Archiving human rights: A paradigm for collection development

Journal of Academic Librarianship

Volumn 22, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 87-96

  Montgomery, Bruce P ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0030446782     PISSN: 00991333     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0099-1333(96)90174-3     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. Claude Richard Pierre, Weston Burns H. Human Rights in the World Community: Issues and Action. 1992;2-3 University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. Also see.
2. Soroos Marvin S. Beyond State Sovereignty. 1987;University of South Carolina Press, Columbia.
3. Rubenstein Richard L. The Age of Triage: Fear and Hope in an Overcrowded World. 1983;Beacon Press, Boston.
4. Friedman John R., Sherman Marc I. Human Rights and Comparative Law Bibliography. 1985;Greenwood Press, London.
5. O'Connor Barry. International Human Rights: A Bibliography 1970-1975. 1980;Center for the Study of Human Rights, the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame.
6. Wiseberg Laurie S., Sirett Hazel. North American Human Rights Directory. 1984;Human Rights Internet, Washington, D.C.
7. Human Rights Directory: Latin America, Africa, Asia. 1981;Human Rights Internet, Washington, D.C.
8. Human Rights Directory: Western Europe. 1982;Human Rights Internet, Washington, These directories are available from Human Rights Internet, c/o Human Rights Centre, University of Ottawa, 57 Louis Pasteur, Ottawa, Ontario, KIN 6N5 Canada.
9. The records of the Amrican section of WILPF are located at the Swarthmore College Peace Collection. In addition, the papers of co-founder, Jane Addams may be found at the Chicago Circle Campus of the University of Illinois. The International collection was assembled at the organization's international headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and was received by the Archives at the University of Colorado at Boulder in two major accessions in 1970 and 1981. Additional accessions were received in 1992 and 1993. The international collection dates from the inception of the organization at the Hague in 1915 through the 1980s.
10. Some of the few collections concerning human rights nongovernmental organizations and individual activists comprise the following: the Ginetta Sagan papers at Stanford; the Ivan Moris papers at the University of Minnesota; the records of the American Association of Ethiopian Jews at the American Jewish Historical Society in Waltham, Massachussettes; the records of the International League for Human Rights at the New York Public Library, and the ACLU records at princeton. In addition, some of the Jewish and Catholic agencies maintain their own archives.
11. See Livezey Lowell W. Human Rights and the NGOs. The Center Magazine. XVII:May/June 1984;30.
12. Livezey Lowell W. Nongovernmental Organizations and the Ideas of Human Rights. 1988;19 The Center of International Studies, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.
13. Wiseberg, Sirett. North American Human Rights Directory. 1984.
14. Human Rights Directory: Latin America, Africa, Asia. 1981.
15. Human Rights Directory: Western Europe. 1982;. Also see Livezey, Nongovernmental Organizations and the Ideas of Human Rights, p. 20.
16. Warbrick Colin. . [book review of Nongovernmental Organizations and Idas of Human Rights] International Affairs. 65:Summer 1989;536-537.
17. Scoble Harry M., Wiseberg Laurie S. The Importance and Functions of Human Rights Organizations. Human Rights Internet Project. 1980;Human Rights Internet, Cambridge, MA.
18. Scoble Harry M., Wiseberg Laurie S. Human Rights and Amnesty International. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 413:May 1974;10-26. Also see Livezey, Nongovernmental Organizations and the Ideas of Human Rights.
19. Wiseberg, "Human Rights Nongovernmental Organizations," in Human Rights in the World Community, pp. 372-373.
20. Ibid, p. 373.
21. Ibid, pp. 374-375.
22. Claude & Weston, Human Rights in the World Community, pp. 362-363, 365.
23. Wiseberg, "Human Rights Nongovernmental Organizations," p. 375.
24. See Forsythe David P. The Internationalization of Human Rights. 1991;40 Lexington Books, Lexington, Massachussetts.
25. See Wiseberg, Sirett. North American Human Rights Directory and the HRI Reporter: Master List of Human Rights Organizations and Serial Publications. 1991;Human Rights Internet: Human Rights Centre, University of Ottawa.
26. Wiseberg, "Human Rights Nongovernmental Organizations," p. 373.
27. Livezey, "Human Rights and NGOs," p. 34.
28. Ibid, p. 34.
29. See Orentlicher, "Bearing Witness: The Art and Science of Human Rights Fact-Finding," pp. 87-89.
30. Livezey, "Human Rights and the NGOs," p. 35.
31. Ibid, pp. 33-35.
32. Ibid, p. 36.
33. Ibid, p. 36.
34. AI's Relations with Non-Governmental Organizations. Barbara Sproul papers. 15 May 1985;AIUSA archives, Archives of the University of Colorado, Boulder. report from the Secretary General's Office.
35. The Union Councils of Soviet Jews constitutes the umbrella organization for the various and largely autonomous councils around the country. The CU Archives possesses the records of both the Union Councils of Soviet Jews and the Bay Area Council of Soviet Jews (BACSJ), the first and one of the most active of these groups to be organized in the mid 1960s. The Union Council comprises a single issue political organization that focused exclusively on securing freedom of religion and emigration for Soviet Jewry during the Cold War years. Since the collapse of the Soviet empire, the various councils have served to monitor acts of anti-semitism, religious freedom, and the general condition of Jews inside the former Soviet republics.
36. For example see Wiseberg, Sirett. North American Human Rights Directory. 1984.
37. The CU Archives primarily took a scattershot approach in selecting organizations to be surveyed. AISUA, one of the groups surveyed, provided the names of sevelral other organizations.
38. See Livezey, Nongovernmental Organizations and the Ideas of Human Rights, p. 50.
39. Nadeem Shahid. Outraged to Be Doing So Well. Far Eastern Economic Review. 6:June 1991;30.
40. Kader David. The Mobilization of Shame: A Report on the Human Rights Work of Amnesty International. Arizona State Law Forum. 4:Summer 1981;5-9.
41. Haanstad Nancy N. Amnesty International is Founded. rev. ed. Magill Frank N. Great Events From History II. Vol. 3:1960-1971;:1992;1119-1124 Salem Press, Passadena, California.
42. Haanstad, in Great Events from History II, p. 1121. Also see Krader, "The Mobilization of Shame: A Report on the Human Rights Work of Amnesty International," p. 6.
43. Haanstad, in Great Events from History II, p. 1121. Also see Krader, "The Mobilization of Shame: A Report on the Human Rights Work of Amnesty International," p. 6.
44. At this early stage in project, a letter writing campaign was purposely avoided in favor using the telephone which provided to be more immediate and direct. With each contact, precautions were taken to explain the nature of the project as well as to mention those AIUSA members who had provided their names, which tended to allay suspicions. Moreover, basic information was sought from contacts concerning their involvement in Amnesty; AIUSA's organizational structure; the organization's founding and development; whether they had in their possession any important files; whether they could provide leads to others who might have materials; whether they thought AIUSA's top officials would support or approve the project; whether they knew of other key influential members that could be contacted; and so forth. In each instance, the names of other individuals were obtained, who in turn were contacted until a sizeable constituency had been developed within AIUSA. When many of these supporters began to contact AIUSA's national staff in New York to both verify our legitimacy as well as to express their backing for the project, the organization was completed to respond. It was not until we made contact with one key individual, however, that the campaign to acquire AIUSA'a archives became a definitive possibility.
45. Haanstad, "Amnesty International is Founded," p. 1121; Also see Nadeem, "Outraged to Be Doing So Well," p. 30.
46. Haanstad, "Amnesty International is Founded," p. 1121; Also see Nadeem, "Outraged to Be Doing So Well," p. 30.
47. In many cases a deposit agreement may provide for the depositing organization to donate funds to assist in arranging and maintaining the collection. The possibility of acquiring AIUSA funding, however, was considered unlikely and an additional impediment to acquiring the archives. In recent years, Amnesty has suffered from budget deficits and short falls in fundraising.
48. For a detailed description of Amnesty's records, see Montgomery Bruce P. Archiving Human Rights: The Records of Amnesty International USA. Archivaria: The Journal of the Association of Canadian Archivists. 39:Spring 1995;108-131 The files relating to AIUSA's national headquarters and regional offices, executive board, sections, urgent action network, local and coordination groups, and individual activists contain a vast array of materials relating to AI's human rights campaigns, strategies, policy development and implementation, human rights mandate, and dealings with the United Nations, governments, and other international intra-governmental and nongovernmental organizations. In addition to files, the AIUSA archives also hold thousands of photographs and more than 1,600 videotapes documenting human rights abuses and other issues. The Amnesty acquisitions project, anticipated to take several years, is expected to collect over 1,500 feet of materials.
49. Diane Orentlicher, "Bearing Witness: The Art and Science of Human Rights Fact-Finding," p. 83.