So earlier I called you ‘keepers of the cultural heritage.’ What is cultural heritage?

Keough: We’re the keepers of the artifacts, documents and records that tell New York’s history. When I first got here, it was like, “Oh, well, we’re documenting the government, what the government does.” But it’s so much more than that. It’s people’s interactions with the government, whether it’s in the court system, whether it’s buying land from the state, whether it’s working in a civil service job, whether it’s being incarcerated —all of those records provide information about people who lived in New York state and interacted with the government in some way. So, it’s really everyone’s history. Fascinating stuff.

Lemak: I think for the Museum [we are] definitely stewards ... recording a moment in time with artifacts. People donate some of their prized possessions to us, and it’s our job to preserve them as long as absolutely possible and to allow researchers to come in and use the artifact. We also get it out on display, either here or anywhere, because we loan our artifacts to other institutions free of charge. [It’s] documenting New York state history through three dimensional artifacts. And I think working in this building, it’s a nice tie-in because we have the artifacts, and then you can come upstairs and see manuscripts and special collections, and then the state records. So, it really is the cultural education center.

Lander: Yeah, it’s a one-stop shop. The state historian is a little bit different. It’s changed over the years, obviously it’s been around since 1895 — first state to have a state historian. At one point, it was an appointed position by the governor right up until 1911. In 1911, it was taken over by the State Education Department, so it’s really been part of State Ed since then. But the role of the state historian has changed. The state historian used to be the state archivist before there was a state archive. It was really a position created to not only document the history of the state but then get that information out to the public. So, it truly is a public historian and I look at the role as being a liaison between what goes on in this building and then what’s going on in the field outside of this building.

So how often or how closely do you collaborate on projects?

Lemak: When we’ve done the big anniversaries, like the [New York] suffrage centennial in 2017, a big exhibit for the Civil War sesquicentennial, and then the centennial of World War I, we worked together as Office of Cultural Education. I know that I can come upstairs and the folks up here will help out with anything we need, and they’re eager to get their materials out on display. So, traditionally, we’ve had a good relationship. And moving forward to the 250th, we’re planning a big exhibit here, which is full museum/library/archives [collaboration.] We’ve only had a few meetings so far, but it will be putting all of the Office of Cultural Education (OCE) treasures out on display. It’s going to open in June 2026, and the thinking is that it will be up for a minimum of eight years. So, we are working together on that.

Lander: One of the big things that we pulled off as OCE last year was bringing the New York State History Conference here. And that was totally the New York State Archives Partnership Trust, the Museum, the Library and the Archives all working together. The Trust was the fiduciary manager of it. We all had staff involved, we all did cross promotion, and did the program committee, put together a steering committee ... and we had some other partners involved ... including New York Historical Society, [SUNY Oneonta] and others. It ended up being far more successful than we thought. We had to shut down registrations. Of the things that I’ve done in this building and over the last eight years — to me — it was the most impressive thing that we were able to pull off together. And I think that shows that there are a lot of people in this building — not just the three of us — who really take this seriously and are really interested in doing their jobs for the people.

What’s one challenge each of you face in your respective fields or maybe collectively as well?

Lander: Well, I mean, I think resources are always an issue for any cultural organization. I mean, we’re a big one, and so — on paper — we look like we’re well off. As an example, for the amount of work that’s needed to [produce] a conference, most organizations would hire that out, like we did at MANY. But, here, we did it all in-house and it was on top of all of our other jobs. And so, I think that resources and staff are always an issue. We could do more with more people, for sure. And I think with more resources and more staff, we could provide more services. We’re a service organization too.

Lemak: I think the biggest challenge I face is bureaucracy. And it’s so hard to act like a real museum with the bureaucracy and the paperwork. A great example would be if we have a donor who is donating a collection of paintings that are worth thousands — tens of thousands of dollars — and they are from out of state and want to drive to Albany, we can’t pay their way to come because of the state spending controls. So, there are things like that, where you need to show your appreciation to donors, but because [of restrictions] you can’t do that.

Keough: Most of our money is not appropriated, it’s based on the revenue streams. For example, one revenue source is mortgage transaction fees that support our records management support of state agencies and local governments across the state. So if housing sales are down, there’s less revenue to support our operations. The Library gets a lot of federal money because they channel federal money through the local libraries to build buildings, to fund library programs. A lot of that is federal money, which is likely in danger right now. [Two months after this interview but before publishing, Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed a $150M to renovate the State Museum.]

Cultural institutions around the country seem to be under increasing pressure or scrutiny from political forces to either alter, ignore or remove certain information or history. Why should institutions like yours be protected from politicization?

Keough: I heard someone at another state archives say, “We could never do what you’re doing [in New York] for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence because of the politics. The approach we are taking in recognizing the 250th is that we want to highlight everyone’s story and how the Declaration of Independence was the starting point for continued struggle for democracy and equality.

Lander: I think our political realities are different in New York than some of those other states, but we’re not immune to it at all. My argument for why we should be left to design this is that as long as it’s based on the best practices of the field ... So, in my opinion, institutions like ours, and any institution, should be allowed to tell the accurate history. And I mean, that raises all sorts of other questions, and whose interpretation, and those are valid discussions ... but that’s all part of this endeavor that we’re all involved in is trying to get as accurate as you can. And when you have political forces that, for their own reasons, are trying to control the narrative — that becomes problematic. And it doesn’t matter which side the narrative comes down. So, I think as long as if we’re making the argument and we’re showing the evidence — that’s the other part of it — we can’t just say this, we have to show the evidence.

Lemak: Piggybacking on what Devin just said as far as the evidence goes, we go out of our way in the museum to collect artifacts from different perspectives. Whether we agree with those perspectives or not, we still bring those items into the collection. So down the road you can tell both sides or all three sides of the story and not just the one the curator agrees with. I think that’s super important.

Keough: In the Archives, we’re in a little bit of a better spot. We’re not interpreting necessarily or telling the stories. [We’re] like the “Law & Order” TV show, we’re just collecting the evidence.

But even the Archives isn’t immune, and I only know because I’m on the Archives Advisory Committee. The “Clean Slate” law is a legislative act that directly affects what you’re able to share with the public.

Keough: Yeah, and I’ve learned a lot about that since coming on board. And the Archives, in those situations, usually defers to the practitioner. So, the attorney general, they control access to legal files, Office of Mental Health and the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities control access to [their records.] They tell us what the access should be and we follow. Now, for other types of records, the legislative records or agency records, we are usually doing that.

How has technology changed the way you approach your work? Whether for curating exhibits or maintaining historical records, is there a technology that has either helped or made your work harder?

Lemak: Well, we are slowly getting more digitally-born collections. We don’t have anybody on staff to deal with them, so we’re trying to figure that out as we go. I feel a little old-fashioned when I’m like, “If I can’t hold it in my hand, it’s not an artifact.” But people are trying to donate things that are digital, so I have to grow with it.

Lander: Yeah, probably the most obvious [for me] is the reach that podcasting gives you. The amount of flexibility that you have in that medium, not only to create something but just the flexibility that the audience has to be able to listen to it wherever they want, whenever they want. It’s not even like they have to be in front of their radio to hear it or television to watch it. I knew nothing about podcasting until I started this job, but I’ve learned that there’s a huge audience for history out there, even niche history like we do, which is just New York State. We still get listened to in other places. You can download us anywhere.

Keough: So, our goal is to digitize, digitize, and digitize. We have all this stuff that’s digitized, and we don’t have the staff to describe it, to publish it online. And that’s where one of our resource limitations is, is that we don’t have enough people to publish it online and that’s really the challenge.

Lemak: We do offer some exhibit components online, but in my opinion, online exhibits are just no fun because the whole point of going to an exhibit, I think, is to see the real stuff ... We’ve got great graphic and web designers that do fantastic work, but it just doesn’t compare to the real thing.

Lander: There is a pressure for museums to do what archives have long been doing, which is to digitize their material. And from a capacity standpoint, it just wouldn’t be possible. There’s so much stuff but then making that accessible would be a whole other part of the equation.

Keough: Like Jennifer said, you want to see the real thing.

Lander: I remember the Baseball Hall of Fame ... going through a massive digitization of their collection and trying to put everything online. And they did a panel at the MANY conference about that concern that ... if they put [collections] online then people-

Lemak: Won’t come.

Lander: ... won’t come.

Lander: And it ends up being, at least according to the Baseball Hall of Fame people, [it] actually caused an uptick in attendance, or it’s helped spur on an uptick of attendance, because people do want to see the real thing. They may see a picture of Babe Ruth’s baseball that he hit ... but knowing that it’s [in the Hall of Fame] and then going to see it are two different things. And so, I think it’s a balance.

Keough: We’re working with two professors at [Rochester Institute of Technology] and at the National Archives who have developed this computer hardware system that uses infrared and different algorithms and they using it to scan burnt marriage licenses from the 1700s. And they weren’t able to uncover all the texts, but they were able to uncover the blank where the names of the people were written in there that weren’t previously discoverable.

Lander: Wow, that’s amazing.

Keough: Yeah, it’s pretty amazing.

All right, last question. In 1977, NASA launched the Voyager spacecraft carrying a gold-plated disc that contained images and sounds telling the story of Earth to whatever extraterrestrial life that’s out there? What one object from each of your areas would you have selected to tell New York’s story?

Lander: Oh, wow.

Lemak: That’s a tough one.

Keough: We just have one? We have an original copy of the New York State Constitution: Here is what that society believed were the laws and the rights that people should have. [It] tells us something about what type of society we wanted.

So, you’d do the original New York State Constitution, not the subsequent amendments and stuff?

Keough: That’s a good point. We’ll send them a link to the most recent one!

Lemak: I would say the State Museum’s suffrage wagon because it’s one of our most important and iconic artifacts. It’s got a great story. It came from Long Island, and on the side of it is written, “Spirit of ’76,” because the women, the Kearns family, who used it in 1913, dressed up as Minutemen on their way from Long Island to New York City. And they cried, “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” So, it’s perfect with the Spirit of ’76.

Lander: I don’t know. I would say the gradual emancipation documents because I think it’s an example of a history that, to this day, has been passed over. We’re hopeful to do something about that for the 200th, which is coming up in 2027. But to me, it shows you the power of a historical object or document to tell an entire story, and it’s not a comfortable story. It opens up questions about why did it take so long? Why was it set up the way it was set up? I think history should be able to make people ask more questions rather than just provide an answer. And I would also include —it’s no longer in this building — the pipe tomahawk that’s now owned by the Seneca Nation. I think it’s important for New Yorkers, no matter what part of the state you’re in, to understand that this was all Indigenous land. And not only that, but Indigenous people are also still here, they’re still in New York State, and we still have more Indigenous nations in our state than anywhere else in the Northeast. They played a huge role in the colonial era and the revolutionary era, and they were the third empire for a long time during the colonial era. So, I’ll go with that [even though] it’s no longer in our building. It’s been repatriated.

Well, that’s great. We can end it there. Thank you so much.