Sarah Quigley - Director of Special Collections & Archives at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas

pho003318. L. F. Manis Photograph Collection. PH-00100. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada. http://n2t.net/ark:/62930/d1s58r.

Sarah Quigley earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and a Master of Library & Information Science both at the University of Texas at Austin. Her initial plan was to enter the field of Museum Administration but fell in love with the technical aspects of archiving after learning from archivist David Gracy. It was then that she changed her pathway to become a Technical Services Archivist. She was not as interested in instruction or outreach at the time. Sarah’s first job opportunity came about while still in school. This involved organizing and processing papers for the Supreme Court in Texas. After graduating, she moved to North Carolina to become a Project Archivist at the Jesse Helms Center where she worked with a former Senator's congressional records. This is where she learned the process of working directly with donors and found it was difficult but important to oversee the legacy of influential individuals and the documents of their life. She later joined the Rose Library as a project archivist working with the records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Georgia. It is here she documented Southern history, African American culture, and British & Irish Literature. Sarah has also been the President of the Society of Georgia Archivists. In July of 2022, she started her current role as Director of Special Collections & Archives at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The Special Collections & Archives at UNLV is focused on documenting Southern Nevada and Las Vegas with an emphasis on its casino records, architecture, entertainment, costume designs and historical mining & railroad history. As an academic library, they are all about relating to the community and helping them preserve their history. It also holds global information on gaming data and statistics in its Center for Gaming Research. The University is proud of its Oral History Research Center which collects and documents the actual speech of those involved with the growth of Las Vegas, African Americans and their history in Southern Nevada, Asian & Pacific Islander migration, as well as Native and Indigenous accounts. They are also Internationally known for their Digital Collections Department as most of their photographic collections are fully available online. The collections and archives department does not purchase but relies on donations. They have a curatorial team with strong connections to the community who uses those connections to negotiate acquisitions.

The primary user group for the archives are students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas who visit for their research projects. They do receive other researchers, but this has slowed in recent years. There are currently twelve staff members which is about 50% less than before the pandemic. They would love to hire more staff and are in the process of working with the University for job postings of new opportunities. With a limited staff, the focus has been to manage and prioritize the workload. Sarah stated that burnout was already one of the biggest impacts before the pandemic but has since gotten even worse with budget cuts, short staff, community pushback, and the political climate which has made a career in archives more difficult. As the new director, it is her priority to ensure burnout does not happen with her own staff.

Being an administrator, a typical day for Sarah involves meetings with her staff as well as the people she reports to. She also coordinates projects, provides training, and works an occasional reference shift. Since being there for two months, she is currently working on a strategic plan for purposeful direction moving forward post-pandemic. Sarah considers herself a democratic leader and consults her employees when problems arise instead of dictating solutions. No matter where she works, Sarah creates a leadership team for collaboration and has monthly meetings with her professional network of peers to swap ideas and talk about problems and solutions. She always makes a point to consult with her boss for mentorship as they can provide advice and recommendations based on their own experience.

When asked to explain what an archivist does, Sarah laughed and stated that is depended on who asked. It is like “reading people’s mail.” If somebody with zero understanding asked, she would say that it was a person who collected and preserved historical & valuable records and made them available for research. If a donor asked, she would provide explanations about private materials, access, processing methods, how documents are sorted, and timelines. If administrators or researchers asked, she would provide information about research benefits, users who will access the records, and how people will benefit from the records.

Sarah commented that people often think an archivist is a quiet and solitary job; however, the opposite is true. Human interaction is at the core of a career as an archivist. Some essential skills necessary include strong communication, being curious about the users of archives and why people access them, the ability to see the big picture, software skills like being able to build and maintain databases, being a team player, working well with others, as well as the ability to advocate for the team, institution, and profession in general. Sarah wished that she had learned management skills in school. Over the years, she has had to teach herself how to manage people, hold them accountable, set priorities, and make tough decisions.

Sarah mentioned several challenges that arise in a career as an archivist: it is difficult to obtain funding leading to budget and staff cuts; there is a strong reliance on temporary and contract work with many projects often lasting only one year or less which leads to the stress of constantly finding work or people leaving the career for more stable work; moving for the right opportunity may be necessary to advance your career; and some institutions acquire way more than they can handle which causes stress among staff. To solve some of these issues, Sarah emphasized that archivists should unite and create a plan for the next 20 years. The archival practice is constantly changing leading to instability and frustration. Archivists need to educate their communities on the importance of archives which can lead to better funding, have better conversations about sustainability (water concerns are one of the main threats to Las Vegas), and there needs to be a mass digitization mandate to serve constituents.

Even with the future in flux, Sarah says that the best parts of being an archivist are the enjoyment of seeing users access collections, exploring the fascinating collections up close, the depth of the knowledge gained over the years, and the connections built with donors and other archivists. She is always amazed at how many different people want access to so many different things. Sarah’s career has allowed her to see the fullness of humanity which is why being an archivist is so rewarding.

Interview with an Archivist

Sarah Quigley - Director of Special Collections & Archives at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Kyle Hanson