Joint meeting of the Museum Archives (MAS) and Science, Technology, and Health Care (STHC) Sections
23 July 2025, 11:00 - 12:30 CST
Attendance: 54
I. Welcome and Introductions
II. SAA Council updates (Eira Tansey)
○ Statements in response to current events available on SAA site
○ Next leadership meeting: September 25th
III. STHC Business*
IV. MAS Chair’s Report (Laura Uglean-Jackson)
○ Thanks to 2024-2025 MAS leadership: Kelly Schulz (Newsletter Editor), Lena Hansen (Web Liaison...
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Create partnerships to bring educational opportunities to your area.
Start a local mentoring program.
Participate in a consortium for enhanced purchasing power.
Establish a local or regional speaker’s bureau.
Develop local or regional mini-conferences.
Find travel and carpooling companions, as well as roommates, for conferences, workshops and other events.
Share venues and presenters for public programming.
Cooperate on collecting a particular historical topic, especially one 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 June webinar as part of the upcoming major revision of the Encoded Archival Description (EAD).
EAD 2002 and EAD3 are currently used by a global community, and TS-EAS aims to get a better understanding of the landscape of EAD use and the needs and requirements of the EAD community with regard...
Ensuring that all histories – especially the most marginalized – are preserved and shared is a priority for Sites of Conscience around the globe. To support this, in partnership with our Asian and Pacific Sites of Conscience Network, we are pleased to launch “Shared Journeys,” a virtual exhibit that showcases the hidden, lost, or sidelined histories of the Asian region. The project is a collaboration between 12 Sites of Conscience in the region and is curated by Radhika Hettiarachchi.Read more ...
"Performance in the Archives" [Virtual Coffee Table Discussion" April 29, 2022, 3:00 pm EDT/2:00 pm CDT/12:00 pm PDT, via Zoom
SAA's Performing Arts Section (PAS) invites SAA members, affiliates, colleagues, and friends to a discussion about the encounters, interactions, and mutual influences between the world of archives and performing arts. The panel features Lynn Garafola, Professor Emerita of Dance, Barnard College, Columbia University; Zachary Whittenburg, dance journalist and Arts...
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-...
The Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS) is pleased to announce the publication of the first post in a collaborative series on the current EAD revision process.
In "Shape the Future of EAD: A Call to Action – Part I," published in the Description Section's online newsletter, we provide updates about the ongoing revision of Encoded Archival Description (EAD) and examine why the EAD standard needs revision and provide an insight into the revision process.
The second...
Do you have a great idea for a session proposal for SAA 2015, but you aren't sure where to find other participants? Looking for a like-minded group with which to form a lightning talk? Or are you interested in presenting your work, but you're not sure that it will work as its own session?
The Electronic Records Section is aggregating SAA 2015 session ideas with electronic records/digital preservation themes into this Google spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/...
The Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gallery One blends art, technology, and interpretation. It includes real works from the museum’s collection as well as interactive, technology-based activities and games. For example, Global Influences presents visitors with an artwork and asks them to guess which two countries on the map influenced the work in question; and crowd favorite Strike a Pose asks visitors to imitate the pose of a sculpture and invites them to save and share the resulting photograph.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation has acquired an archival document with great historical significance. Dating from the final stages of the Treason Trial (1956-1961), it is an open letter by the trialists to the people of Britain calling for support in their defence against the apartheid state’s charges of treason. The letter features original signatures by the trialists, including Nelson Mandela, Lilian Ngoyi, Walter Sisulu and Ahmed Kathrada.Read more here.
Calling all witches, goblins, and ghouls! Science, Technology, and Healthcare Section wish all of you a Happy Halloween. Creep on some spookifying repositories in this latest blog post.
Read the most recent issue of the Museum Archivist Newsletter--Winter 2021!
Contents include:
A message from our MAS Chair member Katrina O'Brien
A report from the MAS Standards and Best Practices Committee submitted by co-chairs Rachel Chatalbash and Megan Schwenke
Meet your fellow archivist – Anastasia Karel and Rachel Hancock from the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields
A new digital archive dedicated to the Kress Collection at the National Gallery of Art submitted by Shannon Morelli...
At last month’s “Vision & Justice” convening hosted by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, luminaries from Harvard and beyond came together to consider the most pressing problems at the juncture of justice, arts, and race. In particular, the conference description characterized the “foundational right of representation in a democracy” as “the right to be recognized justly.”So it was peculiar that neither the event nor the subsequent publicationreferenced the ongoing struggle of...
2023 Call for Applicants - Associate Editor for Case Studies on Teaching with Primary Sources
The Teaching with Primary Sources sub-committee of the Reference, Access and Outreach Section of the Society of American Archivists is accepting applications for the role of Associate Editor for the Case Studies on Teaching With Primary Sources series. For more information about the series, visit: https://www2.archivists.org/publications/epubs/Case-Studies-Teaching-With-Primary-Sources.
The Associate...
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...
2012 Annual Meeting Information
"Community Chat on Student Involvement in Oral History Projects"
Date: April 24, 2025
Speaker: Gillian Goldberg (they/them), University of the Pacific; Elisa Villalpando (she/her), University of the Pacific
Recording available!
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.
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...
The IAAS Steering Committee is excited to announce its recent election results and welcome three new members for the 2026-27 season:
Junior Co-Chair: Sandra Varry
Member-at-Large: Ryder Kouba
Early-Career Member: Katie Moseby
Welcome to all! We can't wait to tackle the next year of IAAS with you!
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...
Crafting Resistance challenged the idea of political prisoners as ‘passive victims’ which fails to recognise the degree of agency many prisoners retain despite the horrific circumstances they endure. During the military dictatorship of General Pinochet in Chile (1973-1990) hundreds of political prisoners were held in concentration camps throughout the country. In a number of these camps, prisoners organised themselves and crafted items from the very limited materials and improvised tools...
The results of the special election are in: we are pleased to welcome Adriana Flores as the new SNAP committee Secretary! We would like to thank the candidates and all those who voted for their participation.
Greetings!
The Electronic Records Section (ERS) and the Web Archiving Section (WAS) will host a joint section meeting during SAA's 2021 virtual conference to encourage dialogue among our respective members and reflect the overlap between electronic records and web archiving workflows, personnel, and challenges. The ERS and WAS Steering Committees invite presentations of 5-minute lightning talks on the topic of repairing gaps in the historical record through web archiving and born-digital...
