Council
Minutes
May 5-6, 2001
Silversmith Crowne Plaza
Chicago, IL
President Lee
Stout called the meeting to order at 2:05 p.m. Present: Vice President Steve
Hensen, Treasurer Elizabeth Adkins, and Council members Thomas Battle, Tom Connors,
Jackie Dooley, Mark Greene, Becky Haglund-Tousey, Dennis Harrison, Jane Kenamore,
Richard Pearce-Moses, Wilda Logan Willis, Executive Director Susan Fox, and
Meetings Director Debra Nolan.
ADOPTION OF
THE AGENDA
Kenamore moved
and Greene seconded adoption of the agenda as amended. PASSED.
ADOPTION OF
THE MINUTES
Pearce-Moses
moved and Dooley seconded approval of the January 2001 Council meeting. PASSED.
REPORT OF
THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Kenamore reported
on the Council listserv votes taken since the January meeting. These included:
Endorsing agreements
from the December 12 meeting of archival organizations as follow-up to the National
Forum on Archival Continuing Education, endorsing co-sponsorship with the Coalition
of Networked Information on an Archiving Web Pages Workshop, and agreement to
participate in a proposal from the ALA Ad Hoc Task Force on External Accreditation
to investigate establishing an independent organization for the accreditation
of educational programs in library and related information sciences.
Harrison moved
and Battle seconded the motion to approve. PASSED.
REPORT OF
THE PRESIDENT
Stout reported
on a meeting at the World Bank with representatives from ICA and ARMA discussing
how the three organizations could partner with the World Bank to advance the
state of records management and archives in developing countries. He also attended
the SAA-ARMA Joint Committee meeting.
Stout said that
the SAA Archives had now officially moved to the care of Tim Ericson at the
University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee.
He further reported
that he sent a letter on behalf of SAA to the House and Senate Appropriations
Committees requesting additional funding for NHPRC.
REPORT OF
THE VICE PRESIDENT
Hensen said that
Kathleen Roe was serving as Appointments Committee chair. She recently received
a major promotion that included a significant increase in workload, but she
promised she would have recommended appointments to him by June 15. She had
posted requests for volunteers on the listservs, was in the process of contacting
current board and committee chairs, and was working with Ellen Swain, an intern
recommended by Bill Maher. Kris Kiesling and Bill Landis would co-chair the
2002 Program Committee, and they had already selected their members and were
working on ideas for a Birmingham theme. Alden Monroe agreed to serve as chair
of the Host Committee and had already begun communicating ideas. Hensen said
he had met with John Hope Franklin who tentatively agreed to serve as plenary
keynote speaker. Hensen said he would also work with the Chicago office to develop
publicity for the meeting and to promote Birmingham as a destination.
REPORT OF
THE TREASURER
Adkins reported
on fiscal year 2001 and said that instead of the $35,000 deficit originally
projected, SAA should realize at least a $1,500 net gain. The biggest positive
factor that worked in SAA's favor was the annual meeting, which did much better
than expected. Publications also brought in more income than expected, and were
well positioned for the future. She reviewed each section of the budget then
moved on to a review of the fiscal year 2002 proposed budget, which projected
an estimated net gain of $11,000. She then reviewed each section of the FY 2002
proposed budget.
REPORT OF
THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Fox deferred
reports of the Education and Publications Offices for the following day, when
Solveig DeSutter, Patti O'Hara, and Teresa Brinati would be in attendance. Fox
invited Debra Nolan to speak regarding site selection for the 2005 annual meeting.
Nolan said she investigated New Orleans, San Antonio, Toronto, Minneapolis,
Austin, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii. Austin did not have enough hotel space to accommodate
an SAA meeting. Hawaii and Puerto Rico were too expensive. Minneapolis had a
hotel that was large enough, but was not suitable in other ways. Toronto looked
reasonable, but she recommended either New Orleans or San Antonio since both
cities had the best available room rates and high member interest. Nolan said
that she would investigate both in more detail and come back with a final recommendation
at the August meeting.
Fox reported
that the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded SAA a $191,000 grant
in support of the project to reconcile the US and Canadian standards of description
for archival material. Fox thanked Hensen, Dooley and Kris Kiesling, chair of
the Standards Committee, for their work in conceptualizing and writing the proposal.
NEW BUSINESS
CLOSING OF THE
SMITHSONIAN CENTER FOR MATERIALS RESEARCH & EDUCATION
Fox presented
communiqués from Sarah Talley and Diane Vogt-O'Connor, Preservation
Section Chair and Co-Chair. Both requested that SAA write a letter to Lawrence
Small,
Secretary of the Smithsonian, objecting to the closing of the Smithsonian Center
for Materials Research and Education.
Connors advocated
sending a letter of concern. He said MARAC would be doing so. Stout expressed
a broader concern about Small's cutbacks and their impact on the archival function
within the Smithsonian. Battle said he was concerned that SAA not overreact
to an internal reorganization, but agreed with Stout's view that SAA should
focus on the larger issue of Smithsonian leadership's attitude toward archives
writ large. Stout said he would write a letter.
WORKING GROUP
ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Fox proposed
the formation of an SAA Working Group on Intellectual Property, composed of
Mark Greene, Peter Hirtle, and Bill Maher. She said she made the recommendation
because intellectual property issues were complex and required a special expertise.
A working group could make recommendations to Council and draft, for Council
approval, responses or position papers as needed. Council agreed to the working
group and recommended that an intern also serve so that the Society could encourage
new leaders in the field. Stout said he would put a call out on the Archival
Educators listserv to see if any students would be interested in participating.
Greene said he
would be willing to participate, but would no longer be able to also serve on
the Council Archives List Advisory Committee. Stout said he would ask incoming
Council member Danna Bell-Russel if she would be interested in serving in Greene's
place.
NICHOLSON BAKER
RESPONSE
Greene said SAA
needed to have an official response to the publication of Nicholson Baker's
Double Fold. He suggested that SAA endorse Richard Cox's response as
written for Archival Outlook that he thought was well reasoned and articulated.…
Greene moved
that SAA adopt the Cox article as published in the May/June 2001 issue of Archival
Outlook as the official SAA position in response to Nicholson Baker's Double
Fold. Dooley seconded.
After discussion
on the pros and cons of adopting the article wholesale, Adkins offered to distill
Cox's main points for Council endorsement. Harrison moved to table the motion.
Pearce-Moses seconded. PASSED.
OPEN ARCHIVES
INITIATIVE
Connors presented
a communiqué from Peter Carini requesting that SAA take a leadership
position in the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) protocol. The protocol allows
for searching and retrieving of e-print articles from disparate repositories.
Hensen said it
was unclear that the development of the OAI was one that required SAA participation.
If SAA had a standards officer on staff then that individual would monitor this
standard and others. But as a voluntary association, how could and should SAA
be involved?
Stout suggested
that Council refer the OAI to the Standards Committee and ask for their assessment.… Dooley
said she would contact the Standards Committee Chair, Kris Kiesling.
NCC STRATEGIC
PLANNING MEETING
Fox said that
Bruce Craig, Executive Director of NCC, had proposed that NCC hold a strategic
planning meeting of its board during the SAA annual meeting. Fox asked when
would be best to hold such a meeting. Council agreed that Wednesday, August
29, would be best since most committee and board meetings would conclude by
3:00 pm that day, allowing archival leaders the opportunity to participate in
NCC deliberations.
CONGRESSIONAL
PAPERS ROUNDTABLE
Greene reported
that the Congressional Papers Roundtable would hold a half-day forum on Wednesday,
August 29 at the Center for Legislative Archives. The forum would address the
Third Report of the Advisory Committee of the Records of Congress.
OLD BUSINESS
SAA TRADEMARK
RENEWAL
Tousey reported
that the SAA trademark renewal was in the mail. Stout expressed gratitude toward
the Kraft lawyers who helped facilitate the process and said he would write
a letter on behalf of SAA thanking them for their work.
SAA STUDENT SCHOLARSHIP
Harrison presented
a revised proposal for an SAA student scholarship providing funds for a student
to attend SAA annual meetings. He proposed the scholarship be named after Scott
Schwartz's uncle, Donald Peterson, in recognition of the work and contributions
Schwartz made as chair of the Membership Committee and as chief fundraiser for
the scholarship. He said that no funds would be disbursed until the principal
reached a $20,000 endowment.
Harrison moved
and Greene seconded approval of the Donald Peterson Student Scholarship as
amended.… PASSED.
MONDAY, MAY 5
EDUCATION OFFICE
UPDATE
Patti O'Hara
and Solveig DeSutter reported on the spring schedule of 10 workshops and on
the eight pre-conference workshops to be offered in Washington, D.C. They established
the following goals:
- Identify 2-3
new, exclusive SAA workshops by August 2001
- Develop those
workshops for scheduling in 2002
- Identify different
delivery mechanisms for existing workshops and implement at least one by 2002.
- Explore and
develop procedure for education sponsorship
- Develop student
outreach including identifying objectives, developing presentation and schedule
site visits to 50% of student chapters
- Promote and
disseminate student chapter activities via Archival Outlook, listserv,
etc.
- Create new
links in existing database to allow marketing to additional constituencies.
CONFERENCE CALL
WITH LEWIS BELLARDO, DEPUTY ARCHIVIST OF THE U.S. AND LORI LISOWSKI, DIRECTOR
POLICY & COMMUNICATIONS STAFF
Stout thanked
Bellardo and Lisowski for taking the time from their schedule to speak to Council.
He always found the conversation interesting and useful.
Pearce-Moses
said that Council had just participated in Planning Day and emerged with an
enhanced appreciation for the need for input into SAA policy and activities
from other people and other perspectives. Part of the Planning Day discussion
centered on how many NARA archivists did not see membership in SAA as having
benefit. Did Bellardo have any thoughts regarding encouraging more NARA staff
participation in SAA, and what SAA could do to offer more encouragement to NARA
staff to join?
Bellardo said
that while NARA had a large staff, only a small percentage of the staff consisted
of professional archivists. He said he did not have the sense that SAA did not
meet the needs of professional archivists at NARA and that the agency supported
SAA and its activities. He said he would need to think more about how SAA could
encourage more NARA archivists to join the Society.
Stout inquired
about the status of the NARA budget and future appropriations.
Bellardo said
that they were, for the most part, pleased with the budget recommended by the
executive branch. There was a great deal of constituent concern for the NHPRC
budget, but they thought it would likely increase in the congressional budget.
They also emerged from meetings with Congressional staff encouraged by support
for electronic records. The letters sent to Congress by supporters in the field
encouraged them. There appeared to be congressional support for the President's
budget. If so, NARA would have the resources it needed to move forward as an
organization, particularly in light of electronic record challenges. However,
one could never be certain until the process actually concluded.
Hensen said he
would like to follow up on the NHPRC budget. Who cut the budget and why? It
looked like the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) made some miscalculations.
Bellardo said
he didn't know whether that happened or not. If the executive budget had included
as much as $10 million for NHPRC NARA would have been pleased. He heard that
there had been some numerical errors but he did not have firm evidence to corroborate
the charge. He did know that the dollar amounts of proposals submitted to NHPRC
vastly exceeded the proposed $4 million budget.
Connors inquired
about the Federal Information Records Managers council meeting regarding Department
of Defense standard 5015. He did not see a great deal of progress, was NARA
involved with discussions on the standard?
Bellardo said
yes. NARA told DOD that they wanted to work with them on the standard and that
they would be willing to offer some financial support in that direction. The
area they wanted to focus on had to do with metadata requirements. The area
of greatest value for NARA was in terms of records management applications as
well as electronic records archives. He hoped they would be able to have more
to communicate on that in the coming weeks, in terms of how the support would
play out.
Stout asked for
an update on legislation to create a federal Chief Information Officer position.
Bellardo said
there was a new draft of the bill coming out. Sen. Lieberman had also sponsored
a bill, S.803.… The official position of the executive branch had been not
to support a new position outside of the OMB policy structure. The current
bill,
as NARA saw it, raised some concern regarding the authorities of NARA and the
Federal Records Act. NARA's legislative affairs staff was communicating with
Lieberman's staff, who were flexible and open to receiving NARA's input.
They
were also open to learning more about NARA and the agency's concerns. Greater
visibility for information rather than just for records or technology was
a
good thing. The general agreement was that, given all the requirements of the
government Paperwork Reduction Act, a records management layer within the
federal
information management infrastructure was a good thing. OMB said the FY03 budget
call for information would include phraseology addressing electronic records
within the Paperwork Reduction Act and agencies would need to plan for those
requirements. NARA's relationship with OMB was very good; there was a growing
appreciation on the part of OMB for electronic records issues.
Stout said that
there was increasing interest on the part of SAA in global archival affairs.
Where did NARA see the International Council on Archives headed?
Bellardo said
that Carlin would be better able to answer that particular question. NARA had
early concerns that ICA was focusing on organizational structure without focusing
on updating its strategic plan. Meanwhile, ICA had moved forward with its organizational
changes. Much of NARA's focus was country-to-country, or other national archives.
Nonetheless, ICA remained an important professional organization and they would
wait to see how ICA's planning activities unfolded.
Lisowski said
that with Ian Wilson as head of the International Conference of the Round Table
on Archives (CITRA), they expected that organization to flower and become more
integral. There were meetings coming up in the fall that the Archivist would
be attending, along with other NARA staff; there would be more involvement on
that level.
Stout said that
Hensen would be attending the CITRA meeting. Bellardo said he would arrange
for Hensen and Carlin to speak before the meeting.
Stout asked if
Bellardo had any questions for Council. Bellardo inquired about SAA's educational
initiatives and the status of the M.A.S. Guideline revisions. Fox summarized
educational programming. Greene said that CEPD would be giving a formal report
to Council in August. The main changes foreseen were elimination in emphasis
on a separate M.A.S. degree and a re-emphasis on defining the content of archival
coursework to educate archivists in any degree program. The new guidelines would
clarify the importance of technology issues to archival education. Council was
also working with the American Library Association to create a new accrediting
organization for library and information science schools.
Bellardo said
he hoped this information would be conveyed on the SAA website and in the newsletter.
He said that he saw a need for the development of expertise in risk management
methodology, especially in conceptualizing records issues within the context
of the management of information B rather than approaching records issues as
an addition to all other tasks, it was important to view them as integral to
the entire enterprise. NARA would be interested in seeing the guidelines as
they developed.
Bellardo asked
if Council had received any feedback relating to statutory issues or organizational
matters such as NHPRC.
Stout said that
Council would be developing position statements on current issues prominent
in copyright and intellectual property. The statements would develop not so
much in reaction to any specific piece of legislation, but to restate SAA's
position on intellectual property issues and on some of related issues coming
to fore.
Bellardo said
he and Carlin had attended a good meeting of the Library of Congress National
Digital Infrastructure Board. Many of the concerns of that board involved intellectual
property issues. One effort on the part of that group would be to develop an
organization and a plan relating to technology and research focusing on the
area of nongovernmental information. NARA asked to take a lead with federal
government information; the Board would take a lead with other forms of digital
information from which there would be concerns of preservation and access. Carlin
served on the Executive Committee of the Board.
Stout again thanked
Bellardo and Lisowski for taking time to participate in the conference call
and said he was looking forward to seeing them at the annual meeting in Washington,
D.C.
SAA RESPONSE
TO NICHOLSON BAKER'S DOUBLE FOLD
Adkins introduced
a document she prepared which summarized the main points from Cox's article
in response to Nicholson Baker's Double Fold.
Greene moved
and Dooley seconded adoption of ASAA Council's Response to Nicholson Baker's
Double Fold. PASSED as amended.
SAA Council's
Response to Nicholson Baker's Double Fold
In the May/June
2001 issue of Archival Outlook, Richard Cox has provided an excellent
overview of Nicholson Baker's book, Double Fold. Council agrees with
the overall tone of Richard Cox's overview and response, and especially endorses
the following major points:
- Baker's conclusions
are based on a flawed analysis. The fundamental weakness of Baker's argument
is his belief, more implicit than explicit, that everything can and
must be saved in its original state. Archivists know that our responsibility
to society and our employing institutions is to be selective about what is
saved.…
- To keep both
the originals and copies, as Baker suggests, is not possible due to the competing
priorities and limited resources facing every library and archives.
- Baker's conspiratorial
view of the library community's campaign to convey the urgency of preservation
needs to the public, along with the implication that the campaign contained
lies and concealed evidenced of misdeeds, is entirely unfounded.
- Baker appears
to be an individual who loves libraries but does not understand them. He also
does not seem to understand the difference between libraries and archives.
- Although Baker's
analysis is flawed, he does raise a number of points which deserve debate
and a response from the archives and library communities, in particular the
need to:
— re-evaluate the original analyses of the
condition of paper;
— factor in the needs of users and the preservation of our documentary
heritage;
— redefine the education of librarians, archivists and preservation administrators;
— explain that we are in the selecting, not warehousing, business; and
— re-evaluate the costs associated with preservation and reformatting.
Fox then continued
with her Executive Director's report.…
PUBLICATIONS
Fox said she
would present the publications report on behalf of Teresa Brinati, Director
of Publishing, who was unable to attend due to illness.…
The Publications
Board requested Council guidance on whether or not SAA should establish a task
force to develop a new glossary, replacing that published in 1992.
Hensen suggested
placing the glossary online. Fox said that it was one of the Society's best
sellers, in the top 10%. Greene said that there were some excellent glossaries
already online, although he would like to see one available on the SAA web site.
Pearce-Moses requested that the Publications Board submit a process of how it
would propose to re-issue the glossary. He suggested the Publications Board
consider how new terms would be selected for addition and how they would be
defined so that the glossary accurately reflected how terms were actually used
rather than how one person understood the term; the proposal should ensure any
personal bias towards terminology was minimized.
TASK FORCE ON
ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING
Fox proposed
that Council establish a task force on electronic publishing to help the Publications
Board think through the many issues involved with publishing some of the SAA
catalog electronically. Stout supported the idea. He said that he had been saying
for many years the Publications Board needed a marketing study and strategy.
The issue had been latent for some time and a task force such as this was long
overdue. The questions of how organizations and publications manage print vs.
electronic distribution were becoming more complex and interesting all the time.
In addition, there existed more knowledge on which to base business models,
the options were widening.
Council agreed
that the task force should be established. Fox said she would develop a charge
and suggested members for consideration at the August meeting.
MEMBERSHIP DIRECTORY
Fox said that
Brinati had suggested that it was time to migrate the membership directory
out of its paper format into an online membership service. Given the dynamic
nature
of the membership database, placing it online would allow for delivery of more
accurate information and would allow members to update their information
at
will. For those who needed a paper edition, the office would produce one on-demand.…
The sense of
Council was to communicate to membership that the office was going to change
over to electronic publishing, specifically in the last paper edition of the
directory. There was strong concern that a print out of the directory be made
available to those who did not have access to the Internet.
Fox agreed to
investigate the options and to present them at the August meeting.
CEPD SUBCOMMITTEE
MEETING TO REVISE MAS GUIDELINES
Greene reported
on the outcome of the CEPD subcommittee meeting to revise the MAS Guidelines.
The meeting was a successful one. The subcommittee agreed on a detailed outline
of a revised draft and the general substance of the text. The subcommittee was
continuing to work on the language and would submit a final recommendation to
Council for its August meeting.
Rand Jimerson,
chair of the subcommittee, reported in a memo to Council that there would be
three recommended key changes:
- The guidelines
would address graduate archival education programs, not a specific MAS degree;
the goal would be to identify what constituted a strong academic program regardless
of the name of the formal degree offered.
- The three
broad knowledge areas, contextual, archival, and complementary, would be restructured
into two broad areas (with several subheadings) -- core knowledge and complementary
knowledge. This would not eliminate contextual knowledge, but rather incorporate
its components into the other sections.
- The curriculum
requirements would stipulate a minimum number of credits that a graduate archival
education program should include in areas of core knowledge, including practical
experience. In the opinion of the subcommittee, this would represent an improvement
over the MAS guidelines, which state that the archival coursework should be
a certain percentage of coursework required for a degree. The number of credits
required for a master's degree varies so much from one university to another
that stating a minimum number of credits seemed more likely to produce a solid
curriculum in archival education.
Greene said that
the subcommittee also decided to clarify and reduce the number of sections in
the guidelines and that they would address technology issues writ large without
attempting to dictate specific courses. He thought the process was moving along
well and that the range of viewpoints at the table helped to strengthen the
guidelines.
ELECTION OF A
COUNCIL MEMBER TO THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Council elected
by ballot and later by electronic vote Mark Greene to serve as Council representative
to the Executive Committee. The electronic vote took place because it was later
determined that only Council members, not officers, were allowed to vote in
the election. The electronic vote verified Greene's election.
SAA EDUCATION
FUND
After recommendation
from the auditors to do so, Adkins moved and Tousey seconded that Council remove
the phrase Athe principal and earnings of which shall remain unexpended until
together they total $75,000 and thereafter only the earnings may be expended@
from the SAA Education Fund. PASSED.
PROPOSAL TO CREATE
TECHNOLOGY FUND
Adkins presented
a proposal to establish a technology fund to support new technology initiatives
including major system upgrades, development of e-commerce and on-line registration,
and major web site redesigns.… The fund would be established at $50,000 with
$30,000 allocated from the Norton Fund and $20,000 from the Education Fund.…
Any project paid
for from the fund would need to meet the requirement of being a start-up project,
major upgrade, or major redesign. Fund would be periodically transferred from
the Fellows' Fund, once that fund reached a minimum of $15,000, with the balance
of the Fellows' Fund not decreasing below $10,000. Once the Technology Fund
reached a balance of $5,000 or less, Council should consider transferring monies
from other funds, depending on the expected beneficiaries of the technology
initiatives. Any Chicago office expenditure of more than $10,000 or more would
require the approval of Council.
By creating the
Technology Fund, Adkins said, SAA staff would be empowered to develop more technology
initiatives without seeking Council approval for every project. Council would
also be able to track technology expenses and more easily spot trends and areas
of possible concern.
Adkins moved
and Greene seconded establishing a technology fund. PASSED.
ADOPTION OF THE
FY02 BUDGET
Adkins moved
and Kenamore seconded adoption of the FY02 budget. PASSED.
The meeting adjourned
at 12:10 p.m.
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