Erin O'Meara, Candidate for Nominating Committee

Professional Experience: Archivist, Gates Archive, 2012–present. Electronic Records Archivist, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2009–2011. University Records Manager, Electronic Records Archivist, University of Oregon, 2005–2009. Records Management Analyst, Oregon State Archives, 2004–2005.

Education: MAS (Master of Archival Studies), University of British Columbia, 2004. BA, Anthropology, University of Arizona, 2001.

Professional Activities: Society of American Archivists (SAA): Oliver Wendell Holmes Travel Award, Awards Committee, 2005–2008; Chair, 2007. Electronic Recods Section, Chair 2009; Steering Committee, 2008–2012. Privacy and Confidentiality Roundtable Steering Committee, 2012–present. Developer/instructor DAS course on Inreach/Outreach, 2012–2013. Developer/Co–coordinator, CURATEcamp preconference SAA 2012 Annual Meeting. Program Committee, 2013 Annual Meeting. SAA Mentor, 2006–2009. International Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects (iPRES): Program Committee, 2014 meeting. Personal Digital Archiving Conference: Program Committee, 2014 meeting. Grant reviewer: NHPRC. Advisory/review work: BitCurator Professional Experts Panel, 2011–present. External reviewer for Born Digital: Guidance for Donors, Dealers, and Archival Repositories, CLIR pub 159, 2013. External reviewer for Demystifying Born Digital Reports. 2012–2013. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Research.

Publications: “Developing a Recordkeeping Framework for Social Scientists Conducting Data–Intensive Research.” Campus Case Studies, Case 5. Society of American Archivists e-publication, 2008. “Perfecting the New Wave of Collecting: Documenting Feminist Activism in the Digital Age," in Make your own history: documenting feminist and queer activism in the 21st century, ed. Lyz Bly and Kelly Wooten. Los Angeles, CA: Litwin Books, 2012. Erin O’Meara and Meg Tuomala, “Finding Balance Between Archival Principles and Real-Life Practices in an Institutional Repository,” Archivaria 73 (2012): 81–103.

Awards: International Council of Archives Programme Commission (ICA): ICA-PCOM grantee, 2011. NHPRC Electronic Records Research Fellowship, 2006–2007.

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Question posed by Nominating Committee: Define your vision of diverse leadership for SAA and describe how you would select candidates to make this vision a reality.

Diverse leadership in action includes a team that has diverse opinions, experiences, perspectives, and organizational affiliations. The team should accurately reflect the diversity within SAA’s membership. Effective leaders can leverage relationships with individuals across divergent areas to identify changes in how members value SAA, and how they fulfill professional needs by utilizing the structure and network within SAA. Selecting candidates isn’t just about choosing an individual, but a team that represents the membership, effectively reaches out for the current pulse on topics, and defines an informed and strategic way-forward. Effectiveness is another quality I would look for in our potential candidates. Will candidates follow through with their responsibilities and commit to their original charge?

I would work to identify and select potential candidates through multiple avenues. First, reach out through more traditional channels—to individual contacts, as well as section and roundtable leaders to identify any potential nominees. But I would also go through non-traditional routes like Twitter and other externally relevant groups like CURATEcamp attendees, NDSA affilates, DLF members, and regional associations. It is important to find out what has worked and what hasn’t worked in previous years from membership and leadership. With a transparent and inclusive nomination process, we can represent SAA members and work toward the goals outlined in the 2013–2018 Strategic Plan.