Elizabeth Myers
Director of Special Collections
As Director of Special Collections, Beth provides leadership and oversight to a unit of up to 20 staff and is responsible for personnel, budget, developing internal and external funding streams, working with donors and developing strategic initiatives and planning. Beth is one of a five person leadership team within the Smith College Libraries. She participated in most aspects of the planning and logistics related to the new Neilson Library building, 2014-2021. She has also been the author and/or PI for several major special collections related grants, spearheaded the project Access to Collections Project, 2018-2021, and the soon-to-launch Access to Collections II: Rare Materials Bibliographic Description Project, 2024-2026.
Beth served as Director of the Women and Leadership Archives at Loyola University Chicago from 2007-2012 and then as Director of the Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University from 2012-2014. She participates actively in the Society of American Archivists, most recently as chair of the SAA - A*Census II working group (2021 - 2023) and is currently serving as Vice President of the Society of American Archivists Foundation Board. In 2022, she was named a Distinguished Fellow of the Society of American Archivists. She lives in Northampton, MA, with her kiddo Quinn and two rescue cats.
Committees
Exhibition Team, Website Content Team, Library Leadership Team, Equity & Inclusion Committee, Neilson Staff Lounge Working Group, Tours Working Group, Records Management Review Committee, Stronger Together Coordinators Committee, Stronger Together Preservation Committee, Special Collections Stewards Committee, Special Collections Public Services Committee, and Five College Special Collections Directors Committee.
Research Interests
Longtime research interests include women’s history, women’s archives, and feminist curation.
Publications & Presentations
Myers, Elizabeth. “Platform as Subversion: Creating A Feminist Archival MOOC.” presented on the panel Reaching from the Other Side: New Initiatives in Archives Teaching and Learning at the Society of American Archivists Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, 2016.
Myers, Elizabeth and Jennifer Rajchel. “What does Feminist Curation Look Like?” in Digital Humanities in the Library / Of the Library: A dh+lib Special Issue, July 29, 2016, http://acrl.ala.org/dh/2016/07/29/what-does-digital-feminist-curation-l….
Myers, Elizabeth. “Women’s Archives / Women’s Collections: What does the Future Hold?” Panelist at the Newcomb College Institute, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, 2013.
Myers, Elizabeth. “‘I am My Sisters Keeper: Women’s Archives, A Reflection’ in Perspectives on Women’s Archives." Tanya Zanish-Belcher and Anke Voss, eds., Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2013.
Myers, Elizabeth. “Juggling Act: Negotiating Third Party Collaboration in the Collection Development of Second Wave Feminist Materials,” in Make Your Own History: Documenting Feminist and Queer Activism in the 21st Century. Kelly Wooten and Lyz Bly, eds., Los Angeles: Litwin Press, 2012.
Professional Affiliations
New England Archivists, Midwest Archives Conference, Society of American Archivists, Society of American Archivists Foundation