With a delayed start, please welcome this year’s talented Society of American Archivists Records Management Committee. We have some wonderful upcoming events including:

Coffee Chat: Starting a Records Management Program, Feb 5th 2024 3pm EST (information forthcoming)

Coffee Chat: Records Management and Institutional Change, Mar 11th 2024 3pm EST (information forthcoming)

Records Management Colloquium (Email Archiving, Digital Preservation, and AI & Records), April 2024 Stay tuned! The colloquium will highlight three of our favorite experts in the archives, records, and information fields.

Records Management Annual Section Meeting, July 2024! We will be soliciting for lightning talks from our community!

Jessika Drmacich, Chair, former 2021 Chair:

Jessika, Records Manager and Digital Resources Archivist at Williams College Special Collections (Libraries), leads Williams’ campus-wide Records Management Program, web archiving, and digital preservation. Over the past ten years at Williams, Jessika worked closely with the Vice President of Finance, Administration, and Treasurer’s Office to establish a Board of Trustees Approved Records Management Policy and Program. Jessika is passionate about institutional histories, collaborating with campus leadership, committees, student groups, and all units to document and preserve diverse campus conversations. By helping records “get to the right place at the right time” she advocates for campus histories, better business workflows, and for destruction of records that reach disposition. As part of the Records Management Program, Jessika works closely with campus IT, leading records management trainings including: email archiving, digital file management for committees, individualized records trainings for offices/ departments, and most recently the Declutter Your Digital Life series. 

Jessika is incredibly enthusiastic about advocating with her colleagues and communities that records management should be a field of creativity and that personal curation, being your own archivist, and records management, in itself, is more important than ever!

Sophia McGuire, Vice-Chair

Sophia has been working in government records and archives for the majority of her nine years working professionally. She currently serves the City of Gahanna, Ohio, as the city’s records management analyst, where is she resurrecting a records management program. Sophia’s focus is educating others on the importance and value of a records management program, as well as collecting and preserving city history. She is currently working toward her Certified Records Manager designation. Outside of work, Sophia spends her time with her large family and their newest member, a leopard gecko named Rosemary.

Ryan Leimkuehler, Recent Past-Chair,

Ryan Leimkuehler is an accomplished professional with a diverse background in library science, history, and records management. He earned his Master of Library Science with a focus on Archives from Emporia University in 2017, following his completion of a Master of Arts in History at Missouri State University in 2012 and a Bachelor of Science in History and Education in 2010 from the same institution. Currently serving as the Associate Professor and University Archivist at Kansas State University since December 2022, Ryan is responsible for leading the development of the university archives program. His expertise extends to archival theory, records administration, and compliance with archival standards and legal regulations. Ryan has also been involved in academia as an Adjunct Instructor at Emporia State University since 2019, teaching courses on records management and introduction to archives. Prior to his current role, he served as the University Records Manager at Kansas State University from August 2017 to December 2022, where he played a pivotal role in establishing records management priorities, training program, and ensuring compliance with the Kansas Open Records Act.

Hillary Gatlin, Committee Member

Hillary Gatlin is the Records Manager for the Duke University Archives. She works with offices and departments across the university to help them identify and transfer their historical records.
Prior to joining Duke University in 2018, Hillary worked as the University Records Manager at Michigan State University and as a Records Management Specialist at George Mason University.

Daria Labinsky, Committee Member

Daria Labinsky has been a records and information specialist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since May 2021. She is the regional records officer for the Mountain Time Zone offices and is based in Lakewood, Colorado. Previously she worked as an archivist and preservation technician for the National Archives and Records Administration. She has an MLS from Emporia State University and a BS and MSJ from Northwestern University. She loves to travel, and years ago, she and her family spent 15 months living on the road, mostly in an RV. She is the coauthor of several books, including the historical biography Frank Applegate of Santa Fe, and used to write and edit publications about craft beer and brewing.

Autumn Oakey, Committee Member

Autumn Oakey is a Library Assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where she has worked in archives and libraries for three years. She manages physical records transfers, provides staff and departmental records management training, and updates university retention schedules. She graduated with her bachelor’s degree in history in from UW-Whitewater in 2021 and is currently studying archives in the MLIS program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

More soon on other committee member, Jennifer Motsko!