Wilda Logan facts for kids

Wilda D. Logan is an American archivist. She is famous for working almost 40 years in the world of archives. For 33 of those years, she worked for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). NARA helps manage important government records. Wilda is also a member of several groups for archivists, like the Society of American Archivists (SAA). She is a Certified Archivist, meaning she has special training and knowledge in her field.

Wilda Logan's Early Life and Education

Wilda Logan first dreamed of becoming a librarian. She studied history at Hampton Institute, which is now Hampton University. After graduating, she planned to get a master's degree in library science.

Discovering Archives

While at Hampton, history students had to write a big paper using original documents. Wilda got special permission to do research at the Hampton Archives. She met the archivist, Mr. Fritz Malval. He showed her many old records about Hampton University. These records went back to when the college first started.

Wilda found that Hampton had saved everything important. There were official meeting notes, letters, newspaper clippings, and photos. Everything was very well organized. She felt like she had found "heaven"! After this experience, Wilda decided to focus on archives for her career.

Graduate School and Internships

Wilda received a full scholarship to the University of Maryland at College Park. There, she earned her Master's in Library Science. She was one of only two full-time African American graduate students in her program.

During her last semester, Wilda looked for internships. She wanted to work with African American collections. Her advisor helped her find an internship at the Moorland–Spingarn Research Center at Howard University. She also interned at the National Archives. After getting her degree, she was offered a job as a Manuscripts Librarian at Moorland-Spingarn.

Wilda Logan's Career Journey

As a Manuscripts Librarian at Moorland-Spingarn, Wilda helped organize important papers. These included the writings of famous African Americans like Dr. Charles Drew and Jesse E. Moorland.

Working at the National Archives

In 1985, after seven years at Howard University, Wilda joined the National Archives. She started as an Appraisal Archivist. This means she helped decide which records were important enough to keep forever. Later, she became a Work Group Leader and Supervisor.

As a supervisor, she managed records for many government departments. These included Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, and Veteran Affairs. She also ran training programs for managing records in Washington, D.C. She helped organize big conferences for records managers.

Promoting Diversity and Inclusion

Wilda also worked on teams that focused on diversity and inclusion. These teams worked to make sure NARA hired people from different backgrounds. They helped set up internships for students and shared information about jobs at NARA. Because of their hard work, Wilda and her team won the Archivist Achievement Award in both 2001 and 2002.

Wilda helped create many important policies and documents for NARA. These included training materials, conference programs, and policies about diversity. In 2023, the University of Maryland honored Wilda with the Distinguished Terrapin Award. This award celebrates successful graduate school alumni.

Wilda Logan's Professional Groups

Wilda Logan has been a very active member of several professional groups. These groups help archivists learn and grow in their careers.

Society of American Archivists (SAA)

Wilda joined the Society of American Archivists (SAA) in 1978. The SAA is a big group for archivists in the United States. She served on many committees and was part of the SAA Council from 1998 to 2001. In 2006, she was named a Fellow of the SAA, which is a high honor.

Wilda helped start the African-American and Third World Archivist Roundtable. This group is now called the Archivists & Archives of Color Roundtable. She was a co-chair of this group in 1998.

Archivists and Archives of Color Roundtable

In the past, there were not many minority archivists involved in the SAA. Wilda and others felt that decisions were being made without their input. So, in 1987, they helped create the Minorities Roundtable. This group is now the Archivists and Archives of Color.

They started publishing a newsletter to share information. Howard University helped pay for the newsletter, and it was given out for free. The newsletter became very popular. It was later used as a model for other groups within the SAA. Wilda said, "It was important for us to break down those barriers and I like to think that we did that." Through this group, Wilda also helped create the Harold T. Pinkett Minority Student Award. This award helps minority students who want to become archivists.

Wilda Logan retired from the National Archives in 2018. The SAA honored her for her amazing work. They thanked her for her knowledge, passion, and for helping many archivists, especially archivists of color.