She Works Hard for the Money: Interview with Archivist Kira Dietz

Professor Kira Dietz, Assistant Director, Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA), was kind enough to agree to be interviewed in the middle of a record-setting second snow day from her office at Virginia Tech. Her title is deceiving in its brevity because she is actually a multi-hyphenate; archivist-teacher-mentor-university liaison-community ambassador-department head-scholar-food historian-facilities manager-emergency responder-workflow and technology implementer-event and exhibit planner whose enthusiasm for her work is contagious. Though we discussed the specific roles she “plays” relative to archives and what a processing archivist does (her former position), her work with VA Tech’s special collections should not be separated out as these two entities are intertwined, especially with regard to instruction, outreach and acquisition. During our discussion we spoke about how she progressed into her role, the challenges she faces as well as some thought-provoking questions and ideas for the future of archives / archivists; so we are not going to start at the beginning.

Photo courtesy of Kira Dietz. View of the stacks.

“We have environmental disasters left and right.”

In a tale as old as the buildings which house these treasures, the number one challenge, and the most difficult to solve, is the fact that the building was not designed for archives and precious books. Staff can not regulate temperatures and they could not anticipate when “every light fixture over our rare book stacks and manuscript stacks was leaking water.” They called facilities management to find the source and spent the rest of the day “climbing ladders and covering everything in sheet plastic.” There is mold in the ceilings. As a Land-Grant University, which is funded by the state of Virginia, they are beholden to state budget allocations regarding new buildings and renovations. Their building has moved up and down the list of priorities over the years. The only solution for heat and humidity during the summer months are fans and de-humidifiers. 

“If we spend time on this, what are we not doing?”

That is the question they ask when determining priorities and allocating resources. In a department of nine full time employees, “everyone does a little bit of everything.” So similar to the state’s budget prioritization, SCUA revisits their goals and priorities. Being understaffed and under-resourced is a universal challenge for archives. The primary goal is to connect people to “the stuff,” something that Kira is passionate about. While Kira takes on the more public-facing role with regard to instruction and outreach, they have student workers, interns, and a dedicated student assistant who are working “behind the scenes” in service of the public. 

“There needs to be some human mediation … in the way that archivists serve as mediators between materials and researchers or donors … we do education around what all of that means.”

We discussed the future of archives, the role of archivists and the idea that AI can not replace human beings. There is a dichotomy with regard to access. For those who are able to utilize digitized resources, the world of archives is certainly expanding, increasingly accessible and hopefully more connected. Yet, there remain populations, even in Southwest Virginia, who do not have high speed internet. The solve for them is to connect local communities programmatically, which is to provide in-person instruction and access. We went on to talk about communities in remote locations who prefer to hold on to their records locally and how archivists can help teach them about proper handling, preservation and processes to make their archives accessible, even if digitization is not a possibility. This will be significant as institutions continue to repatriate records; “we can’t just ignore communities that don’t have the same resources.” I don’t want to give away too much of her big idea for helping these types of communities, but as a gamer and D&D enthusiast, Kira touched on a way to design a modular learning system to help educate local archivists. So gamification is very much a part of future archival instruction. 

“People come into archives wanting to read dead people’s mail. I love dead mail.”

Kira studied English as an undergrad at the University of Delaware where she was hired to work in Special Collections because they needed someone who could work on Wednesdays; she stayed on for three years. From there she went on to graduate school at the University of Tennessee, earning a Master’s Degree in English while working as a Student Assistant in their Special Collections department later becoming the first ever funded Graduate Assistant. During her time at UT, she decided not to pursue a PhD in English, and instead (encouraged by our Prof. Lawrimore) received her MLS with a specialization in Archives, Records and Information Management from the University of Maryland. After a brief stint in retail, which helped to build her soft skills (more on that later), Kira was hired as the Acquisitions and Processing Archivist at Virginia Tech 17 years ago. Her colleague Mark had been hired as the Public Services and Reference archivist 6 months prior and together, they doubled the size of the department. Mark retired in 2024, so Kira has taken on his role as well. In fact, as Virginia Tech’s Assistant Director of Special Collections and University Archives, the position she earned in 2019, she takes on any and every role that needs to be filled due to vacancies. She also holds the rank of Assistant Professor which is a 10 year equivalent. 

“I’m an introvert, but I don’t sit in a basement. I don’t sit in my office quietly all day. That’s not how it works.” 

Listening to Kira talk about her myriad of job responsibilities reminds me of the refrain, “I can do that..that I can do,” from A Chorus Line. Assuming the role of Assistant Director a few months prior to the Covid-19 shut down, she filled in as University Archivist and Architectural Archivist while also overseeing operations as to how they would re-open the department. She works closely with the Director on budgets, logistics, setting goals for the department and strategic prioritization. Kira’s previous position was not replaced, so acquisitions and processing is still 25% of her job in terms of improving workflows, paying vendors and overseeing/training student workers as well as a dedicated student assistant. 

As liaison to the library and other departments, including IT, Kira is definitely in a public-facing position. She mentors students and other junior colleagues who, in addition to working in archives, spend time doing research and writing articles as they are simultaneously on the faculty track. In her Professor role, she works closely with faculty to develop and teach classes to help students understand the value of Archives and Special Collections as a resource for research; both what is available and how to use it. These classes are quite diverse in subject matter including; Western Art Survey, Cities in History, and Wildlife Habitat Evaluation. One of the classes, History and Memory in the Archive, talks about how archives “capture, preserve, and present memory; how people tell their own stories,” with a focus on “under-represented communities and community collections, engagements.” She estimates that she teaches about 30 classes, mostly at the beginning of the semester. Kira sits at the reference desk twice a week, works on special projects like how to fill an exhibition space, and may be on a grant based project.

Photo courtesy of Kira Dietz. View of the reading room.

“Just being a part of that community is a project,” she said with a smile.

One might also call Kira an ambassador to the local community, working closely with fellow academic and cultural heritage institutions. She hosts student groups K-12 as well as alumni through the Lifelong Learning Institute. Two programs of note are Food History in America; the other is in conjunction with an historic home; a upcoming home tour followed by a close-up look at the family's papers which are housed in the Virginia Tech archives. Yet, her biggest project is related to VA Tech's massive Food and Drink Collection, the one she “adopted” over the years. Based in the History Department, the Food Studies Program is an interdisciplinary program that offers a minor in the subject and forms the basis for a significant campus community. Her work on the steering committee includes reference, outreach, instruction, program management and departmental leadership, though she likes to point out, in jest, that being the expert on food and drink is not technically part of her job description. She clearly loves that she has grown the collection over the years (from 3,000 books to almost 10,000) and built a large community as an extension of the collection. 

“When you get a box of chaos … how do you know what to do with it?”

In her former role as the Acquisitions and Processing Archivist, Kira was hired to help get “new stuff.” She said that her time in retail helped to build the soft skills needed for working with donors. We pondered how one prepares for, or what class should be required for scenarios like, donors crying as they part with their items or how to navigate a long-ago handshake deal that was never put in writing. Other considerations include, should I have acquired that collection and why did someone else, a long time ago, acquire this donation? The nuts and bolts of the position included implementing new software for archival processing (ArchivesSpace), working with donors, book and manuscript dealers, creating workflows, prioritizing backlog and organizing materials. The other part of processing is making it discoverable; “how do we physically organize collections, folder them, label them, write finding aids; do all of the descriptive work which also entails digitization and metadata.” 

There are three types of acquisition; purchase, donations and transfer. Of the three, donation is preferred, acquisition is necessary and transfers are handled by the University Archivist. Virginia Tech actively collects for six areas: University History, Local and Regional history, American Civil War History particularly in Virginia, Food and Drink History, Science and Technology History particularly around transportation railroad, aerospace engineering, mining and geology, and Women in Architecture and Design which they broadened to think about women in the built environment, architecture, interior design, urban planning, construction and material design. There is a dedicated Oral History Archivist (transferred from another department) who is working to interview donors about their life and collections. 

"Where do you get those skills to manage expectations …"

The topic of managing expectations came up quite a bit in our conversation in all kinds of scenarios. First, there is an idea of what you think you will be doing and what you actually end up doing in a particular job. The main skill here is resiliency because there will never be a fixed job description; one has to be open to expanding one’s scope of work. Second, in working with researchers, faculty or students, it is important to set expectations about how long it takes to retrieve something from storage, turn around a digitization request or prepare for a class. This seems simple to implement, but may have some challenges. Third, there is the expectation to continue to publish, get promoted and participate in professional development / organizations. Kira has culled the number of professional organizations to which she belongs and is currently an engaged member of SAA and MARAC (Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference). Fourth, the expectation that it is the archivists job to promote everything. Kira said that she’s had people ask why a certain collection was “hiding” in the archives. She politely pointed out that the finding aid had been online for a long time, so it wasn’t actually hidden. If they spend all of their time promoting all of the collections, we get back to the determining question; what are they not doing? Clearly, they are doing a lot!

Interview with Professor Kira Dietz, January 29, 2026 via Zoom.