2017 Annual Meeting minutes

International Archival Affairs Section (IAAS) and Latin American and Caribbean Cultural Heritage Section (LACCHA) Meeting 

Society of American Archivists Annual Meeting

Thursday July 27, 2017 2:00pm - 3:15pm

Oregon BR 203

Welcome by Ryder Kouba, IAAS Senior co-chair, and Ana D. Rodriguez, LACCHA junior co-chair

2:05 pm – Election results for IAAS and LACCHA, Daniel Necas incoming senior co-chair, and Ana D. Rodriguez, LACCHA incoming senior co-chair:

LACCHA elections: Maria Isabel Molestina-Kurlat was elected as the new junior Co-chair, and Leah Ríos the incoming Online Communications Liaison.

IAAS elections: Katharina Hering was elected as junior co-chair and Mark Edwin Peterson as the new steering committee member at-large.

Results of the IAAS membership survey that was part of the ballot, which received 9 responses. Respondents appreciate the weekly news roundup blog, but would like to see more guest blog posts with reports from meeting, conferences, trips, etc.

2:10 pm - Announcement by SAA Council Liaison (Kris Kiesling) The July 24 Council meeting agenda is online at: https://www2.archivists.org/groups/saa-council/july-24-2017-council-meeting-agenda

--Concerns about 2019 SAA meeting in Austin, Texas: The SAA considers relocating the meeting in light of the discriminatory legislation pending in Texas that would restrict bathroom access for transgender persons (see SAA email announcement.)

--The Council approved the petition to form an Independent Archives Section.

--The Results of the SAA Barriers to Participation Survey are available on the SAA website: https://offtherecord.archivists.org/2017/07/21/barriers-to-participation-survey-report/

--A working group suggested revising the process for submitting and evaluating component group funding requests.

--ICA’s Basic Principles on the Role of Archivists and Records Managers in the Support of Human Rights, which was drafted by the ICA’s Human Rights Working Group: http://www.ica.org/en/basic-principles-role-archivists-and-records-managers-support-human-rights.

-- Principles of Access to Archives, which was drafted by the Committee on Best Practices and Standards Working Group on Access: http://www.ica.org/sites/default/files/ICA_Access-principles_EN.pdf

2:20 pm LACCHA Spanish Translation Project presentation 

--SAA English to Spanish Translation Project. Ana D. Rodriguez discusses the background of the project, which was initiated at the 2015 SAA annual meeting.

-- Eight LACCHA members have volunteered to prepare the translations of SAA brochures, it’s a very diverse group from different communities and organizations. The group collaborated closely via google docs and developed a workflow. Chris Prom served as the liaison to the Council.

-- Why do translations matter? It expands the professional reach to a much broader range of communities in the US and internationally, it facilitates dialogue and encourages collaborations.

--Challenges: had to create a glossary of archival terms and normalize the language across a the diversity of Spanish-speaking countries and regions. The group did a lot of background research on archival systems and archival education in Spanish-speaking countries.

--They also worked with ICA’s glossary of archival terms across several languages:

http://www.ica.org/en/online-resource-centre/multilingual-archival-terminology

--So far, the working group has translated two brochures and is planning to do more:

1. Guía para donar sus documentos personales o familiares a un depósito,

https://www2.archivists.org/publications/brochures/donar-docfamiliares

2. Guía para contratos de donación, https://www2.archivists.org/publications/brochures/guia-contratos-donacion

2:30 pm – Discussion of international projects (Margarita Vargas-Betancourt, Natalie Baur), Review of LACCHA Events and Achievements (Lauren Goodley)

Natalie Baur discusses her work as the Digital Preservation Librarian at El Colegio de México, her professional interests and her career path.  Every day is different, and she is working on numerous interesting post-custodial digital projects, including Rostros del Zapatismo, a collaborative project to digitize the archives of the Instituto Pro Veteranos de la Revolución. Natalie had decided to stay in México following the completion of her 2015-2016 Fulbright García-Robles fellowship, which allowed her to research the state of digital preservation initiatives and digital information access in Mexico. See also her article about her research on SAA’s ERS blog: https://saaers.wordpress.com/2017/02/22/exploring-digital-preservation-digital-curation-and-digital-collections-in-mexico/

Margarita Vargas-Betancourt, the Curator of Special Collections at University of Florida, Latin American and Caribbean Collection, discusses how her interest in archival work developed in conjunction with her research for her Ph.D. in Latin American Studies at Tulane University, where she focused on 16^th and 17^th century Mexican history. As a curator, she is dedicated to uncovering the many hidden voices in Latin American and Caribbean archival collections. She also discusses the collaboration between the George A. Smathers Libraries’ Latin American and Caribbean Collection and the National Library of Cuba and the Foundation Antonio Núñez Jiménez, including exchange visits among these institutions. Dr. Eduardo Torres Cuevas, Director of Cuba’s National Library, visited UF in 2012 and 2013. In 2013 and 2014, a group of UF librarians visited Cuban archives and libraries. She discusses some of the challenges of visiting Cuba from the US, and the importance of personal contacts for maintaining good working relationships. For anyone interested in visiting Cuban libraries and archives, it might be easier to access the National Library than the National Archives.

3:00 pm - Open Floor 

Judy Blankenship reports that there is a brand new Society of Ecuadorian Archivists, which will be using LACCHA's translations brochures.

Question about how students can get involved with projects supporting international archival work, especially in Latin America. There are many ways to get involved with LACCHA and numerous opportunities for internships or volunteer projects, including with Judy Blankenship’s Cañar archive project (see the article by Natalie Baur and Judy Blankenship in the May/June edition of the Archival Outlook).

ICA News: Emilie Gagnet Leumas, the chair of the ICA's Section for Archives of Faith Traditions and chairs the Expert Group for Emergency Management and Disaster Preparedness, talks about the upcoming joint ALA-ICA annual Conference 2017 from November 27-29 in Mexico City, Mexico, under the title “Archives, Citizenship and Interculturalism”: http://www.ica.org/en/annual-conference-2017

Several members of LACCHA are planning to attend this historic joint conference.

--ICA offers a number of grants, which might be interesting for LACCHA and IAAS members and affiliates, including the FIDA grant: http://www.ica.org/en/fida-2017-call-for-projects and the PCOM grant: http://www.ica.org/en/invitation-apply-pcom-project-funding-and-endorsement

--The 2018 meeting will be in Cameroon, the 2019 meeting in Scotland and the 2010 meeting in the United Arab Emirates.

--IAAS and LACCHA will collaborate more closely on projects. .

3:15 pm – Adjournment and thanks to IAAS and LACCHA outgoing co-chairs (Ryder Kouba and George Apodaca) and all steering committee members.

Notes drafted by Katharina Hering, IAAS junior co-chair