Jennifer Whitlock
Archivist
Jennifer Whitlock
Archivist
Education
BA, Webster University; MLS, Emporia State University
Bio
Since 2013, Jennifer Whitlock has been the first and only archivist for the Vignelli Center for Design Studies at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Before arriving at RIT, Jennifer initiated an archives program for the Indianapolis Museum of Art, served as a project archivist and interim acting curator at the Architecture & Design Collection at University of California Santa Barbara, and also worked as an Assistant Librarian at the Portland Art Museum. She holds a Master of Library Science with an Archives Certificate from Emporia State University and a BA in Photography from Webster University. She is also a Certified Archivist through the Academy of Certified Archivists and (formerly) a Digital Archives Specialist through the Society of American Archivists.
Jennifer has taught numerous archives sessions to faculty and students throughout the College of Art and Design, as well as to other colleges and departments around RIT, and for faculty and students throughout the region and beyond. In addition to these archives sessions, she is also responsible for all aspects of managing the archives. She is inventorying and cataloging the artifacts; digitizing the collections and providing images for publication; preserving, stabilizing, and repairing artifacts including digital items; answering all researchers’ questions; and curating the Vignelli Center social media accounts.
As a self-proclaimed “design preserver,” Jennifer works relentlessly to promote archives to designers and design to archivists. While her inevitable design archives manifesto is still under construction, you can read “All Archives are Design Archives: Prelude to a Manifesto” in Acid Free magazine of the Los Angeles Archivist Collective. laacollective.org
In the News
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September 13, 2023
Looking for inspiration? Try visiting the Vignelli Center for Design Studies Archives
Jennifer Whitlock, the archivist at RIT’s Vignelli Center for Design Studies, says a peek into the archives vault can help students and researchers find that spark of inspiration.
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August 27, 2021
I Call the Pink Plate! My Indestructible Love for Hellerware
Curbed talks to Jennifer Whitlock, archivist at the Vignelli Center for Design Studies, about the late furniture and housewares manufacturer Alan Heller.
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October 12, 2020
Vignelli Center launches digital archives
The Vignelli Center for Design Studies joined Google Arts & Culture as a partner, making hundreds of high-resolution artifacts from its archives available to an online audience.
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September 1, 2014
Whitlock earns Digital Archives Specialist certificate