Demographic

Age: 25
Gender identity: Female     
Race: Caucasian
Indigenous: No
Class: Middle
Other identity (e.g. linguistic, religious): n/a
Education: Undergraduate, Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies
Language: English
Personal responsibilities: Married with one child
Location: Relationship to Lower Mainland (from here, were from here, from elsewhere). Living in Surrey

Widgets: Tools & Platforms

• Transcription – From The Page, Scribe (2.0), Scripto
• Collaborative Annotation – Annotator, Annotorious, Textus
• Curation – Ponga, HistoryPin
• Flagging Harmful Language – Description-Audit 

Brief Biography

As a feminist and the Coordinator of a university Women’s Centre, Amanda would like to learn more about local women’s history and the history of the centre. She would like to highlight stories of the women who founded the centre and those who participated in local art, social, feminist and labour movements on the Women’s Centre website, in social media and in displays. Amanda has family and volunteer commitments in addition to her full time Monday to Friday job, so the time she has available for research is very minimal. She would prefer curated lists of material organized by person, subject or event.

Character description

Amanda doesn’t have a lot of time to visit archives in person for assistance, but she is appreciative of the help that she has received. She works Monday to Friday, 8:30 am to 4:30 pm so is unable to visit archival repositories during their hours of operation. Without a budget for hiring a researcher to locate material in various repositories and to go through material in person she fears she will not be able to realize her goals.

Interest in archives & Life experience

Why interested in archives: Amanda identifies as a feminist and she is committed to the struggle for women’s rights and centering Indigenous and racialized voices in her work*. She wants to uncover local women’s history, in particular the history of the feminist movement as documented in the archives.

Community affiliations: Amanda volunteers at the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre.

Represented in archives: Not Amanda specifically, but there are records relating to the creation of the Women’s Centre

Professional affiliations: Women’s Centre

Access needs and mobility: None

Motivations

Why: Amanda is motivated by her desire to learn about local women’s history and to share out the stories she finds with other women on campus and beyond. She is proud of the work the Women’s Centre has accomplished and she wants to generate more interest in and support for the centre by highlighting its history.

Frustrations

Barriers: Amanda is comfortable with different types of software but she finds it difficult to search for archival material using the online tools offered by most archives. She has a young child at home and a busy work schedule so she does not have a lot of time to spend on searching databases and going through files of material at archival repositories.

Info and Tech Access & Experience

Hardware: PC, iPhone

Software: Pro user of MS Office, Adobe. No experience with archival software

Network connectivity: Has good connectivity on campus and at home

Experience with archival tools: Limited

Experience with archival frameworks: None

Comfort with learning technology: Yes

Goals

What do they want to do: Amanda is looking to uncover stories of women in local labour, social and art movements (especially the feminist movement) as well as stories relating to the creation of the Women’s Centre. She is particularly interested in Indigenous and racialized voices. She plans to share some of these stories through the Women’s Centre website, social media and displays.

What relationship do they want to the archives: Amanda would like it to be very clear as to where she can find what she is looking for. She is short on time and does not want to do a lot of research – she prefers curated views of material based on subject matter, events or people. She would like to find a lot of material in a relatively short period of time and she views her research as having specific start and end dates.