About Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC)
Leadership
The officers of the conference shall be Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer. The Steering Committee shall consist of the officers, one (1) State Representative from each state represented by the Conference and the District of Columbia and four (4) Members-at-Large. Conference officers and Members-at-Large shall be elected at large, while individual State Representatives shall be elected only by the members of the respective state and district caucuses. Steering Committee members shall serve for two (2) year terms, except those elected to fill one-year vacancies.
Browse a list of previous MARAC officers, administrators, MAA editors, archivists, members-at-large, and state caucus representatives from 1972-present.
MARAC Administration
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Steering Committee Officers:
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Danna Bell-Russel -- Chair
Educational Outreach Specialist
Library of Congress
TEL: 202/707-4159
FAX: 202/707-3735
dbell@loc.gov
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Mary K. Mannix -- Vice Chair
Maryland Room Manager
C. Burr Artz Public Library
Frederick County Public Libraries
Frederick, MD 21701
TEL: 301/600-1368
FAX: 301/600-2905
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Sharmila Bhatia -- Secretary
Archivist
National Archives & Records Administration
8601 Adelphi Road
College Park, MD 20740
TEL: 301/837-1519
FAX: 301/837-3681
sharmila.bhatia@nara.gov
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Jim Gerencser -- Treasurer
604 Devonshire Drive
Carlisle, PA 17013
TEL: 717/245-1094
FAX: 717/245-1439
gerencse@dickinson.edu
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Caucus Representatives (2008-2010)
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Delaware
Randy Goss
Delaware States Archives
121 Duke of York Street
Dover, DE 19901
TEL: 302/744-5002
FAX: 302/739-6710
randy.goss@state.de.us
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District of Columbia
Alison L. Oswald
Archivist, Smithsonian Institution
P.O. Box 37012
National Museum of American History
Archives Center, Room 1100, MRC 601
Washington, DC 20013-7012
TEL: 202/633-3726
FAX: 202/633-2453
oswalda@si.edu
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Maryland
Rob Jenson
Archivist
Montgomery County Historical Society
29 Courthouse Square
Rockville, MD 20850
TEL: 301/340-2974
ferthalangur@gmail.com
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New Jersey
Dale Patterson
United Methodist Church Archives – GCAH
P.O. Box 127
36 Madison Avenue
Madison, NJ 07940
TEL: 973/408-3195
FAX: 973/408-3909
dpatterson@gcah.org
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New York
C. Raymond LaFever
Coordinator, Archival Advisory Services
New York State Archives
9C33, CEC
Albany, NY 12230
TEL: 518/473-8165
rlafever@mail.nysed.gov
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Pennsylvania
Linda A. Ries
Head, History and Archival Programs
Bureau of Archives and History
350 North Street
Harrisburg, PA 17120-0090
TEL: 717/787-3023
FAX: 717/787-4822
lries@state.pa.us
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Virginia
Catherine G. O'Brion
Local Records Archivist
The Library of Virginia
800 East Broad Street
Richmond, VA 23219-8000
TEL: 804/692-3888 (general number)
catherine.obrion@lva.virginia.gov
VA caucus listserv
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West Virginia
Nat DeBruin
Archivist
Marshall University Libraries
Huntington, WV 25755
TEL: 304/696-3524
debruin@marshall.edu
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Members-at-Large (2009-2011)
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Jennie A. Levine
Archives & Manuscripts Department
Hornbake Library
College Park, MD 20742
TEL: 301/314-2712
FAX: 301/314-2709
levjen@umd.edu
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Dan Linke
University Archivist and Curator of Public Policy Papers
Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library
Princeton University
65 Olden Street
Princeton, NJ 08540
TEL: 609/258-6345
FAX: 609/258-3385
dlinke@Princeton.EDU
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Valerie A. Metzler
TEL:
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Charlotte Sturm
Archivist
Rockefeller Archive Center
15 Dayton Avenue
Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591
TEL: 914/366-6321
FAX: 914/631-6017
csturm@rockarch.org
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History of MARAC
On June 23, 1972, a meeting organized by Mary Boccaccio, Frank Evans, and Elsie Freivogel was held in the Katherine Anne Porter Room of McKeldin Library at the College Park campus of the University of Maryland. It attracted thirty-three archivists; the agenda as the possible formation of what eventually became MARAC -- the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference. By the end of calendar year 1972 this fledgling organization had held its first semi-annual meeting in Wilmington, Delaware, attracting one hundred and fifty archivists and manuscript curators who paid a modest registration fee of $6.00. Also during 1972 MARAC published the first issue of the Mid-Atlantic Archivist (MAA) and enjoyed a healthy first-year budget of nearly two thousand dollars. Within three years the Conference had held six meetings in five different states throughout the mid-Atlantic region -- from Newark, New Jersey to Charlottesville, Virginia.
What were the factors that led to the successful development of this regional organization? By all accounts it was at least partially the result of a perception held by many that the Society of American Archivists was not adequately addressing the needs of less-experienced professionals, staff from small repositories, and archival issues below the national level. Certainly the opportunity to discuss regional archival developments and to meet local colleagues proved attractive. MARAC's beginnings paralleled archival developments in other areas of the United States during the early 1970s: six regional organizations, including the New England Archivists, the Midwest Archives Conference, the Northwest Archivists, and the Society of Southwest Archivists were also formed in 1972. MARAC demonstrated its desire to develop programs and services on its own, rejecting any official affiliation with the SAA and returning a $100.00 "seed money" stipend that had been contributed by the SAA to MARAC. It sought to attract members from the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
The initial purposes of the group were to plan practical action-oriented conferences and workshops and to seek additional means of increasing professional competence, preserving local historical resources, and promoting cooperation with colleagues in related fields. Semi-annual meetings have continued to be a major focus of MARAC's activities from 1972 to the present. These meetings have offered a wide range of workshops and tours designed to appeal to a broad cross-section of the membership-from beginning archivists to experienced professionals and staff from both small and large repositories. To an increasing degree sessions at the meetings are designed to relate to an overall theme. Two thematic meetings resulted in the publication of two archival symposia papers, Constitutional Issues and Archives and Automation in Archives.
MARAC members have developed a vigorous publications program. Publishing of the Mid-Atlantic Archivist (MAA) has become a quarterly event with issues having grown from four pages in 1972 to twenty to thirty-two. Technical leaflets providing guidance on processing issues and administrative decisions have been published, first as inserts in MAA and later as separate issues. Membership directories have been regularly compiled and several occasional papers have been issued, including Paul Mucci's Paper and Leather Conservation: A Manual, Guidelines for Archives and Manuscript Repositories, and Charlene Bickford's The Coalition to Save Our Documentary Heritage.
Adapted and condensed from MARAC history written by Lauren Brown and Anne Turkos, November 1987, published in Mid-Atlantic Archivist.
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