Meeting
Minutes
September 1, 2000
The meeting began shortly after 8:00 am. Cheryl Stadel-Bevans, Section Chair, welcomed everyone to the section meeting. She then turned the podium over to a member of the 2001 Program Committee, who requested that section members consider submitting proposals for the program for next year. Stadel-Bevans added her support to the request, informing members that the section had endorsed three proposals for this year¬s meeting and explaining the endorsement process.
Fynnette Eaton, out-going SAA Council Liaison to the ERS, then spoke. She urged members to participate in some upcoming initiatives, particularly the Online Archival Continuing Education Project conducted by SAA with funding from the NHPRC.
Then Thomas Battle, incoming SAA Council Liaison to the ERS, introduced himself. He stated that he looked forward to working with the ERS over the next year. The section should contact him if there is anything that we want him to bring before Council on our behalf.
Stadel-Bevans distributed ballots and introduced the three candidates for the open positions on the ERS steering committee. At the end of the meeting, current steering committee members Jean Deken and Joe Laframboise tallied the vote and determined that Cal Lee had been elected vice-chair/chair-elect and that Steve Hussman and Nancy Deromedi had been elected as members of the steering committee.
Stadel-Bevans then described several opportunities for participation by section members. Nan Kunde is leading a joint SAA/ARMA standards committee for electronic records and would like involvement from the section. Later in the meeting, Kunde explained the project further, stating that the committee was focusing on automation efforts. It was also brought to her attention that perhaps they could consider the problem of the lack of integration between archives and records management software. Terry Baxter, David Read, Steve Hussman, Cal Lee, Susan Sallaway, Phil Bantin, and Pat Michaelis volunteered to assist in this effort.
Next, Stadel-Bevans pointed out that one of the roles of the ERS is to provide education to SAA members regarding electronic records issues. She mentioned that she has responded to several informal inquiries from SAA members over the past year. She also mentioned the opportunity for more formal involvement, from the project Eaton mentioned and other continuing education projects to providing archival educators with information for training new archivists. One of the projects the ERS has is to review the CART curriculum to determine whether it remains relevant. Anne Marie Phillips (who was unable to attend the meeting) offered to lead a team to review our education concerns. Pat Galloway and Cal Lee agreed to assist in this effort.
In the final items of business on the agenda, Stadel-Bevans asked members to submit news and other items of interest to the newsletter editor, Chuck Thomas, and relayed a message from Joyce Ray of the IMLS that archivists are eligible to apply for the IMLS grants.
Stadel-Bevans then opened the floor for new business. After a few general questions, Phil Bantin proposed that, instead of moving forward to the planned discussion groups, the section proceed with a discussion of what the function of the section should be and what issues we as a section should be addressing. He suggested that we conduct a business process analysis for the section.
It was proposed that we as a section develop mechanisms for sharing information. Suggestions included bibliographies, listserves, resources directories for electronic records, information portals, and white papers on projects. It was decided that a membership survey should be developed to address many of these issues and could include information on members, information needs of members, and resources available to us. The goal was to develop a means for determining who was doing what, who was an "expert" on what, who could be contacted in an e.r. emergency; it was to be a place for networking with other colleagues.
Nancy Deromedi and David Read agreed to develop the membership survey. Rosemary Pleva Flynn and Jill Tatem volunteered to work on an e-bibliography of sources and to look into finding alternative means for section members to communicate with each other. Another group volunteered to investigate information portals, particularly for college and university archivists. This group agreed to develop a proposal for case studies of websites. This group included Nancy Deromedi, David Wallace, Rosemary Pleva Flynn, Betsy Pittman, Jean Deken, and Lynne Tibbitt.
The issue of recordkeeping systems also arose. There is great interest in some of these electronic document management systems such as TRIM and particular concern for the lack of archival functionality in these systems. Nancy Kunde, Phil Bantin, and Albin Wagner volunteered to explore this.
Concerns about new legislation were also brought up. There is a lot of new legislation that effects electronic records and the members expressed an interest in learning more about the impact it will have on them. UCITA, UETA, and e-signatures acts were specifically mentioned. Susan Sallaway and Cal Lee offered to create a means for addressing this topic before next year¬s meeting.
At the end of the meeting, 5 issues were listed as being of concern to the membership. These were:
- legislative and legal concerns
- education of archivists (both continuing education and education for new archivists)
- bibliographies and other means for sharing information
- software integration
- metadata specifications
Because so many work groups and task forces had been suggested, Stadel-Bevans offered to contact SAA for an additional time slot at the 2001 meeting. This has since been granted for Wednesday afternoon of the meeting.
The meeting ended at 9:30 am.
* I would especially like to thank those members of the Section who volunteered and prepared to lead discussion groups that, unfortunately, we did not get to. They were Phil Bantin, Nancy Deromedi, Cal Lee, Pat Michaelis, and Lynne Tibbitt.
Minutes submitted by Cheryl Stadel-Bevans, Chair, Electronic Records Section.
Page last updated: 2002-01-05
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