Council Minutes
August 28, 2001
Washington Hilton & Towers
Washington, DC
President Lee Stout called the meeting to order at 9:00 a.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; incoming
Council members Danna Bell-Russel, David Haury, Megan Sniffin-Marinoff, and
Executive Director Susan Fox.
ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA
Connors moved and Tousey seconded adoption of the agenda. PASSED.
ADOPTION OF THE MINUTES
Pearce-Moses moved and Greene seconded approval of the May 2001 Council meeting.
PASSED.
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Kenamore reported that the Council listserv voted in August to join as signatory
to the Digital Future Coalition letter to the U.S. Trade Representative's Office
commenting on the Draft Treaty for the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT
Stout asked that Council prepare for the visit from Archivist of the United
States John Carlin later that afternoon. These discussions included the current
state of NARA appropriations, NARA's new descriptive system, NARA's relationship
with the International Council on Archives, whether NARA could help increase
membership in SAA both in terms of raw numbers and in terms of leadership,
and background on NARA's developing a means to preserve federal web sites.
REPORT OF THE VICE PRESIDENT
Hensen iterated appointments to date. He noted that the process was an extremely
time intensive one.
REPORT OF THE TREASURER
Adkins presented the final FY01 budget and said that although SAA budgeted
for a $35,000 deficit the Society would end the fiscal year with a net gain
of $5,000. There were two main reasons for the gain, the annual meeting registrations
in Denver were better than expected and publication sales were also higher
than expected. As a result, SAA would be able to make a $5,616 contribution
to the publications revolving fund. Foreign sales especially helped to boost
the final numbers. Education income dropped dramatically during FY01 because
for most of the year no Education Director was in place to manage the program.
However, efforts of the new directors were now paying off, and all workshops
at the annual meeting filled to capacity. Adkins anticipated FY02 education
income would do well. In publications, the fluctuating numbers for American
Archivist subscriptions reflected the need to adjust the association software
to account for multi-year subscriptions, once done the three-year spread would
reflect more stable income. Adkins asked for questions; hearing none she concluded
her report.
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Fox gave an update on the current annual meeting, praising the teamwork in
the Chicago office and saying that she anticipated a highly successful meeting.
Registration numbers were strong, and, unlike prior years, not one preconference
workshop had to be cancelled due to low enrollment.
Fox said that she and the staff would develop action plans to accompany Council's
goals articulated during the spring meeting's planning day and would present
the action plans for review and approval at the winter meeting.
Fox presented a charge drafted by Teresa Brinati to create a Task Force on
Electronic Publishing and requested Council's advice on members. Hensen commended
Brinati on her work in outlining the issues. He said the task force should
also consider consortia means of publishing. Pearce-Moses suggested that an
individual expert in computing be added to the task force membership.
Fox presented a proposed amendment to the listserv guidelines published on
the SAA web site. The revisions involved replacing "executive director" with
"web master," adding language referring to the web master, including language
specifying participation in the Web Liaisons Program, amending the web hosting
language to include the SAA remote server, and changing web master or owner
to Web Liaison. Council agreed to the changes.
Greene moved and Adkins seconded the motion that Council accept the charge
to establish the Task Force on Electronic Publishing. PASSED.
Fox said that given the consistent success of attracting record numbers of
attendees to annual meetings held in Washington, D.C., Council should consider
rotating through Washington at least every four years. The next available date
to select a meeting site was in 2006.
Greene moved and Pearce-Moses seconded the motion to hold the 2006 annual
meeting in Washington, D.C. PASSED.
NEW BUSINESS
EAD Internationalization Efforts
Dooley directed Council's attention to the Report to SAA Council on the EAD
Working Group prepared for the agenda packet. She said the memo provided detailed
information on internationalization efforts on behalf of the proposed standard
in encoded archival description (EAD). The EAD Working Group activities in
this regard were proving very successful. The Working Group counted four non-US
members among its number, which proved extremely helpful in the standard's
development. Pearce-Moses suggested that Dooley consider authoring a "lessons
learned" essay on SAA's EAD internationalization efforts.
Council Participation in SAA Activities.
Hensen said he spoke with Ruth Simmons from the Publications Board. Simmons
said the Publications Board wanted to ask Pearce-Moses to edit a new glossary.
Hensen said he spoke with Fox about the matter, who referred him to the Council
Handbook's policy on Council Participation in SAA Activities. He reiterated
the policy and clarified its intent, which left the ultimate decision regarding
Council participation to the discretion of Council. Therefore, he said he told
Simmons he did not see any problem with Pearce-Moses agreeing to edit the glossary.
In reviewing the policy, Council amended the language to read as follows:
Under a resolution adopted at the January30-February 1, 1987 meeting of Council,
reaffirmed at the June 2-4, 1989 meeting, and amended at the June 11-14, 1992
and August 28, 2001 meetings, elected officers and Council members shall not
serve on other SAA bodies as an officer, chair, or member of steering committees,
boards, task forces; or as editor of the American Archivist, as Publications
Editor; or as an official representative to an outside body (except where this
service is specifically mandated by the SAA constitution and bylaws or where
the SAA Council specifically delegates such service by an officer or Council
member of the Society).
Adkins moved and Harrison seconded the policy as amended. PASSED.
Liaison to Association for Computing in the Humanities
Fox asked Council whether or not Council was amenable to establishing an official
liaison with the Association for Computing in the Humanities (ACH). She said
the organization primarily consisted of English and History faculty who used
computing in their coursework. Sniffin-Marinoff said most ACH presentations
were by archivists, but also included a number of individuals discussing visual
materials.
Council tabled the discussion upon the arrival of Archivist of the U.S. John
Carlin.
Discussion with Archivist of the U.S. John Carlin
Stout welcomed Carlin and Deputy Archivist Lewis Bellardo to the Council meeting.
Carlin gave an update on NARA's budget and appropriations, saying that the
budgetary conference committees would meet September, when he expected an across
the board cut of approximately 3-4%. Hensen inquired about the possibility
of revisiting the imbalance between NHPRC's electronic records funding and
funding for documentary editions. Carlin said the key to resolving the imbalance
would be to secure additional funding for NHPRC in general.
Stout asked about the status of NARA's relationship with the International
Council on Archives. Carlin said that NARA staff participated in ICA committees
and that he envisioned an international role for NARA; especially in light
of NARA's participation in the INTERPARES research project and other international
initiatives.
Stout inquired about the NARA's work with the Library of Congress Advisory
Board on Digital Initiatives. Carlin said that continuing communication between
NARA and the Library of Congress had been established via a joint liaison group,
and that steps to work out closer coordination between the two agencies would
occur in the near future.
Carlin spoke on NARA's efforts to produce federal guidelines for preserving
agency web sites. The guidelines had made it through several discussion drafts,
much more work would be needed, especially to determine what other institutions
and other countries have accomplished in this regard. The first matter to be
determined would be establishing at what level the guidelines should occur,
how high a level of generality such as principles or frequently asked questions
versus a middle level guideline on how to conduct risk assessment and how to
develop a decision tree.
Carlin said he appreciated the opportunity to meet with Council on a regular
basis and found the discussions valuable. Stout thanked Carlin and Bellardo
for their time and for their willingness to keep an open dialogue with the
Society.
Discussion with Bruce Craig, Executive Director of the National Coordinating
Committee for the Promotion of History
Stout welcomed Craig, who thanked Council for the opportunity to meet and
said he had also had successful meetings with the boards of the Midwest Archives
Conference and the Mid Atlantic Regional Archives Conference.
He discussed the current status of congressional affairs in the archives and
history fields, including funding for NARA and NHPRC, the Official Secrets
Act hearing scheduled by the Senate Intelligence Committee, State Department
Access to Kissinger Transcripts, the Supreme Court ruling in the Tasini Case
(7 to 2 in favor of freelance authors and artists, who had petitioned for the
right to control electronic reproduction of articles), and he gave an update
on the pending release of Reagan papers.
At the conclusion of his report he said he would be holding a strategic planning
meeting of NCC at the Washington Hilton during SAA's annual meeting in order
to make it accessible to the archival community and to receive archival input
into the strategic planning process.
Stout thanked Craig for taking the time to meet with Council and for bringing
them up to date on NCC plans and activities.
OLD BUSINESS
Dooley said she would defer her discussion of SAA student benefits for the
winter 2002 Council meeting.
Harrison reported that Scott Schwartz would be conducting a fundraising raffle
at the annual meeting to help raise funds for the Donald Peterson Student Scholarship.
Harrison commended Schwartz's drive and enthusiasm and said he expected him
to generate much interest and positive response from membership.
The meeting adjourned at 5:10 p.m.
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