Frank retired in 2007, and the archive's advisory board lobbied the university to conduct a national search for her replacement. But library officials declined to do so, and the university later instituted a hiring freeze.
The library recently named Christina Woo, one of the university's senior librarians, to head the archive. Woo also serves as a research librarian for the Women's Studies Department and Chicano/Latino Studies Department and spends only part of her time at the archives. But library officials say they have restructured a team of librarians to help maintain the archives, including student employees.
"It's no surprise that the University of California is taking a hit in the recent budget crisis, but we are definitely allocating resources to keep the archive open and maintaining the caliber of that collection," said Michelle Light, the acting head of special collections and archives.
Woo said she and the advisory board are discussing which events in immigrant communities to attend to collect materials. "I can see no slowing down of the momentum for building the collections in the Southeast Asian archive," she said.
Frank's concern is that collecting materials for an archive that documents a constantly changing community can be difficult and takes time.
"If you are trying to document a community, you have to have someone who has knowledge, who is willing to go to community events, to meet people," she said. "If they don't replace me, that may die. What we have will be preserved, but I'm not sure if the collection will grow."
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my-thuan.tran@latimes.com
