In April 2019, the Joint Working Group on Issues and Awareness offered the webinar "Archival Advocacy at Home Preparing and Messaging for Visiting District Congressional Offices."
To view this webinar, please click the following link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-qUNEi-K3Vm8SIqAY0XUM3MJ-BRMnkHU/view?usp=sharing
The Technical Subcommittee on Describing Archives: A Content Standard (TS-DACS) recently requested feedback on its proposal to adopt two new single-level minimum required descriptive elements:
· 8.2. Rights Statement for Archival Description
· 13.10. Rights Statement for Archival Authority Records
As noted in the request, these elements were proposed by Alston Coburn (East Carolina University) and Patrick Galligan (Rockefeller Archive Center). They would require archival...
(The following was originally posted on my personal blog, Of Bicycles and Archives.)
This week the Society of American Archivists Annual Meeting is taking place in San Diego. When participants first arrived, a Dole container ship was docked quite nearby and generated a lot of excitement. It’s departure saddened many, but last night’s arrival of the Green Bay Packers at the conference hotel livened things up again. All of this I know from Twitter. Though a member of the Annual Meeting Task...
Heads up for anyone with an interest in video game preservation: The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is seeking an exemption to the Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies (17 USC §1201(a)(1)). The exemption is proposed for users who want to modify “videogames that are no longer supported by the developer, and that require communication with a server,” in order to serve player communities who want to keep maintain the functionality of...
The Solo Archivists Section (SAS) will elect new leadership to fill two positions for the 2025-2026 term - Vice Chair/Chair and Newsletter Editor.
Ballots will be managed by SAA and will be open June 25 - July 16.
Meet the 2025 Candidates:
Vice Chair/Chair Elect
Hilary Swett, Archivist, Writers Guild Foundation
Bio: I am a solo archivist at the Writers Guild Foundation, a non-profit entertainment special collections library and archive in Los Angeles. Like all of us in small shops, I wear many...
The Reference, Access, and Outreach Section (RAO) of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) invites all to join us for the 2023 Annual Meeting and Marketplace of IDEAs on Friday, July 14, 2023 @ 4pm EDT/3pm CDT/2pm MDT/1pm PDT.
Registration: https://societyofamericanarchivists-316.my.webex.com/weblink/register/r71b585693f72fb4cead69ac4c688f207
Proposals to present as part of the Marketplace of IDEAS are still being accepted! Topics focused on the RAO sub-committee areas of Teaching with...
We would like to thank everyone who attended the annual meeting of the Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards this past Tuesday. The presentation slides for the event are now available in the committee’s GitHub repository at https://github.com/SAA-SDT/TS-EAS-subteam-notes/blob/master/TS-EAS-Notes/2025/TS%20EAS%202025-07-22.pdf.
As mentioned, a follow-up community session on the ongoing standards revision process will be held on Thursday, August 14 at 12:30 PM ET. A link to...
Call for nominations for AMI Section leadership 2026-2027!
Submit nominations by Thursday, April 30!
Interested in getting more involved with the Audio & Moving Image (AMI) Section? Nominate yourself or a colleague for a leadership role. Open to all levels, and all areas and fields that intersect with AV.
These volunteer positions help shape section programming, build community, and support education in AMI archives. All roles require monthly meetings, plus occasional section events (e.g...
Visit the PLASC Blog, The Finding Aid, to read a new post about establishing a digitization memory lab at Midwest Genealogy Center at the Mid-Continent Public Library!
The Memory Lab is a tool that democratizes access to the equipment and knowledge needed to archive personal collections at no cost.
Read the full Story: Demystifying DIY Digitization - An inside look at the public library memory lab
Links Below!
New to writing and research? Looking for a writing partner or need inspiration for your next project?
Explore research interests and opportunities with the recently launched Research Matching Spreadsheet. This newly created spreadsheet aims to connect interested writers, researchers, and scholars of all archives activities into one place. Stay tuned for announcements from College & University Archives Section leadership for casual meetups to discuss this new resource.
The Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS) is happy to share the recordings of two webinars held in March 2022 in the context of the ongoing major revision of EAD (Encoded Archival Description). Furthermore, the EAD team of TS-EAS has finalized a minor revision of the EAD3 Tag Library, which the Standards Committee approved before the summer break.
Minor revision of the EAD3 Tag Library
While the major revision is taking up speed, TS-EAS would like to announce the...
Reference, Access and Outreach Section, 2022 Election Ballot
At-Large Steering Committee Nominees (2 positions):
Lauren White, CA
Job Title: Archivist
Institution: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
Bio statement:
Lauren White, CA, is an archivist at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and has previously held positions at the University of Michigan, University of Toledo, and Purdue University. She has a BA in English from the University of Southern Mississippi and an MSI from the...
Would you like to help shape the direction of collection management standards, practices, and tools? We are currently accepting nominations for the following positions:
Vice-chair/Chair-Elect (2 year terms; 1 year as vice chair, 1 year as chair)
Two Steering Committee Members (2 year term)
Web Liaison (2 year term)
For more information about these roles and the section as a whole, please review the Collection Management Section microsite. Time commitment for each position would consist of...
This report examines the encryption that protects meetings in the popular Zoom teleconference app. We find that Zoom has “rolled their own” encryption scheme, which has significant weaknesses. In addition, we identify potential areas of concern in Zoom’s infrastructure, including observing the transmission of meeting encryption keys through China.
Read more here.
The Diverse Sexuality and Gender Section (DSGS) Steering Committee is seeking nominations for four openings. Please consider nominating yourself or a colleague for one of these positions.
The Junior Co-chair or Chair Elect is a two-year term, serving the first year as Junior Chair and the second year as Senior Chair. The Chair-Elect assists the Chair in conducting section business. In the absence of the Chair, the Chair-Elect assumes the duties of Chair. The Chair-Elect becomes the Chair of...
Nominee for Communications Manager (1-year term)
Brenna Edwards, Manager for Digital Archives, Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
Having served in multiple roles on several Society of American Archivists sections, I am interested in the Communications Manager position with the Web Archiving Section steering committee because coordinating communications in a timely manner is the key to having successful events and section health. My knowledge of figuring out the right time...
A recording of the annual meeting of the Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Description (TS-EAS) is now available to the community on SAA’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcl1AzCciZs. The meeting provides an overview of work from the 2023-2024 term, including a review of the Encoded Archival Description (EAD) revision process as well as work on associated standards. Additional updates about these standards revisions are expected in the coming months, and will be...
The Functions Team of the Technical Subcommittee for Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS) has extended its call for comments on the its white paper introducing Encoded Archival Functions (EAF) until October 20th. We invite comments on this draft XML standard for encoding descriptions of functions, which will be used to determine how TS-EAS should move forward in refining the current preliminary version of the XML schema and tag library.
The documentation under review includes:
White paper (...
Meaningful Use of Social Media by Corporate Archivists
Patricia C Franks, PhD, CRM
Associate Professor and Program Coordinator
Master of Archives and Records Administration
School of Library and Information Science
San Jose State University
http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/mara/
In November and December of 2011, a survey was distributed to members of the Business Archives Sector of the Society of American Archivists to understand the extent to which this occurs, the tools that are employed, the...
The Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS) is exploring community implementation and use of archival encoding standards and systems. The purpose of this study is to help TS-EAS better understand the usage of these standards and to guide its outreach and communications program.
Your experience as an archives professional would provide valuable insight. The survey should take approximately 5-10 minutes to complete, and all responses are anonymous and will be kept...
A Talk by Karolina Hedström, Stockholm County Museum, Sweden and Bente Jensen, Aalborg City Archives, Denmark
Wednesday, May 14th 2025, 11am EDT (8am PDT; 4pm BST)
Register for the online event
This talk will present the Connect to Collect, a collaborative network of museums and archives dedicated to collecting and preserving social digital photography. Through the development of the innovative web app Connect to Collect, we aim to explore new methods for gathering and curating this vital form...
The Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards is pleased to release Encoded Archival Context - Corporate bodies, Persons, Families (EAC-CPF) 2.0, a draft updated version of the standard for public review and comment. To ensure the greatest possible input from EAC-CPF users around the world, the subcommittee is calling for comments on the proposed changes to the current version, EAC-CPF 2010. The deadline for comments on the change proposals is June 30, 2021.
The process for a major...
The Crisis, Disaster, and Tragedy Response Working Group (CDTRWG) will hold an open business meeting on Friday, July 23, 2021 from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM (CT) leading up to ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2021.
Join members of the CDTRWG for discussion and updates about current projects and progress. The Working Group will highlight the current resource kit and solicit ideas for expansion, share and solicit suggestions for collaborative activities with other organizations, and announce the August launch of the...
by Dave J. Moore, Heritage & Brand Asset Manager, Carhartt
Hey Midwest business archivists!
We’re excited to announce we’ll be reprising the Business Archives Preconference at this year’s Midwest Archives Conference (MAC) Annual Meeting. We were at capacity last year in Detroit and we hope to do it again! The preconference will take place from May 6 in Des Moines, Iowa. Preliminary information on the MAC Annual Meeting is available here: https://www.midwestarchives.org/2020-annual-meeting....
A recording of the Museum Archives Symposium, co-hosted by the Museum Archives Section and the Yale Center for British Art May 10, 2024, is now available. Timestamps for each session have been added to the program site.
