Recent posts from groups

Candidates for Section Co-Chair Ben Blake,  Independent Archivist and Consultant Candidate Statement for Co-Chair – Labor Archives SectionStatement not provided.   Steven Calco,  Interim Assistant Director of the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives at Cornell University Library Candidate Statement for Co-Chair – Labor Archives SectionI am the Interim Assistant Director of the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives at Cornell University Library...
Feb 3, 2026   Labor Archives Section
This report describes our investigation into the global proliferation of Internet filtering systems manufactured by the Canadian company, Netsweeper, Inc. After undertaking a mapping of worldwide country installations, we focus in on ten country cases in which we verify that Netsweeper systems are being used to censor the Internet for subscribers of consumer Internet Service Providers, and where human rights and corporate social responsibility questions are acute. Read more here.
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...
Oct 12, 2019   Business Archives Section
By Kerri Anne Burke, Global Curator, Citi Heritage Collection  Bob Clark of the Rockefeller Archives Center, L.J. Strumpf of the IBM Archives and I spoke at the Spring 2018 joint meeting of the New England Archivists and Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York. The panel was organized and moderated by Jamie Martin of the IBM Archives. The panelists spoke on the value of business records and how business archivists must advocate the worth of business records to internal audiences,...
Apr 5, 2018   Business Archives Section
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 (...
The Archival History Section steering committee invites members of the section and SAA to attend a virtual lecture on Wednesday, February 25 at 12PM EST, by Joel A. Blanco-Rivera. Blanco-Rivera, adjunct professor at the National School of Conservation, Restoration and Museography in Mexico City, will be giving a talk entitled "Archival Traditions in Puerto Rico: Historical Legacies and their Impact on the Management of the Files of the Intelligence Division." The talk will provide a historical...
Jan 30, 2026   Archival History Section
The Technical Subcommittee for Encoded Archival Description (TS-EAD) issued a call for comments on the revision of EAD 2002 in October 2010.  The comment period ended on February 28, 2011.   One hundred and twenty-seven comments were received.  The submissions received during the comment period have been compiled into a spreadsheet and made available through the SAA standards portal EAD Revision page.  
Heading into the new SAA year after the Annual Meeting in August, the Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS) has finalised two minor revisions of EAD3 (Tag Library) and EAD 2002 (Schema), which the Standards Committee approved before the summer break. With this, TS-EAS also would like to kick off the major revision of EAD, asking for the community’s comments to get us started.    Minor revisions - EAD3 Tag Library and EAD 2002 schema As a precursor to the major revision,...
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...
Recently, the BAS Steering Committee put out a survey to solicit the section's opinions on a salary requirement for job postings on various SAA outlets. This was a much talked about topic at this year's SAA Annual Meeting in Austin. As the conversation moves forward, we consider it paramount that any potential statement by the BAS accurately reflect the opinions of its members. We would like to share the results of this survey. Due to the prevalence of this topic at the 2019 Annual Meeting, we...
Aug 8, 2019   Business Archives Section
Thank you to our candidates for standing for the 2024 Manuscript Repositories Section election. Section members, please review the candidate statements below and get to know the candidates so you can make an informed choice. You will be voting for: One Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, for a two-year term; and Three (3) Steering Committee members (two-year terms). Ballots are open June 24 - July 15, 2024. Vice Chair/Chair-Elect Candidate The following candidate is running for the Vice Chair/Chair-Elect...
Abolitionist Library Association is a collective of library workers, students, and community members taking action to divest from all forms of policing in libraries and invest in our collective liberation.We envision a world without policing or prisons. Our goal is to create libraries that are rooted in community self-determination and intellectual freedom through collective action.Read more here.
  Since 2018, the Archival History Section has given out each year its Archival History Article Award. 'This prize encourages and rewards an article, book chapter, or other short piece of superior excellence in the field of archival history, irrespective of subject, time period, or national focus' (https://www2.archivists.org/groups/archival-history-section/ahs-archival-history-article-award). Since 2020 the award has been split to honor contributions from SAA members as well as from non-...
Jul 28, 2021   Archival History Section
On the 43rd anniversary of the military coup in Argentina, the Argentine government of Mauricio Macri has announced that the Trump Administration will provide “the largest delivery of declassified documents, in size and file quality, to another nation”—formerly secret U.S. records relating to human rights abuses committed during under the military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. The official transfer of the records is planned for mid-April during a visit by Argentina’s minister of justice...
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...
Where do you see yourself professionally in 2021?  Appointed to a relatively new technical subcommittee, perhaps?  Working to improve and influence the role of encoded archival standards — including EAD and EAC-CPF — throughout the world?  If so, now is the time to volunteer!   The Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS) is seeking volunteers to join our group. Next year, the committee will be focused on the following major areas of work: Finalizing a major revision of...
Five historical volumes covering the period 1863-1975 are available online in PDF format. They provide an overview of the ICRC operational and legal activities and therefore provide an ideal springboard for more in-depth research in the ICRC archives.Read more here.
Please join the Collection Management Section for its annual meeting on July 29 at 2:00 - 3:30 PM EST. This year, we will have updates from the SAA Council, a business meeting for the Collection Management section, and two presentations about collaboration and collection management.   Welcome  Council updates  Business Meeting Presentations  The Kentucky Heritage Emergency Response Network (KHERN): Collaboration in Disaster Preparedness and Response, Ruth Bryan, University Archivist,...
Thank you to all of our excellent candidates for standing in the 2024 User Experience Section Special Election. Please take some time to review their candidate statements and get to know them so you can make an informed choice. You will be voting for: 2 Steering Committee members (term ending August 2024).  We are also voting to approve our Section standing rules, as detailed below. The proposed rules are an important step to formalizing governance of the User Experience Section and were open...
Dec 5, 2023   User Experience Section
We're ramping up for another edition of the Business Archives Section Quarterly (BASQ)! This time we'll be dealing with the ways in which corporate archives engage with those outside of their businesses. Creating meaningful connections with external audiences is a major way for business archives to increase their profile and continue to prove the importance of their role in the company. How do you interact with external audiences? We want to hear about it! Some examples could include: Archives...
Aug 9, 2019   Business Archives Section
Thank you to all our candidates for standing in the 2025 Design Records Section election! Members, please review their candidate statements below. You will be voting for: • Junior Co-Chair (Chair-Elect) • Steering Committee member (multiple openings) Please note that the election will be managed by SAA Governance staff - keep an eye on your inbox for voting information!  Junior Co-chair Candidate Betsy Frederick-Rothwell, Curator & Head Archivist, Environmental Design Archives, University...
Jun 5, 2024   Design Records Section
A reminder that the Society of American Archivists' (SAA) Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS), in collaboration with the Encoded Archival Standards Section Steering Committee, will be hosting a webinar in November 2022 to introduce the new version of the EAC-CPF standard.   Encoded Archival Context - Corporate bodies, Persons, and Families (EAC-CPF) is an international standard maintained by SAA for encoding contextual information about persons, corporate bodies, and...
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...
May 24, 2012   Business Archives Section
(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...