This is a spring 2026 update from the SAA Section Health Working Group.
As you may recall, our group is charged with envisioning a new model for Sections. We are charged through fall 2026 and are preparing now to deliver our final report and recommendations to the SAA Council.
As part of our envisionment work, we reviewed the full spring 2023 section health survey responses, and conducted focus groups this past spring. These focus groups -- of which there were four -- included 28 member and non...
Help Update the Labor Archives in the United States and Canada: A Directory...Again
By Conor Casey, LAR Co-Chair
The Labor Archives in the United States and Canada: A Directory is an important topical listing of labor and labor-related collections that is valuable to both labor archivists and to scholars and researchers. Initial work on the directory was done in the early 1990s by the Wagner Labor Archives in New York City. A survey then conducted identified "archivists, librarians, and labor...
Please join us on Friday, June 26, 2026, at 10am EDT with Sandy Wang and Jamie Lee, archivists at the National Archives of Singapore, for the third Archival Landscapes seminar of the year.
Advance registration for this seminar is now available: click here.
We look forward to seeing you there!
The SAA Oral History Section invites you to join us Friday, March 7, 2025, at 1-2 pm EST for a community chat with oral and public historian Yolanda Hester and oral history archivist Kopana Terry on producing and managing oral history transcripts.
"Preserving Voices: A Community Conversation on the Oral History Transcript Lifecycle from Creation to Preservation"
Date: March 7, 2025
Time: 1-2pm EST / 10-11am PST
Speakers:
Yolanda Hester is an independent public historian. She is Project...
Thank you to everyone who shared and participated in the 2023 Accessibility & Disability Section election call for candidates! We appreciate all of the nominations that we received. The names and statements of the candidates standing in the election are posted below. Please take a moment to review them.
Section members will be voting for:
3 Steering Committee members (three-year terms)
1 Early-career member (one-year term)
Ballots will be sent by SAA through Survey Monkey — keep an eye on...
2012 Annual Meeting Information
Please vote in the 2023 election for the SAA ARCS Steering Committee. The ballot is now available at this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FPGNYPY.
The "View Ballot" link will direct users to the usual SurveyMonkey election ballot. Users must be logged in to access the page. Once they submit one ballot, users will be redirected back to the main page to complete their next ballot.
The election closes on July 17, 2023.
Congratulations to the new elected members of the DSGS Steering Committee:
-Junior Co-chair / Elected Senior Co-chair: Ron Martin-Dent
-Programming Coordinator: Gideon McDaniel
-Member-at-large: Elizabeth Nichols
Therefore, the composition of the Steering Committee is as follows:
-Senior Co-chair: A.R. Flynn
-Junior Co-chair / Elected Senior Co-chair: Ron Martin-Dent
-Past Senior Co-chair: Jordi Padilla-Delgado
-Social Media and Web Liaison: Kate Burns
-Programming Coordinator: Gideon McDaniel...
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...
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...
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...
If you missed the SAA Solo Archivists Section (SAS) annual section meeting on July 22, or just want to rewatch the announcements or Allison Bundy's interesting and informative deep dive into implementing ArchivEra at her repository, the recording is now available!
If you're only interested in Allison's presentation, it begins (after a short introduction by SAS incoming chair Hilary Swett) at about the 23-minute mark.
A reminder of the content of her talk:
Allison's case study covers the reasons...
Karen Trivette, PhD recruiter of Archival Science Faculty and Students at Alma Mater Europaea University-European Center Maribor, Slovenia, will be inducted as a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) during an awards ceremony at the Annual Meeting of SAA in Anaheim, CA. The distinction of Fellow is the highest honor bestowed on individuals by SAA and is awarded for outstanding contributions to the archives profession.
Specifically related to the International Archival Affairs...
The Reference, Access, & Outreach (RAO) Section of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) is seeking nominees for election to the following positions:
(2) Steering Committee Member-at-Large - two year commitment (1) Vice-chair/Chair-elect - three year commitment
All positions begin at the 2024 Annual Meeting. Nominations can be made via the Google Form link below by May 30, 2024 Extended Deadline for Elected Positions: June 7, 2024. For more information and details on roles and...
The Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS) wishes you all a happy new year and hopes you have had a good start into 2022!
Tapping into the spirit of new starts, we would like to pick up on the call for comments to improve the Encoded Archival Description (EAD) that we initiated at the end of last year. TS-EAS wants to hear from you in more detail what you are missing in the current version of EAD and what you would like to see in a future version of the standard. We...
These case studies are drawn from real life. They address one or more of the areas covered by the Code of Ethics for Archivists: professional judgment in carrying out basic archival tasks, protecting records authenticity, access to and use of records, professional relationships with donors or users, privacy issues, ensuring security against theft, and questions of trust in archivists’ conduct. (For information on how to submit a case study, see our Call for Case Studies.)
Case 1An Online...
Regardless of what institution we work for, we all have the shared experience of archives education. Those long days (and nights) of studying archival theory and principles. What most of us found, however, is that when we started our career in business archives, we had to adapt what we’d learned to the needs of our particular organization. The realities of the corporate world, more often than not, require us to take our knowledge of archival best practices and customize solutions that fit our...
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...
Registration is now open for the joint annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists Encoded Archival Standards (EAS) Section and the Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS). The meeting will be held via Webex on Tuesday, June 20, 2023 from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM (CT).
Please visit the event listing on SAA’s website to register. There are no costs to attend the session and it is open to all; SAA membership is not required. While you do not need to register for the...
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 Reference, Access, and Outreach Section (RAO) of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) seeks proposals for the 2024 Marketplace of IDEAs to be held during the Virtual Annual Meeting on Thursday, July 25, 2024 at 4pm EDT/3pm CDT/2pm MDT/1pm PDT.
Topics related to the sub-committee areas of Teaching with Primary Sources, Exhibits and Events, and Public Services Assessment are encouraged.Proposals addressing topics or themes related to the following will also be prioritized:- evolving the...
Join us for an informal meeting to discuss Section updates, Archives Month, and share your latest news!
When: Friday, October 27 at 2pm Eastern / 1pm Central / 12pm Mountain / 11am Pacific / 10am Alaska / 8am Hawaii
RSVP: https://tinyurl.com/57nsh98f
In the November/December "Archival Outlook" (see "A Call to Action: The Cultural Heritage Working Group Seeks Your Input," page 11) we highlight the recent work of the CHWG and encourage all members to take a brief survey to gather baseline data about your largest concerns and needs regarding cultural heritage archives to determine new initiatives and projects.
UPDATE: Due to other SAA surveys underway, the CHWG survey has been postponed to Fall 2015. The link to the survey will be included...
SAA's Technical Subcommittee for Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS) is pleased to highlight the following new resources in our GitHub repository, following on the SAA 2020 annual conference:
We've updated our procedural handbook, to include a set of design principles that we began to formulate in early 2020 -- and codified at the conference. The design principles reflect recent decisions and will guide future discussions for the development of EAD, EAC-CPF, and any other schemas that might be...
During March and April this year, the Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS) conducted a community survey of the application of the standards it supports. The results of the survey were discussed at the committee's component group meeting in May, but a written report is now available through the SAA Description Section's Descriptive Notes blog at https://saadescription.wordpress.com/2026/06/09/standards-in-practice-findings-from-a-community-survey-on-encoded-archival-...
