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Reparative description within queer archiving
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Ask and answers
MINUTE
The meeting began at 3.00 pm Central with the presence of Jordi Padilla-Delgado (Co-chair), Lou Hines (Steering Committee Member), Kate Burns (attendee) and Joyce Gabiola (Council Liaison).
To start the discussion of point 1, the Section’s Co-chair explained the principles related to the changes operated on the proposal to update the Section’s Standing Rules (SSR). After sending the proposal to modify the Standing Rules to the appropriate instances following the indications agreed at the last Section’s meeting the past October 04th, the Co-chair received a message from SAA Governance indicating that the proposal had to follow a template model to present to the Council so that the processing of the update continues. The Co-chair also received advice from the Council Liaison (thank you, Joyce) to consider aspects that may not be in accordance with the Governance Manual, specifically on the point regarding officers and the Steering Committee.
So, the Co-chair did a little survey through the Standing Rules of some of the 46 Sections of SAA. There are no two alike. Some of them describe in detail the number and terms of officers. Others are extraordinarily ambiguous and detail very little the duties and functions of the officers. Sometimes it is not even very clear who is part of the Steering Committee (SC) and who is not, and whether all members of the SC must be elected in an electoral process or can be appointed by the SC. It’s a surprise that there is not more homogeneity in the statutory texts of the Sections.
The proposal for sending is based on the initial one that has been worked on in the last seven years, which was the one that was first presented to SAA Governance. On it have been integrated some maybe suitable contributions extracted from other Sections Standing Rules already approved, especially from the Business (BAS); Accessibility and Disability (ADS); Description; International (IAAS); Colleges and Universities; Reference, Access and Outreach (RAO); and Labor (LAS), to clear up any doubt of inconsistency or non-compliance with the Governance requirements, but always trying to respect the initial spirit that led the previous DSGS’ Steering Committees to embark on the path of statutory reform.
After an exchange of comments, the Section’s members present at the meeting agreed on approving the proposal and to continue the procedure, sending a new model to SAA Governance.
Then the meeting proceeded to discuss point 2 about the revamping of Section’s microsite. The Co-chair informed about the achieved updates, as the link to Section’s blog, Archives In Rainbow, (AIR) and some changes at the Section’s presentation. But we want to include more sections and resources, like the ones proposed at the last meeting, it will be necessary to have more people involved and more help. All the people agreed.
When talking on the possibility of collaborating with Invisible Histories (IH), Lou commented on the difficult situation lived by trans people nowadays, not only in Southern States, where IS works, and about the fact that this situation could worsen soon, and how could the Section’s react to this fact. Lou’s initial idea was to propose a statement, but Joyce commented on the difficulties of sending a statement to SAA Council and proposed the alternative of writing a post at AIR and planning activities (talks, webinars) to raise awareness on this issue. All the people agreed, and Lou was committed to monitoring this topic. Kate expressed concerns about the necessity of a code of conduct and proposing that maybe the Section could work on it.
Next, point 3 of the agenda concerning the management of (AIR) was discussed. It was said that the blog is a good start and is maintained regularly, at least twice a month, but there is still a lot of work to be done to improve accessibility and other aspects. Once again, the need for more people to collaborate to improve these aspects is evident. Nowadays there are two administrators (Jordi and Max), but it was said that this role is open to anyone interested.
Then we passed to point 4 related to SAA Connect. The Co-chair informed the attendees about the improvements made in the management of the resource. The call to this same meeting was done exclusively through SAA Connect, and so we the attached files were uploaded. The Co-chair also has registered to a SAA Connect Intro Session workshop by Alison Clemens next January.
To follow the meeting point 5 referred to the next year’s activities program was discussed. The Co-chair talk on a webinar to know more about the two only students’ posters presented at ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2024 referred LGBTQ+ archives by Carmela Furio and David Advent, but consider also the possibility to include a webinar series about the trans issue as talked at point 2.
Kate Burns commented that they have proposed a session for ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2025, and we all greeted and encouraged all the team concerned to go ahead with it. Kate also said that the Section could work on a Code of Conduct, and she could propose a text for next meetings.
To close the meeting, we had an open ask and answers time and we talk about the Section’s objective and if the Section should focus on LGBTQ+ archives, LGBTQ+ archivists, or both. All agreed that the Section should center mainly on LGBTQ+ archives, and we may have a secondary focus on LGBTQ+ archivists also, and try to be a meeting point for any archives professional who does not identify inside the cis-heteronormative mainstream, even if they don’t work with LGBTQ+ documents (but they are creators of potential LGBTQ+ personal archives), as stated by other SAA Sections (Accessibility and Disability, Archivists and Archives of Color).
ADOPTED DECISIONS
01-To do by Co-chair:
A-To present the new proposal of updating SSR to the next SAA Council session (before January, 13th)
B-To attend the SAA Connect Workshop next January, 16th.
C-To contribute to maintain AIR with new posts.
D-To work on the planning of a webinar referred to LGBTQ+ archives students.
02-To do by other Section’s members:
A-To plan texts and activities to work on the trans issue (Lou).
B-To work on the proposal for a LGBTQ+ archives session at ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2025 (Kate).
C-To work on a Section’s Code of Conduct (Kate).
D-To contribute to maintain AIR with new posts (all are invited).
The meeting was adjourned at 4 pm Central with no extraordinary incident and we expressed our best wishes for the new year and season greetings.
| Attachment | Size |
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| SAA_DSGS_20241213_Meeting_Minute.pdf | 174.41 KB |