The ART Awards Ceremony took place on Thursday October 17th at the New York Archives Week Symposium. It is the only program in the metropolitan New York City region dedicated to honoring the work of archivists and those who support archival programs. Congratulations to this year’s ART Awards Winners!

ARCHIVAL ACHIEVEMENT

Recognizes an individual or archival program that has made an outstanding contribution to the archival profession, or a notable achievement of value to the archives community, its patrons or constituents. 

Winner: Center for Brooklyn History, Brooklyn Public Library

"The merging of two nineteenth-century institutions and collections is a daunting feat in and of itself, but merging them towards a new mission of accessible public service is even more vertiginous. The Collections Department at the Center for Brooklyn History has handled this transition and re-alignment with aplomb and professionalism, and with real enthusiasm. Securing this wealth of information for the public good will forever change the range and caliber of the stories we're able to tell about the history of Brooklyn, and by extension, the history of immigration, of industry, of urban life, and arts and culture. They deserve every accolade for their tireless efforts in this endeavor."

AWARD FOR EDUCATIONAL USE OF ARCHIVES

Recognizes and celebrates an individual or organization who utilizes primary source materials to create engaging and informative learning experiences for diverse audiences.

Winner: Friends of Maple Grove Cemetery and NYC Summer Youth Employment Program

A group of four students from Epic High School South collaborated with the Friends of Maple Grove Cemetery to honor over 1,200 individuals buried in mass graves there between 1925 and 1937, many of whom were children who died from diseases and malnutrition. As part of the project, titled "Honoring the Forgotten Lives at Maple Grove Cemetery," the students researched historical burial records, identifying 1,250 burials, with a focus on the 800 children. They partnered with local historians and an artist to create a marble lamb monument and a steel time capsule containing the names and stories of those they identified.

INNOVATIVE USE OF ARCHIVES

Recognizes an individual or organization for use of archival material in a meaningful and creative way, making a significant contribution to a community or body of people, and demonstrating the relevance of archival materials to its subject.

Winner: Toxic Docs

"Toxic Docs, a joint project of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the CUNY Graduate Center, contains millions of pages of previously secret documents that have been brought to light by the discovery processes of recent toxic tort litigation relating to asbestos, lead, and PCBs. They include secret internal memoranda, emails, slides, board minutes, unpublished scientific studies, expert witness reports, and other kinds of documents. Toxic Docs is using computational methods, cloud computing, and parallel processing to make these documents into machine-readable, searchable text in ways that were not previously possible at this scale. The project is an ongoing repository, taking in new materials as lawsuits unearth them, and it is currently developing AI-based tools to make this vast collection searchable in even more ways. While it looks simple on the surface, it is an exciting model of archival access to materials of enormous civic importance."

OUTSTANDING SUPPORT OF ARCHIVES

Recognizes an individual or organization for notable contributions to archival records or archives programs through political, financial or moral support.

Winner: Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO)

"METRO continues to reinvent itself with supportive, innovative, creative services, programs and grants that have become a lifeline to many in the profession during these crazy times."

ART VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR

Recognizes an individual who has made a remarkable contribution to the Archivists Round Table.

Winner: Nicole Font, ART Director of Communications

"Nicole is Director of Communications, an indispensable role which she has gone above and beyond in performing. ART notifications are disseminated promptly and professionally, which has helped facilitate a notable uptick in programming events. Nicole also serves on the Programming Committee where she continues to be a key organizer for a variety of highly engaging events around NYC and beyond."