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Date: November 30, 2011
Name of Section/Roundtable: Issues and Advocacy Roundtable
Officers:
Report from Annual Meeting:
Number of Attendees: 24
Election Results:
Summary of Meeting Activities: (or attach minutes or newsletter accounts)
* Meeting Minutes of August 30, 2011 are Attached.
Completed Projects/Activities:
- The I&AR website was updated on Drupal, and during the year new content was added including past meeting minutes and annual reports, advocacy action items, and other resources. The website was used to help push advocacy on a local level.
- The I&AR Steering Committee worked through the year to include a Directory of Archival Organizations, which is now posted on the website. This is designed to list archival organizations at the international, national, regional, state, and local level, and will further serve as another resource for advocacy for archives and archivists.
- In 2010, I&AR nominated the NBC television show “Who Do You Think You Are?” for the SAA Jameson Award. It was then announced that the show had received the award.
- I&AR participated in three letter writing campaigns, involving:
* The labor dispute at the Chicago Hyatt Regency Hotel.
* The deaccessioning of files from the Hungarian government archives.
* The integration of New York City’s Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) into the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS).
- I&AR endorsed two sessions for the annual 2011 SAA meeting:
* 105 “Pay it Forward: Interns, Volunteers, and the Development of New Archivists and the Archives Profession”
– With Roundtable leaders participating – Erin Lawrimore chairing, Laura Starratt presenting.
* 510 “Archival Outreach 360: Archivists as Advocates” – With Roundtable leaders participating
- Dana Miller and Conor Casey presenting. - I&AR endorsed two sessions for the annual 2012 SAA meeting:
* Rules of Engagement: The Politics and Pleasures of “Living Archives”.
* You, Me, We: Meeting Modern Challenges to Archives Through Collaboration”.
Ongoing Projects/Activities:
- The I&AR website continues to push advocacy on a local level, with new issues being posted periodically as they arise – for members’/general public’s action and general information.
- I&AR will continue to act as particular promoter for SAA’s “I Found it in the Archives” Program, as advocacy for archives is a large part of this program.
New Projects/Activities:
Steering Committee member Jeremy Brett was nominated as the Roundtable’s new Communications Officer – with the idea being that the general membership of the Roundtable, and anyone on the Roundtable’s listserv, should be more connected to – and informed – on the actions of the Roundtable in general, and its leadership in particular. Accordingly, Jeremy sends out bi-weekly updates to the general membership via the Roundtable listserv that include all actions taken by the Roundtable in two weeks’ time.
I&AR was approached by SAA Council Member Terry Baxter to enquire if the Roundtable might form a body to track issues related to Occupy Wall Street movements’ (nation-wide; different community’s respective movements) archives and libraries and their materials and alert SAA Council if we believe that actions require SAA to take a position. We accordingly created such a working group, headed up by Roundtable member Deborah Richards. The working group is planning to create a wiki that will help to track this, act as a resource, and as a communication device in general, and to SAA Council in particular.
Chair Alison Stankrauff has been asked to be a participant in discussions via conference call and email regarding the integration of New York City’s Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) into the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS).
SAA Executive Director Nancy Beaumont asked the Roundtable in October 2011 to join in providing our comments on the July 26, 2011, advance notice of proposed rulemaking regarding “Human Subjects Research Protections: Enhancing Protections for Research Subjects and Reducing Burden, Delay, and Ambiguity for Investigators” (HHS-OPHS-2011-0005) – which we did by polling the Roundtable membership for comments.
I&AR was asked to support an effort of the Indiana State Archives to obtain a new building in October 2011. The Indiana State Archives has been in ‘temporary’ quarters for ten years, and arguably currently lacks adequate support from the state legislators.
Diversity Initiatives:
There are no specific diversity initiatives being considered at this time.
Questions/Concerns for Council Attention:
There’s been some discussion in the I&AR about records that are, in effect, ‘war booty’ – and their fate…
Chair Alison Stankrauff put it forward to the Roundtable after a pertinent article was posted in the A&A listserv: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-cox-noriega-2011100...
Basically, our membership tossed around the idea of creating a comprehensive list of such record collections held as booty in a multitude of repositories in foreign countries all around the globe. And- as this is such a large task, we were thinking about the possibility of partnering with pertinent roundtables and sections to make this happen – we thought of:
- Human Rights Archives Roundtable
- International Archival Affairs Roundtable
- Latin American and Caribbean Cultural Heritage Archives Roundtable
- Government Records Section
- Maybe even the Congressional Papers Roundtable
- Manuscript Repositories Section
Basically, we’re wondering if this might be a possibility – a message went out to Nancy Beaumont to this effect on October 26, 2011, which we have yet to hear on.