Demographic

Age: 23

Gender identity: Female

Race: Black

Indigenous: No

Class: Middle

Other identity (e.g. linguistic, religious): N/A

Education: In masters program at SFU (first year)

Language: English

Personal responsibilities: None

Location: Relationship to Lower Mainland (from here, were from here, from elsewhere). Living in Vancouver

Widgets: Tools & Platforms

• Transcription – From The Page, Scribe (2.0), Scripto
• Collaborative Annotation – Annotator, Annotorius, Textus
• Crowdsourcing – PyBosa, Hive, Text Thresher
• Curation – Ponga, HistoryPin
• Flagging Harmful Language – Description-Audit

Brief Biography

Jamie is a first year Contemporary Arts graduate student, active in SOCA and social justice causes. They are very passionate about local Black history, especially in the areas of the arts, labour movement and social activism and seek to use their developed research skills to uncover new stories and documentation in the Archives. Jamie is very good with technology and would like to use web tools and social media to share the content they discover in new ways and to make it very accessible, especially amongst other Black students. They are interested in making connections in the community to help ensure that more holdings documenting the activities of the local Black community can be preserved and made accessible.

Character description

Jamie loves to share their findings with others. They don’t get frustrated easily and will communicate challenges to archival staff. They have very good research skills and are independent and curious in their work.

Interest in archives & Life experience

Why interested in archives:  Jamie is very interested in Black history in British Columbia, specifically the Vancouver area, and they are using archives for a personal research project to uncover and amplify Black history. They have participated in a number of social justice campaigns relating to racism and women’s rights.

Community affiliations: Active in the Students of Caribbean and African Ancestry group

Represented in archives: No

Professional affiliations: None

Access needs and mobility: None

Motivations

Why: Jamie is passionate about uncovering local Black history and making it as accessible and known as possible. They want to feel connected to the past and to help others to feel the same way. They want individuals from the past to receive recognition.

Frustrations

Barriers: Material has not been catalogued in such a way as to indicate when members of the Black community are documented. Records seem to have rarely been acquired from the community in the past so relevant records are limited and scattered throughout many fonds and collections.

Info and Tech Access & Experience

Hardware: PC computer, Android phone

Software: MSOffice, Adobe, runs a couple of Instagram accounts and has a WordPress blog

Network connectivity: Has good connectivity on campus and at home

Experience with archival tools: Limited

Experience with archival frameworks: No

Comfort with learning technology: Very comfortable

Goals

What do they want to do: They are looking to uncover stories of members of the Black community who participated in local labour, social and art movements and to make these stories available online and through social media

What relationship do they want to the archives: They would like guidance for where to look, but the freedom to browse through holdings in detail and discover material of interest