Business Archives Section

The Business Archives Section (BAS) comprises of archivists active in the work of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) with common interests in business archives management. The Business Archives Section includes corporate, business, and noprofit employees administering and providing access to historical or archival records. The conduct of business for this section is guided by the standing rules maintained on this site.

Business Archives in North America: Invest in Your Future, Understand Your Past provides a brief explanation of business archives and the archivist's role in developing, collecting and maintaining the records of business entities.  If you are interested in business archives, this article is a good place to start.

^{Keep Calm and Check Your SAA BAS ListServ E-mail Preferences:}

_{Your settings for receiving emails from the BAS Listserv may have defaulted to 'Daily Digest in April when SAA implemented updates.  If you would like to change that to 'Real Time' or 'Weekly Digest' please use the link: https://connect.archivists.org/network/members/profile/myaccount/my-settings?section=subscriptions}

2023/2024 Election Results

Vice Chair/Chair Elect: Dave Moore, Archive & Digital Asset Manager, Carhartt

Vice Editor/Editor Elect: Jennifer Steinhardt, Senior Archivist, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Education Chair: Scott Grimwood, Archives Manager, SSM Health and the Franciscan Sisters of Mary

Member at Large: Kerri Anne Burke, Global Curator, The Citi Heritage Collection - Citigroup

Member at Large: Ciera Casteel, Collections Archivist, The Winthrop Group (Ford Motor Company Archives)

Advocating For Business Archives Toolkit

The BAS Steering Committee is pleased to publish the first version of the "Advocating for Business Archives Toolkit".  Advocating for one's self and archival collection is a constant effort, and unfortunately there's no silver bullet that will work for every business archives every time.  As stated in the 2013 defense of the Georgia State Archives, "Too often, advocacy is effectively crisis management, responding to specfic events.  Proactively developing a plan allows time to consider a range of options, find ways to refine the message, and identify and educate a broad range of stakeholders."

Therefore the intent of this page is to provide Business Archives Section (BAS) members with a resource center to allow development of individualized advocacy plans to avert future issues, and if necessary to successfully "win the day".  There is a wealth of advocacy information available, and this list is not exhaustive but merely a starting place for you develop your own policies.  Materials listed and provided are not endorsed by BAS, but rather provide solid examples for you to consider leveraging.  

We welcome your suggestions and additions!  Send them to bascontent@gmail.com.  

  Stay Up to Speed with Business Archives News!

BAS has pages on Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter! Join the conversation and network with your colleagues over social media!  Please use these sites to post any stories, articles, job postings or content related to business archives that you run across the web and want to share.  

We kindly ask not to use these sites as a platform to solicit or sell products or services. 

Image courtesy of Microsoft Office

 BAS Newsletter Welcomes Submissions!

The Business Archives Section Quarterly welcomes feature articles of any length exploring the theme-related issue of each quarter as well as any news of events, exhibits, new hires, retirements, or any other news pertinent to BAS members. 

Frequently Asked Questions: please click here

News & Announcements

Repository Spotlight: The Gore Archives

Repository profile of W. L. Gore & Associates based in Newark, Delaware

Opportunity to Join the 2018/2019 BAS Steering Committee – Self-Nominations Encouraged!

Are you seeking an opportunity to expand your network and get further involved in the business archives community? If so, come join the Steering Committee and see what the fun is all about!

Repository Spotlight: Atlanta Housing Archives Profile

The archival program at Atlanta Housing (AH) began October 2014. The AH Archives collects and preserves records of permanent and historical value dating back to the 1930’s. These records document the history of AH, the early history of public housing, the history of the United States’ first federally funded public housing projects beginning in Atlanta, and the innovative role AH played in shaping public housing policy and history.

How Sweet It Is: MARAC Business Archives Forum Recap

Nearly 30 corporate and religious archivists from the MARAC region and beyond gathered at our spring conference in Hershey for MARAC’s second ever Business Archives Forum

Flying Through History: Delta’s Corporate Archives and Delta Flight Museum

Repository Spotlight: As Delta flies into its 90th anniversary of passenger service in 2019, the historical collections of the company continue to grow more accessible and active than ever.

When It's More Than Just Business: Advocating the Value of Business Records

Kerri Anne Burke of the Citigroup Center for Culture, Bob Clark of the Rockefeller Archives Center and L.J. Strumpf of the IBM Archives spoke at the Spring 2018 joint meeting of the New England Archivists and Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York.

Hallmark Archives - It’s in the Cards!

Samantha Bradbeer spends her days at Hallmark making sure that an accurate and varied record of company, family, and product history is preserved for future generations.

Repository Spotlight - Hard at Work: The Carhartt Archive

120 years later, Powers Clothing is still going strong… and still selling Carhartt. When you have retail partners that old, you know you must be doing something right. Catalogs, advertisements, sales and personal correspondence, garment tags, photographs, order forms, historic garments – they all come together to tell the story of how the hard work of one traveling salesman evolved into a global brand.

• « first
• ‹ previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• next ›
• last »