DRAFT Strategic Plan (2013-2018)

My deepest thanks go to the author for their exceptional writing style, which seamlessly weaves together engaging narratives, insightful analysis, and compelling arguments, resulting in Drift Boss an immersive and enlightening reading experience.

There is a lot to like in this draft, but my overall impression is, “yes, and…”, encouraging this document to push further for a larger, bolder vision.  I am heartened by the prominent place advocacy holds in the strategic plan, but nowhere is there call for improving labor conditions and employment outlook for archivists today and in the future.  Similarly, I am pleased that the plan tackles a changing technological environment, but the steps laid out are far too tentative to reposition our society to best leverage that technology in a five year timeline.  Challenge the membership to conceive and implement innovations which will truly keep pace with technology, and hold them to firm commitments not endless plans for further planning. Likewise I feel embolden to continue to work with the rest of the membership to achieve what the strategic plan calls “a culture of creativity and experimentation across the association.” As a society, this frees us to conceive of new ideas, and try out solutions which may or may not pan out.  It encourages the diverse membership to bring its unique expertise to the table and collaborate in new ways to lead SAA into the future.  This approach to leadership will insure that our society will be increasingly agile, and our membership increasingly engaged. As for diversity, I feel comfortable with the document articulating its commitment across all of the other priorities rather than as a singular objective. However in so doing, the concept of diversity, widely conceived, must be clearly voiced as an integral part of each goal.  Stronger language towards this commitment would help alleviate concern across the membership that our dedication to diversity in our field has been in anyway diminished.

Thank you to everyone who has been involved in crafting this draft strategic plan to this point, and thank you for the opportunity to provide my input.

Jeremy Floyd

SAA Leaders and Staff,

Thank you for your work on the strategic plan and for the opportunity to comment.

Vision statement: “The Society of American Archivists challenges archivists….”  That word choice suggests an adversarial or confrontational relationship between SAA and archivists.  Better word choices might be “enables” or “inspires.”  Also, the vision statement neglects the context in which archivists work.  Professional excellence alone cannot ensure that documents will be preserved and used.   The stakeholders in and funders of archival programs must be convinced that our professional excellence is worth paying for.  Does advocacy therefore belong in the vision statement?

Like many others, I am concerned about the relative reduction of the position of diversity in this strategic plan.  Without building the diversity of our profession and of the records collected, preserved, and shared with the public, archives will grow increasingly irrelevant to an American public that cannot find its history within our collections.

I am very pleased to see strategy 3.3 and the priority given to developing relationships of mutual benefit across related professions. 

I am ambivalent about goal 4, and it strikes me as sad that this is a goal and not a given.  I’d much prefer to see a goal directed toward diversity than a goal pertaining to the ability of SAA staff and leadership to meet the expectations of its membership.  Is the strategic plan the best place to address the disconnect between SAA staff and leadership and the SAA members?  The communication and technology infrastructure issues might be better placed under Goal 2 (because we need those things to grow professionally and as a profession!).  Issues pertaining to the culture of SAA and its leadership could then be handled outside of the strategic plan.  

Again, I appreciate your work and this forum to provide feedback.

Colleen McFarland

Just a quick note to say THANK YOU to everybody who has weighed in so far and to encourage our other 6000 (!) members to do the same. I also want to let you know that, while I and other members of Council are likely to weigh in situationally on some comments, we won't be responding to all of them individually. We are, however, watching and listening closely.

Jackie Dooley

I think the order of the goals seem appropriate to shaping what SAA should be and should do. Though some members want SAA to focus on the needs of individuals, but I really think SAA can serve us better by promoting the field and providing all of us with chances to participate in continuing education. Fostering the growth of the field, and working to help us all gain more respect from society as a whole, will do far more to expand our pool of archivists (and therefore the diversity of the field) than singular missions.  Continuing education is also important (I include the journal and magazine in this), and providing workshops and more scholarships for these workshops will go a long way towards making sure archivists and records managers from a variety of organizations can continue to improve themselves, and by extension their organization and our field.

I think someone also mentioned in another comment that much of the education outreach and most of the scholarships focus solely on graduate level students, and that this should change. I agree with this - raising awareness about archives/RM as a career at the undergraduate level could go a long way towards infusing the profession with some new blood.

Regarding the vision statement, can we get "identification" as a key activity of archivists? Such as:

The Society of American Archivists challenges archivists to achieve professional excellence to ensure the identification, preservation and use of archival records of enduring value.

The vision statement as it currently reads renders archivists passive recipients of records, rather than individuals ideally (especially in a digital environment) involved with the record before it is even created.

Regarding Goal 1, I wish to recommend the following change (or something like it): 

Educate and influence decision makers about the importance of archives and archives professionals in the success of their organizations and constituencies. [1.2]

It's easy to set up an office (or a hard drive) and deem it The Archives. It's something else entirely to permanently staff an administrative unit with full-time employees who are competent and able to create and then carry out sound policy. With the identification of the archives professionals, SAA would be advocating directly for its constituents. I believe this addition responds to the concerns many new and not so new archivists have about their increasing vulnerability as a result of contigent labor practices.

Regarding Goal 4, I wish to recommend that the concept of inclusivity be integrated into this goal. This would extend to students and new professionals as well as lone arrangers, allied professionals with archives-related responsibilities, and others who do not believe their participation within the organization is recognized as fully as others. It sort of addresses the concern for diversity, but probably isn't direct enough. Diversity may deserve its own statement, either here under Goal 4, but possibly under Goal 3. Or both.

SAA is an agile association that delivers outstanding service and fosters a culture of inclusivity and participation.

Create opportunities for all members to participate fully in the association. [4.3]

Thank you for offering the opportunity to provide recommendations. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any follow up questions or comments. 

Overall, general concerns: To me there are three aspects of the strategic plan that I hope will receive significantly more attention in future revisions: diversity, employment issues, and graduate-level archival education. As discussed on Twitter and other avenues, many of these issues are linked. I'm very concerned that diversity has not received more attention in this draft (especially when it is part of the revised mission statement), and that employment issues and graduate-level education are conspicuously absent from this draft. Many employment issues are experienced acutely by new archives professionals. Those that immediately come to mind are what I see as the adjuntification of the profession (i.e. the rise of project archivist and temporary positions dependent on grant cycles), the number of archivists with professional credentials stuck in paraprofessional positions, and the woeful number of unemployed archivists. Just under a quarter of SAA's membership is composed of student members (http://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/0812-1-III-C-Students.pdf). It would behoove SAA to more actively address the issues of diversity, employment concerns, and graduate education, given that students are a large constituency.

1.2.2.: In addition to working with other archival organizations (and, I hope, library organizations like ALA), I would like to see SAA make partnerships with other allied organizations that may have a higher public profile – for example, the Wikimedia Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, etc. I would also like to see whether allied archival organizations might consider joining forces with an existing related-PAC (such as EveryLibrary http://everylibrary.org/announcing-everylibrary-a-new-pac-for-libraries/) or consider forming their own.

1.3.1.: I wholeheartedly support some sort of hands-on training for would-be archival advocates. Although I appreciate briefs and talking points, having the training to use these effectively would be excellent. I do suggest expanding the capacity for this free workshop – creating a cost barrier could shut out those who may benefit the most from learning effective advocacy

1.4.: Most of the strategies listed for enriching the diversity of the archival profession concern the Mosaic Scholarship. I would like to encourage Council to think big here - the Mosaic Scholarship is excellent, but it currently only applies to grad students and even at expanded funding levels, would still only support a small number of individuals. Council has an ethical and moral obligation to find multiple avenues to enrich the diversity of the profession, and I am concerned that the current recommendations do not prioritize this fundamental value.

2.1.: One of my ongoing concerns regarding continuous ed (especially with the DAS workshops) and training is that the model is one-time only workshops, and there aren't many tools available to continue honing what you learned after the workshop. This is not the most effective method of learning. In addition, for those working in shops (or un/der-employed) where they may not be able to implement what they've learned right away on the job, the value of workshops is reduced. I would like to see SAA implement some kind of voluntary hands-on learning lab where workshop participants can continue trying out what they've learned in an online environment. For example, I've taken workshops that demonstrate aspects of DSpace, but my institution does not currently use DSpace. I would love some kind of participatory space online where I have access to the tools taught in workshops, and could participate in some sort of cohort to "do cool stuff." I also think this would address what I view as an emerging skills gap in our profession - we're all taking these workshops, but a lot of us face institutional barriers to implementing what we've learned in our jobs (or anywhere, for those who are unemployed or underemployed). I would like to see SAA develop some kind of space complementary to the DAS program where those of us who don't have jobs specifying these skills can practice using a variety of tools. Perhaps models could be based on Codecademy or the Simmons Digital Curriculum Laboratory (http://calliope.simmons.edu/dcl/public/home)

2.1.1.: This tactic mentions finding ways to deliver educational content that is affordable. I would suggest serious consideration of a pricing plan that has workshop discounts for student members. Currently there is a flat member/no-member rate for workshop registrants. I'm aware that workshops sometimes barely break even, so if costs are a concern, perhaps there could be a cap on the number of reduced-rate student registrations, or allow discounted student registration rates once a certain number of full-freight registrations have been reached. 

2.3.2: Specific activities suggest "Develop an online guide for young people who are interested in a career in archives." and "online guide for young archivists on possible career path" - I would suggest rethinking the use of "young archivists" as it conflates age with career trajectory. I would prefer the usage of "new archivists" (as in the usage of the SNAP roundtable). "Young archivists" can be exclusionary for people who make a mid-life career change. 

3.3.2.: I would like clarification on how ALA/SAA/AAM Joint Committee on Archives, Libraries, and Museums (CALM) figures into the suggested possible activities

Goal 4: I applaud these tactics as they are in line (and expand on) with the current draft recommendations from the SAA Communications Task Force

Echoing Mark's comments, I'd like to see more of a commitment to agitating to hire a more diverse workforce. Some action plans would be to determine how diverse the profession is according to a number of factors (gender, race, sexuality, etc.) in order to establish a ratiional baseline, raising more money for professional development for these underrepresented groups, and bothering ILS schools about accepting a diverse student body.  I'm particularly interested to see how these characteristics translate to leadership positions, as anecodtally I find the profession to be pretty diverse related to entry-level positions, but I'm curious to see how diverse it is for those who call the shots.

Excellent effort otherwise, though. I know it's tough to reach consensus on these matters.

First, thanks to the committee for all their work on this. We all know how arduous strategic planning work can be, so I think they deserve a round of applause for having done this so quickly.

Perhaps this is implied in some of the sections, but I feel as though students and universities have gotten a bit of short shrift here. While the document talks about professional development and continuing education, is there also an effort to help MLIS programs with archives concentrations develop more robust and cutting edge curricula? Not necessarily rising to the level of accreditation, which I understand has been rejected in the past, but at least some sort of collaborative effort to ensure that graduates are ready for the workplace. Point being, it's difficult to talk about the future of the organization without addressing those who are preparing to enter the profession.

I would add to the discussion about diversity that this is an issue that comes up in every field that archives intersect with. As such, I would argue that any diversity efforts should be born from collaboration with organizations such as ALA and AHA. If we want to make these ideas stick, it will help to all be on the same page.

I am rather astonished that diversity has not only dropped from a major goal to a sub-effort, but seems to have been grossly misplaced as well--misplaced to the extent that it is likely to suffer from neglect. Diversity of membership is not a matter of advocating for archives but of either advancing the field (by making its practitioners as diverse as the material they seek to acquire) or meeting members needs (I would argue we need (whether we know it or not) diverse colleagues to fully realize ourselves as professionals.  In addition, somewhere between advocating for archives (articulating value) and advancing the field (particularly collaboration) comes something different and difficult to capture.  It is the arena of ideas and actions which archivists promote not for self-aggrandizement and not necessarily in collaboration, but for the good of society--regardless of whether society fully realizes that its benefactors are archivists.  Intellectual property is one illlustration of this arena, so is advocating for openness in government.  These are issues where it does not (should not) matter that we get credit as archivists--our efforts are not truly selfless, in that what we support assists archivists as well as society, but it is more important that good orphan works legislation is passed than that the archivists' role in such legislation be widely known.  Finally, at least for now, what happened to "the stuff"?  There seems to be nothing about improving and expanding the historical record we acquire, preserve, organize, and make accessible to users.  How did THAT disappear from the radar screen?  Thank you for considering these comments.  --Mark