We are delighted to present this new group of archivists and records managers who will be collaborating this year on projects related to community engagement, advocacy and technical education. Want to meet them?
Read below and find out more about details about their professional experience, academic background and scholarly work.
Rebecca Adams, United Kingdom
Rebecca Adams is the Project Archivist responsible for the Africa Centre Collection at the London Metropolitan Archives in London, the United Kingdom. She completed an undergraduate degree in English Literature and History at the University of Goldsmiths, London in 2016 and went on to complete her Master in Archives and Records Management at University College London in 2018. Previously, Rebecca had, sorted, catalogued, and appraised the personal papers of Mollie Hunte (1932-2015), a London-based educational psychologist, educator, and activist from Guyana and (records also held at London Metropolitan Archives) as part of a project funded by the Wellcome Collection.
Rebecca’s key interests stem from her African-Caribbean background which include decolonising archives, community archives, archival representation, access, and the work of black archivists in the UK. She has presented at a variety of history conferences on subjects of decolonising archives, providing more representative archival histories in the UK and anti-racist practices in archives. She has also mentored black British students who are interested in moving into heritage work. Rebecca is due to be published in an edited anthology entitled ‘New Histories of African and Caribbean People in Britain’ ed. By Hakim Adi which is to be released in 2023.
Randolphe Hildebert Aglikpo, France (from Benin)
Randolphe Hildebert Aglikpo is a student in Master 2 Digital Information Engineering at the Jean Jaurès University in Toulouse, France. He also holds a degree in science and techniques of documentary information with an archival minor obtained at the National School of Administration (ENA) of Benin. After his degree, he worked as an archivist in various private institutions, including Atlantique Assurances Benin Vie, PADME Benin, Ark’Aiv, Cabinet Archives Africa.
Randolphe is heavily involved in local professional associations, serving as volunteer communications officer for the Association of Archivists, Librarians and Documentalists of Benin and holding the same position with the West African Branch of the International Council on Archives (WARBICA). He also serves on the board of Archivists Leaders, an African NGO that works to promote the value of African archives and archivists.
He also works through the blog ArchivInfos for the valorization and promotion of the archives profession on social networks, especially with a view to their desacralization and popularization among the general public.
Randolphe is interested in digital archives, open data, open source, Big Data, records management, AI applied to archives management, activism, digital communication, valorization, empowerment and leadership of African archivists. He believes that the development of Africa cannot be done without good management and valorization of its information heritage. And this is even more important in this era of digital transformation and artificial intelligence where data and the issues they raise are in the spotlight, requiring quick decisions considering various parameters.
Lars Smaaberg, Norway
Lars F. Smaaberg is an archivist at the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History. His primary responsibilities are following up on, creating and coordinating cultural heritage projects on documentation, collaborating with different archival and research institutions in Norway and abroad.
Among these, he develops the archival research institute Norwegian Ethnological Research’s participation in the broader digital infrastructure project, Samla. He is also coordinating the international research project Archives Community Building, which aims to investigate the cultural historical and traditional archives’ digital presence from a volunteer point of view.
Previously, Lars worked as an advisor and archivist at the Intermunicipal Archive of Hordaland and the Bergen City Archive. At the former, he was responsible for following up on the record management in several municipalities in advising and assisting the archives in all matters of questions related to the Norwegian Archives Act. He also trained new employees and oversaw the archives volunteer program. Lars holds a Middle Eastern history sciences postgraduate degree from the University of Bergen.
Lars’ main interests in the archive sector are to improve its democratic value by increasing and enhancing the archive’s availability and presence online for all users, to create attractive environments for volunteers to interact with archives, and to follow the development of new technologies that impact the sector.
Dinza Tang-Irmi, Chad
Head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Archives Unit in Chad since January 2018, he oversees the organization’s digital and analog archives. He is the guarantor in the Chad office of the archival standards, rules and procedures put in place by headquarters. Since 2020, with his team, he manages the migration, classification and assignment of metadata to documents in the libraries of the collaboration sites of the sections/units throughout the organization. He is very involved in the ECM (Enterprise Content Management) project, based on Microsoft SharePoint technologies. Dinza is also the editor of the quarterly newsletter “Echos de Sabangali” which highlights the activities of the unit and shares good archival practices, and it is responsible for the partnership between UNICEF and the Réseau des Jeunes des Maisons du Quartier (RJMQ) for the delivery of paper shreds used for making art objects.
Dinza is an archivist specialist and a computer engineer by training since 2011 where he was a computer expert in biometric control at the Hassan Djamous International Airport in N’Djamena for the company Securiport from 2013 to 2014. He taught algorithmic, optimization, computer network and operating system at EMI Koussi University in N’Djamena from 2014 to 2017. From 2011 to 2013, he was the IT manager at the accounting firm Osmose Consulting International in Libreville, Gabon.
The issues of obsolescence (file, software and hardware) and the question of volumetric growth, macro/micro evaluation of archives are among others his favorite area of research. He is the author of an article titled Archival Science in the Digital Age: Redefining and Recomposing a Disciplinary Field. In 2018, he communicated on the perpetuation of digital records at the STIA in Paris.
Saman Quraishi, India
Saman is an Architectural Historian by education. She is currently associated with CEPT Archives, one of the first architectural archives in India set up by CEPT University in Ahmedabad, India as an Assistant Archivist. She is exploring ways in which architectural archives shape themselves and become entry points for negotiating architectural histories. Her interest and focus lie in organizing and curating collections, and their descriptions to enhance discoverability, accessibility, and inclusivity.
Saman earned her Master of Architecture in History Theory Criticism from CEPT University. She has also contributed to the book titled People Called Mumbai while working with the People Place Project based in Mumbai. Her interest in curatorial practice translated into her professional undertaking with LEAF – India. Saman’s professional undertakings and other endeavors are situated at the confluence of archival research practice. She believes in the creative, integrative, and transversal use of archives.
Gaëlle Stephan, Lebanon
Gaëlle Stephan is an Architect and a Heritage Professional. She studied architecture at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Lebanon, and pursued her second master’s degree in World Heritage Studies at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany. Believing firmly that a deeper look into society will provide us with a better understanding of heritage, she has employed her academic background to examine the unusual connections between cultural heritage and other disciplines.
Gaëlle’s engagement with several local and international cultural bodies and institutions, such as UNESCO, ICOMOS, and BACA, coupled with her role as a European Heritage Youth Ambassador, allowed her to facilitate and establish several cultural relations between different stakeholders in the field. Also, she was involved in multilingual content creation and curation for academic purposes and social media material targeted at niche audiences.
With the rising wave of calamities and administrative negligence threatening the evidence of humanity’s intellectual existence, Gaëlle believes that it is important to safeguard and transmit our common heritage in good shape to future generations. That is why she senses a moral obligation that guides her career in the field of archiving and record management to be able to identify, protect, and promote the cultural legacies that constitute an outstanding value to humanity.
In her spare time, Gaëlle is involved in international organizations that actively engage with the digital transformation of cultural heritage (Europeana), the protection of cultural heritage from threats (Blue Shield), and the establishment of professional standards for museum activities (ICOM) among many others.