Meeting Minutes: August 3, 2016, Atlanta, GA

Women’s Collections Roundtable

Society of American Archivists Annual Meeting – Atlanta, GA

August 3, 2016

Hilton Atlanta, Salon B, 6-7:30 pm

http://sched.co/6nkN

MEETING MINUTES

Officers:

Rachel Appel, Bryn Mawr College | Co-Chair (absent)

Rachel Grove Rohrbaugh, Elizabethtown College | Co-Chair

Jenny Gotwals, Schlesinger Library | Vice Co-Chair

Holly Smith, Spelman College | Vice Co-Chair

Rosemary Davis, Amherst College | Incoming Vice Co-Chair (absent)

Chloe Raub, Tulane University | Incoming Vice Co-Chair (absent)

Welcome and Introduction

Introductions of co-chairs, introduction of attendees

**The following attendees signed in, but additional attendees were noted.**

Council Update from WCRT Liaison, Lisa Magnifico

Newly elected council member Erin Lawrimore will be the roundtable’s new liaison at the conclusion of the annual meeting. 

August 1, 2016 Council Meeting:

**Notes taken from Magnifico’s post to the WCRT listserv**

1.  Approved recommendations from the Council’s Working Group on Member Affinity Groups (find the agenda item at: http://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/0816-1-III-A-MembAffGroups.pdf) that the SAA staff, with oversight from the Council Working Group on Member Affinity Group, prepare and implement a work plan to transition SAA sections and roundtables to the new structure as quickly as practicable, with presentation of an initial plan to the Council in November 2016 and updates at least every other month. Based on significant member feedback, the highlights of the changes are:

·       Eliminate the distinction between sections and roundtables.

·       SAA members my join as many groups as they choose.

·       Nonmembers may be list participants on up to three discussion lists.

·       All groups will be required to:

o   Have standardized bylaws.

o   Submit information about the group’s annual meeting by March 1.

o   Conduct an online election annually, with submission of a slate by June 1.

o   Submit an annual report and complete leader roster by September 1.

o   Respond to Council requests for research, advice, and expert comments.

·       New groups may be formed as they are now, with submission of a petition signed by 100 SAA members.

·       Groups may be discontinued if they don’t meet one or more of the requirements. This will happen only following significant discussion with the groups’ leaders.

·       Staff will continue to investigate software options to support more robust online communities.

Yet to be decided as we move through this process is what the affinity groups will be called (sections, affinity group, etc.)

2.  Approved an Information Brief on Archives and the Environment.

3.  Heard an update on the work of the Working Group on Diversity and Inclusion (see page 43 in print Onsite Program) and approved a revision of the SAA Statement on Diversity and Inclusion to include “Inclusion.”

4.  Appointed Mark Matienzo to conduct an environmental scan—working with representatives to be identified by the Standards Committee, Electronic Records Section, Metadata and Digital Object Roundtable, EAS Roundtable, and Web Archiving Roundtable—and provide observations regarding SAA’s current approach to addressing metadata and digital practice.

Special Program: Documenting Diverse Women

There are numerous collections in Georgia that highlight the experiences of women across race, class, sexual orientation, and neighborhood. A panel of speakers discussed archival collections across different repositories as well as various outreach and advocacy efforts aimed at increasing awareness of these resources.

Jill Anderson

Jill Anderson is the History, African-American Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Librarian at Georgia State University. She holds a PhD in US History from Rutgers University with a minor in Women’s and Gender History, and an MSIS from the University of Texas at Austin, where she also held a two-year Public Services internship at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. She has published on girls’ intellectual history and has also co-authored an article (with Jason Puckett) on collaborative instruction, “Crossing Disciplines, Creating Space: Using Drop-In Research Labs to Support an Interdisciplinary Research-Intensive Capstone Course” (in Practical Academic Librarianship). She is currently teaching an Honors College freshman seminar at GSU titled “’Going Steady?’: Documenting the History of Dating, 1940-1990,” which emphasizes primary-source searching and interpretive skills.

Morna Gerrard

Morna was educated at Edinburgh University, Western Washington University, and Clark Atlanta University, and she has worked as an archivist at the National Archives of Scotland and Georgia State University. She has written two articles that were published in Archival Issues: “Putting the Georgia Women’s Movement Oral History Project on the Web: A Case Study in Collaboration and Innovation,” and “Engaging Communities: Public Programming in State Universities’ Special Collections and Archives,” (co-written with Kevin Fleming).  She has also written a chapter, “No Fame Required: Collaboration, Community, and the Georgia LGBTQ Archives Project, which was included in Kate Theimer’s recent “Innovative Practices for Archives and Special Collections” book about acquisitions and appraisal. Morna serves as vice president of the Georgia LGBTQ Archives Project, and is a board member for the LGBT Institute, housed at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. She is also a past president of the Society of Georgia Archivists, and has served on the board of the Georgia Archives Institute since 2006.

Alex McGee

Alex McGee is the Assistant Archivist for the Portman Archives in Atlanta, GA. In her position, Alex assists in the cataloguing, processing, and digitization of Portman’s archival image collections. In 2016, Alex initiated an oral history project, where she and the Portman Archives are collecting the stories of those who have known and worked with the world renowned architect, John Portman, over his 60 year career.

An Atlanta native, Alex attended the University of Georgia earning her BA in History and Women’s Studies. In 2015, she completed her MA in History with a certificate in Public History at Georgia State University. While a graduate student, Alex served as the Our Mother’s Fund endowed graduate research assistant in Special Collections and Archives at Georgia State University under the direction of Morna Gerrard. In her positon, she curated exhibits on topics ranging from the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade to the history of women-led organizations in Atlanta that utilized the materials from Georgia State’s Archives for Research on Women and Gender. In addition, she was named the 2015 Ethel Woodruff Draper Research Fellow for her master’s thesis, “The Politics of Protection: The Forgotten History of Georgia Feminists and Doe v. Bolton,” supervised by Dr. Wendy Venet.

Call for general announcements and adjournment