Vanessa St.Oegger-Menn Receives Spotlight Award From Society of American Archivists

Vanessa St.Oegger-Menn, Pan Am 103 archivist and assistant university archivist in the Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center, is the 2025 recipient of the Spotlight Award from the Society of American Archivists (SAA).

Established in 2005, the award recognizes contributions from individuals who work for the good of the profession and archival collections and whose work may not typically receive public recognition.

St.Oegger-Menn holds an M.A. in 20-century British literature from California State University, Long Beach, and she earned a master of library and information science with a concentration in archives and cultural heritage preservation from the School of Information Studies.

Within SAA, St.Oegger-Menn has played a key role in SAA’s work to support archivists and communities collecting in times of crisis. In 2018, she served on the initial Tragedy Response Initiative Task Force which was assembled to create and compile resources for archivists facing sudden tragedy.

The Task Force then evolved into the Crisis, Disaster and Tragedy Response Working Group (CDTRWG) with the charge of maintaining and updating SAA’s “Documenting in Times of Crisis: A Resource Kit,” developing immediate and ongoing resources for archivists dealing with crises and building partnerships with organizations focused on relief efforts for cultural organizations. St.Oegger-Menn was asked to serve as one of the co-chairs of the inaugural working group.

In this role, she had an incredible impact on the work of this group. She led crucial efforts to create organizational infrastructure and identify workflows to keep projects on track and worked with committee members and council liaisons to overcome roadblocks.

St.Oegger-Menn has also served as one of the group’s mightiest advocates, representing CDTRWG through speaking engagements and at regional, national and international conferences. She has co-presented on the working group to a number of internal and external organizations, including the Art Libraries Society of North America and the Australian Society of Archivists.

She co-wrote an article in 2023 for SAA’s magazine, Archival Outlook, that outlined the efforts of the working group and facilitated the working group’s ongoing speaker series. When it was time for her to roll off as co-chair, St.Oegger-Menn devised a strategy for a post-chair transition to offer support to incoming co-chairs and also agreed to stay on the working group, even co-leading the Collaboration and Outreach subcommittee.

St.Oegger-Menn’s hard work and empathy has not gone unnoticed by her colleagues. Through her work with trauma-informed archives, she has tirelessly supported archivists in times of crisis. As her nominator, Kara McClurken, noted, “Her passion, her empathy and her experiences through the working group and through her position as the Pan Am 103 archivist at Syracuse University have been essential to the creation of a supportive and sustainable low-cost support network to archivists and communities experiencing trauma … Long after her time on the working group is over, the infrastructure, the tools, and the community she has fostered will serve as a legacy to her dedication to the cause.”

Editor’s note: This story is reprinted from a news release posted by the Society of American Archivists.