MINUTES OF 2004 ANNUAL MEETING

SAA Records Management Roundtable

Report from annual meeting:
Number of attendees: 28

August 2004 Meeting:

We met at 8:00-9:30 0n August 7th in Boston, MA. Chad Owen was elected Vice Chair for 2004-2006. We had a short business meeting and introduced our new SAA Council liaison, Mark Duffy. Matt Veatch, from the SAA 2005 Program Committee encouraged members to submit proposals for New Orleans. Acting in the absence of Elizabeth Fairfax, I reported on the meeting of the SAA/ARMA Joint Committee, held on August 5th in Boston, as well as urging attendees to take advantage of SAA and ARMA resources available for members of these organizations.

Sarah Demb, Project Manager for the International Records Management Trust and Tom Converse, Chief of the Records Management Section of the Inter-American Bank presented the program “A Records Management Capacity Tool for Use by Developing Nations.” Sarah was the presenter and demonstrated a tool that can assess records management and archival programs using a self-assessment program. The presentation used streaming video to illustrate how record keeping impacts the lives of people in developing nations, as well as interactive methods of assessing an organization’s capacity levels for records management. The World Bank is sponsoring the product. Tom served as commentator and pointed out that the tool could have impact on future lending initiatives because recipients must prove that record keeping standards are in place at the institution receiving funds.. The program was very well received and generated a robust question and answer session.

The Roundtable was asked to endorse a proposal “Memory vs. Evidence: Balancing the needs of current electronic records management with long-term historical needs of our institutions.” The Roundtable gave enthusiastic support to this proposal.

Completed projects/activities: Chad Owen, the Vice Chair of the Roundtable provided comment to SAA on the proposed NARA rule changes concerning facilities used for storing non-permanent records.

Ongoing projects/activities:

Continue working with the SAA/ARMA Joint Committee on initiatives of interest to both organizations.

The Joint Committee also strongly endorsed encouraging Roundtable members to submit proposals for the 2005 SAA Annual Meeting.

New projects/activities:

The ARMA/SAA Joint Committee discussed the idea of producing a brochure on core collections that Records Managers should collect from their organizations. members (Sarah Polirer and Margaret Merrick) volunteered to explore this project.

Margaret Merrick, Chair