Letter from Religious Archivists to Members of the Archival Community Regarding the Impact of Hurricane Katrina on the Cultural Heritage of Local Communities

Members of the Archivists of Religious Collection Section join their Society of American Archivists colleagues in offering their deepest expression of concern to those whose lives have been altered and forever changed by Hurricane Katrina. As our thoughts turn to reconstructing our communities, we join our colleagues in the professional archival community in offering our assistance and support. We wish to express our special concern that efforts be undertaken to assist those civic groups, faith communities, and other non-profit organizations that do not have ready access to the resources and infrastructure of cultural preservation.

We anxiously await the initial assessment of the situation by the archival team that is at present on site in Mississippi. We understand that this assessment is limited by current conditions and appreciate the team's efforts under undoubtedly difficult circumstances. In spite of the overwhelming enormity of the devastation, we hope that the team will come back with a sense of what is needed most and provide us all with a starting point for future action.

As ordinary citizens we feel for all our neighbors in the Gulf Coast region who have suffered the wrath of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. As archivists we are especially concerned with the recovery and care of irreplaceable archival collections. As religious archivists, we are particularly aware of the plight of archival materials found in churches, synagogues, and other religious institutions. These records of community life are particularly vulnerable as are the archives of other small, non-profit and voluntary organizations. Most of these religious and non-profit organizations do not have curatorial staff or a flow of resources to tap in times of distress. We are aware that in Mississippi alone over a dozen parish churches have been destroyed, and information on others is still unavailable. We are confronting the loss of numerous archives of local faith communities and civic organizations that are extremely important to the history and cultural fabric of the region.

As members of the Archivists of Religious Collections Section, we write to express our gratitude for the leadership of local archivists in the Gulf region and ask that our governmental archivists, state historical associations, and SAA leadership give special attention, insofar as possible, to investigating the impact of the hurricane on the condition of smaller non-profit, voluntary, and religious organizations. We are prepared to offer our assistance and resources to these efforts as we continue to identify separately the needs of our constituencies. We also give thanks for the many ways that our profession has exercised leadership in responding quickly and thoughtfully to talent to bear on this tragedy and its aftermath.