Maureen is the Sophia Smith Collection Archivist and a member of special collections. The Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History documents the experiences and accomplishments of women and other gender minorities, particularly in the struggle for gender justice, reproductive justice, and full participation in civic life.

In this role, she provides stewardship for Smith’s extraordinary collection of women’s history materials. Maureen also works with Smith College, Five College, and community groups to provide students access to primary sources and to help them develop the research skill they need to make the most of archival inquiry.

Because history is still being made every day, Maureen works with individuals and organizations to bring new materials into the Sophia Smith Collection.

Maureen is an enthusiastic home cook and enjoys hiking, kayaking, yoga, and otherwise spending time outdoors in the beautiful Connecticut River Valley. Maureen came to Smith from Yale University, where she worked as an archives technologist and has previously worked at the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wager Labor Archives at New York University and the Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton University.

Committees

Libraries Special Collections Stewards Group, Libraries Teaching Team, Libraries First Year Experience Working Group, Libraries Special Collections Public Services Group

Research Interests

Maureen is interested in archives for justice, extensible archival practices, and the ways that networked environments can make history more accessible to more people. She has been very active with the development of archival content standards.

Publications and Presentations

Callahan, Maureen, Chela Scott Weber, Shannon Supple, William Stingone. "The Limits to Growth" presented at the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the American Library Association Conference, Baltimore, Maryland, June 2019.

Callahan, Maureen, Sue Luftschein, Dan Michelson, and Adrien Hilton. "What Were They Thinking? How the New DACS Principles Take on the Need for Transparency" presented at the Society of American Archivists Conference, Washington, District of Columbia, August 2018.

Callahan, Maureen. "Feminist Care Praxis for Collecting Marginalized Communities" presented at the ILMS Diversifying the Digital National Forum, New York, New York, 2017.

Callahan, Maureen, Holly Smith and Christiana Dobrzynski. "Documenting Black Feminisms and the M4BL" presented at the National Women’s Studies Association Conference, Baltimore, Maryland, 2017.

Callahan, Maureen, et al. "Archives Vaporware: Archivists’ Best Ideas for Software that Hasn’t Been Built Yet" presented at the Society of American Archivists Conference, Portland, Oregon, August 2016.

Callahan, Maureen. “Ethical Internships: Mentoring the Leaders We Need" (Keynote). presented at the Arizona Archives Alliance Symposium, Tucson, Arizona, October 2015.

Callahan, Maureen. “The Value of Archival Description, Considered.” presented at the Radcliffe Workshop on Technology and Archival Processing, Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 2014.

Callahan, Maureen, Meg Tuomala, Cal Lee, and Mark Myers. “Archives Confidential: Enacting Privacy Policies in Born-Digital Archives.” presented at the Society of American Archivists Annual Meeting, Cleveland, Ohio, August 2015.

Ellis, Shaun, and Maureen Callahan. “Prototyping as a Process for Improved User Experience with Library and Archives Websites.” The Code4Lib Journal, 18 (October 3, 2012). http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/7394.

Workshops Given

Principled Archivists: How to Make the New DACS Principles Work for You and Your Users — 2018 and 2019. Society of California Archivists, Long Beach, California (with Carrie Hintz) and New England Archivists, Beinecke Library, New Haven, Connecticut (with Adrien Hilton)

Easy Things Activists Can Do to Save Their Histories — 2017. Civil Liberties and Public Policy Conference, Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts (with Maggie Schreiner and Jasmine Jones)

Archival Management System Migration Strategies — 2015. THATCamp Philly, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Metadata Power Tools for the Curious Beginner — 2015. Pop-Up Session, Society of American Archivists Conference, Cleveland, Ohio (with Regine Heberlein and Dallas Pillen)

OpenRefine for the Digital Humanities — 2013. DHPhilly@Penn, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania