incorporating them into a strategic or

marketing plan can help to maintain a community archive in being both sustainable in its

practice and purpose.

 References

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Wood (Eds.), Creative Library Marketing and Publicity: Best Practices. Rowman &

Littlefield. Kindle Edition.

Dugyala, R. (2018, November 8). ​Evanston Organizes: Evanston’s black community lacked

recognition for decades. Shorefront Legacy Center aims to give it to them​. The Daily

Northwestern.

https://dailynorthwestern.com/2018/11/08/city/shorefront-legacy-center-works-to-p

reserve-north-shores-black-history/

Du Laney, C. (2019). ​Lifecycle, Affect, and Healing: Examining Sustainability in Community

Archives and Cultural Heritage Projects ​[Unpublished master’s thesis]. University of

North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Flinn, A. (2007). Community histories, community archives: some opportunities and challenges.

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 https://www.dearevanston.org/single-post/2019/03/22/In-Conversation-with-Dino-R

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