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Memory Rising: July 2023
In this month’s edition:
- *A Green New Deal for Archives*
- Let’s Work Together!
- This Month’s Recommendations
It's been a whirlwind few months since I [decided to work full-time](https://eiratansey.com/2023/04/11/a-career-change-for-climate-change/) on Memory Rising. Making the adjustment from working in academic libraries for 15 years to self-employment has been an incredible and intense leap. I’m fortunate to be very busy with client work, and I’m enjoying my time at the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators in my hometown of Cincinnati this week. I’ll be at Society of American Archivists next week. If you’re around [please reach out](mailto:[email protected])! -Eira
# *A Green New Deal for Archives*
I’m thrilled to announce that my new publication, *A Green New Deal for Archives*, is out from the Council on Library and Information Resources. Archivists steward records that underpin countless aspects of our legal, civic, and cultural life. Archives are a foundational infrastructure for a democratic society and are a public good, but the future of archives is profoundly threatened by climate change and a destabilized workforce. I review the historical precedent for major public support for archival work and sketch out a public policy blueprint for archives to ensure their future viability.
This publication argues that to ensure their continuity and survival, archives need significant public investment. I have been fascinated by the historical legacy of the 1930s New Deal for a long time, and this publication gave me the opportunity to combine that historical interest with my previous research on how climate change will impact archives, in addition to my longstanding interests in the labor movement and workers' rights.
If you are part of a class or reading group, I’d be happy to join you for a Q&A!
# Let’s Work Together!
Memory Rising offers consulting, research, and archival services to cultural heritage, labor, and environmental organizations. Here are some examples of projects I’d love to help you with:
**An archive in the Great Lakes region interested in documenting local environmental issues…** Memory Rising can help you research local ecosystems and watersheds, identify relevant activist organizations and policymakers, build relationships with environmental community members, and appraise potential archival collections.
**A union with a major anniversary coming up next year…** Memory Rising can help you write a new history and create an online digital commemorative exhibit of your union’s origin story, collective bargaining victories, and legacy of worker advocacy.
**A professional association that needs to offer a workshop for next year’s conference…** Memory Rising offers customizable workshops on climate change issues for cultural heritage professionals. Recent workshop clients have included the [Digital Preservation Outreach & Education Network](https://www.dpoe.network/past-workshops/) and [LA as Subject](https://laassubject.org/).
# This Month’s Recommendations
[**The Ministry for the Future**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future) (book) - Kim Stanley Robinson’s most recent [cli-fi novel](https://www.vox.com/2020/11/30/21726563/kim-stanley-robinson-the-ezra-klein-show-climate-change) weaves together the stories of several major and minor characters experiencing heat waves, drought, extractive colonialism, and international climate change policy making. Much like KSR’s previous novel New York 2140 (one of my favorite reads of 2022) the story ends on a cautiously hopeful - and musical - note.
[**The Wild West of Climate Modeling**](https://www.americaadapts.org/episodes/2023/6/5/the-wild-wild-west-of-climate-modeling) (podcast episode) - I recently learned about climate change data analytics firms while attending Columbia University’s [Managed Retreat conference](https://adaptation.ei.columbia.edu/managed-retreat-2023). Although these firms have quite a bit of variation, most of them combine public and private data sources and attempt to quantify long-term risk and predicted increase in value for specific locations. The finance and insurance industries are [quite literally making immense investments](https://www.axios.com/2022/01/07/wall-street-buys-climate-modeling-firms-data) in these firms to guide their decision making. Yet because they are wildly unregulated, there is potential for these tools to exacerbate issues like climate gentrification. This podcast episode was an incredibly clear explanation of the importance and implications of these new data firms.
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