September 2020 - August 2021 Steering Committee Minutes

September 2020

Strategic planning

  • Onboarding of new members and call for internal positions on the committee
  • Annual meeting planning
  • Projects the committee want to accomplish this term

CoSA Resource Center Collaboration

  • Voted to continue with collaboration with CoSA. Berdini will be our primary representative for the October project meeting

BloggERS

  • Brenna Edwards appointed our communication liaison
  • The bloggERS team held their planning meeting and has requested demographic information of the section
  • Committee asked how they can support the bloggERS team

Additional items:

  • Jess Farrell to speak about Committee on Public Policy liaison role at next meeting
  • College & University Archives Section coffee chat invitation. Annalise will email them back and coordinate scheduling. 

November 2020

CoSA Resource Center Collaboration

  • Call for volunteers from the committee
  • Next meeting is December 2
  • Recap of meeting with Resource Center team

Annual meeting planning

Volunteers to lead planning and call for a small working group for this event. We will want to start working on this in January.

BlogERS

Still accepting submissions for the Dispatched from a Distance series. 

Additional Items

  • Coffee Chat with College and University Archives Section
  • Spring Speaker Series (SSS) for the section call for working group
  • Skill shares (sandbox environment, low-key, and causal 30 mins. presentations/walk-through)
  • Jess Farrell to speak about Committee on Public Policy liaison role at next meeting
  • DANNNG (Digital Archival traNsfer or iNgest or packagiNg Group) group glossary -- SAA’s glossary has a lack of born digital processing terms. Is there a way for us to contribute to the SAA Glossary (this is the new platform https://dictionary.archivists.org/)? Possible collaboration with members/other sections.

 

December 2020

CoSA Resource Center Collaboration

Touch base with the Governance document. CoSA is overhauling this document with the new website. There is another meeting at the end of January, for now ERS is waiting. We need to contact Nancy Beaumount to get approval for this project. 

January 2021

January project plans check-in

  • Annual meeting
  • Spring speaker series
  • Skill shares

Planning for next few months

  • Annual meeting group should begin planning and meeting this month. Spring is when SAA is looking for information about what we are planning for annual
  • Spring Speaker session group is meeting this month
  • Skill share, on pause. Slated for later in the year
  • The resource center is still ongoing

BloggERS

New series: “Publicity/Privacy: ethical archiving in an age of mass surveillance” - discussion of the ethical concerns of especially social media archiving in a time of mass surveillance, unequal treatment by law enforcement, and other factors increasing the vulnerability of individuals and collecting institutions to punitive legal action.

Jess Farrell from the Committee on Public Policy

  • First year member of Committee of Public Policy. The COPP helps set the SAA Public Policy Agenda and the SAA Legislation Agenda. They help draft the statements produced by SAA and act as an advocacy body for the organization. Jess is our liaison for COPP, here is more information for suggesting advocacy action. Here are useful resources complied by COPP.
  • Questions from Jess and the committee
    • What issues facing archives do you think are most important right now?
    • How are actions taken by COPP reported out to membership?
    • What issues that affect born-digital practitioners and collections do you think COPP could/should take action on? 
    • What/how can SAA advocate at a policy level outside of government records, i.e. private institutions, corporate institutions.
    • Does SAA have a communication plan that reaches out beyond our regular audiences, i.e. NPR, NYT, etc.?

 

February 2021

Annual Meeting group

  • Would like to partner with Web Archiving Section if group is okay with it
    • Focus on projects that focus on underrepresented communities
    • Would like suggestions for presenters and would be interested in anything related to scripting, Archive-It API, etc.
    • Will reach out to representative on WA Section and maybe human rights or advocacy sections

Spring Speaker Series

  • Have met twice, currently working on brainstorming first presenters/first topics
  • Aiming for first session end of March
  • Guided discussion formats -- less formal than a presentation, but more than a coffee chat

March 2021

CoSA Resource Center Project update

  • Berdini had a meeting with CoSA, she saw a demo and thinks it’s good
    • CoSA has a governance doc update this month then we will be able to take it SAA for approval

Annual Meeting

  • Announcement for submission for section meetings proposal is coming later this year. All section meeting with by held in July.
  • We are partnering with the web archiving section. Repairing gaps in the archival record is the theme/topic. We are doing lighting talks with final submission from the sections due April 9. Open to non-section members.

Spring Speaker Series

This project is on hold due to limited bandwidth of members and many people working from home.

Skill Share -- Summer series 

  • Bandwidth at capacity to be honest. Punted to later in the year 
  • Maybe it just isn't the time for outreach right now -- let's revisit in May 
  • Brown bag style with multiple people giving input rather than one expert leading the conversation -- Interview tips, practicing for presentations, elevator speeches, how to explain your work to non-digital archivists/ers, how to prep for the tech piece of the interview, knowing your audience, how to meet people where they are, etc. 

BloggERS

Launch a call for the next series! Publicity/Privacy, is an opportunity to discuss the complexities of preserving records and making them accessible without exposing their subjects or creators to immediate (or eventual) harm, particularly from a law enforcement apparatus which is overwhelmingly focused on controlling the vulnerable and defending the powerful.

 

April 2021

Spring Speaker Series

Met last week; planning on Mid-May for first event. First topic will be working with students. Creative ways we work with students, student groups, web archives, BD information management guidance, etc. 

June 2021

SAA Section Elections

SAA is asking for us to have a slate by next Tuesday (June 15).

Annual meeting updates

  • Meeting date is July 2 2-3:30 pm EST. We have two confirmed speakers
  • Berdini will give business updates such as the project we have running, blogERs updates, updates from our outreach series, and remind people to vote in our election

Spring Speaker Series

The update is just that we will be putting the idea on hold for a bit since we are all a little overextended and/or getting ready to make the transition to go back onsite.

BloggERS

  • Booking submission for the show and tell series 
  • Transition plan, call to be expected in July for new members to join the team. They will have numbers for open slots next week

Other business

  • As we think about our transition, start thinking about planning for the upcoming cycle
  • No meeting in July. See you all in August. If anything pressing comes up, please let Berdini know so she can schedule a meeting

August 2021

SAA Elections update

  • 5 steering committee 
  • 1 vice president/president
  • Berdini has contacted Felicia and thinks that the second half of election will be after SAA

Annual section meeting

  • Amazing time! Kudos to the organizers!!
  • The recording is available now through SAA’s website 

BlogERS updates

Last meeting with Emily as the team leader. The new team is rolling on with three new editors. Edwards is staying with us in her current position.

Fall planning

  • Berdini’s last meeting as Chair, she still has a year as past chair
  • Jane Kelly’s and Kelsey O’Connell’s last meeting; we will miss them! 
  • SAA Leader Orientation recording and if you can attend this Friday’s open forum session that will cover the Diversity Committee’s Report