Business Meeting Agenda
Friday, August 10, 2012
1:00-3:00 PM
Leanda Gahegan, outgoing chair, opens meeting and introduces Jennifer O’Neal.
Cultural Property Working Group update, Jennifer O'Neal
CPWG charge: this group, made up of various different archivist professionals, will take lead fostering discussion, managing, preserving, and providing access to cultural heritage properties.
- Advise concerning cultural property and cultural sensitivity issues
- Represent SAA on these issues at meetings and professional discussions
- Collaborate internally and externally
CPWG has been in existence for three years – this is the third year. Getting off the ground and defining its charge were first step. Currently embarking on exciting new projects:
- Bibliography of articles and books relating to topic of cultural property issues
- Work with standards committee to update glossary with terms relating to cultural property issues
- Include specific works highlighting case studies surrounding these issues in the bibliography
- Highlighting relevant past and upcoming conferences related to cultural property both in archives and other professions/disciplines
- Starting a blog to generate a discourse about these issues
For more information, see microsite at http://www2.archivists.org/groups/cultural-property-working-group.
Announcement: IFLA has special interest group on indigenous issues and is drafting a statement on cultural heritage, cultural property, and indigenous issues. CPWG will integrate this work with the SAA work.
Name change proposal: Cultural Heritage Working Group – cultural property is too narrow for what the group would like to cover. Cultural heritage refers to both tangible and intangible property and aligns with other international organizations.
See Jennifer O’Neal (onealj@si.edu) or Rob Leopold (leopold@si.edu) with questions.
Program Committee update, Jennie Thomas
2013 Program Committee – Joint annual meeting with CoSA in New Orleans – in order to embrace diversity, there will be no theme for this conference.
Seeking session proposals from MAS. Proposals due October 5, 2012.
Please make sure your session proposal is fully complete, and it is important to try to get an endorsement from one of the SAA sections. Endorsements due October 15, 2012.
Council Liaison update, Deborra Richardson
Deborra is stepping down, and Geoff Huth will be incoming council member working with MAS in the coming year. There is a new president’s blog, which was started by Jackie Dooley, the incoming president. This blog will feature articles from president and other leaders from council. Take a look and interact with council liaison, president, or vice-president.
Council is reviewing results from the membership survey. If you did not have an opportunity to respond to it, you can review the information which is available online. Contact Geoff Huth (geofhuth@gmail.com) if you have follow up questions about the survey.
If you’re interested in running for elected office for the entire Society, there are new guidelines available, which the Nominating Committee will be using this year. These guidelines will be posted to the SAA website. You can self-nominate, and you can follow the guidelines to determine whether nominees are, in fact, qualified for the positions of interest.
Strategic initiatives are being reviewed again. Same strategic initiatives and priorities for the past several years: advocacy, technology, and diversity. The process should begin during 2013 and continue through 2014. There will be an opportunity for membership to comment on the materials council puts forward. Please see the strategic initiative online. Much has been done over the past several years, and council has reported on those activities. There may be additional changes based on review and feedback after 2014.
Deborra introduces Geoff Huth from the New York State Archives, which is based in a building called the Cultural Education Center, but is commonly called the State Archives. Geoff is greatly interested in museum archives, and he is going to tomorrow’s museum archives session.
Introductions
Elections announcements:
- Leanda will be retiring as chair. Katy Rawdon is incoming chair of MAS.
- Katy is very exciting to be incoming chair. She has been a member of MAS for a number of years, and she remembers when this section had about 10 members. It seems to grow more and more each year.
- This is an opportunity for museum archivists to have a great voice in SAA and professionally.
Introducing current secretary: Megan Senseney (UIUC)
- If anyone has interest in the secretary position, see Leanda or Katy after the meeting.
Introducing co vice-chairs: Heidi Abbey (Penn State Harrisburg) and Jennie Thomas (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)
- Heidi and Jenny just finished a collaborative session, and they’ll be working closely with Katy over the coming year.
Introducing newsletter editor: Adrianna Del Collo (in abstentia)
- Adrianna will continue her position in the coming year. Please take a look at the newsletter; we would especially value any internship profiles.
Pecha Kucha Session
Alex Lorch, Archives Program Officer, NHPRC
- NHPRC Museum Archives Projects
- NHPRC has funded museum archives project, provides financial assistance with programs typically running 1-3 years
- Types of Grants Available to Museum Archives:
- Archives start-ups
- RIM programs
- Electronic records programs
- Digitization programs
- A Selection of Museum Archives Grant Recipients:
- Newark Museum, NJ
- Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, MA
- Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Science, NY
- Getty Research Institute, CA
- Bishop Museum, HI
- Art Institute of Chicago, IL
- Bennington Museum, VT
- Guggenheim Museum, NY
- Hagley Museum, DE
- Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
- Norman Rockwell Museum, MA
- Peabody Essex Museum, MA
- Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA
- Mint Museum, NC
- Baltimore Museum of Art, MD
Want to learn more about NHPRC and its programs? Alex is available at the NHPRC booth in the exhibition hall. You can also contact him at ahlorch@gmail.com.
Angie Park, Archivist and Manager of Special Library Collections, Brooklyn Museum
- Electronic records management project at the Brooklyn Museum.
- Project team: staff from library and archives, digital collections management, IT
- Hired new project archivist. Developed project work plan.
- Plan:
- Survey
- Develop action plan
- Best practices manual/staff training
- Implementation/transfer
- Research ERM solutions
- Survey:
- Met with 14 departments in 1-on-1 sessions and in groups
- Conversation on electronic records practices and challenges and a brief questionnaire on email management and organization
- Survey included heterogeneous records/documents
- SpaceSniffer – provides visual layout of network directories
- Survey finding: poor organization, loss, outdate formats, problems with legacy files, email problems
- Survey informed action plan and will be beneficial when completing best practices guide and initiating training
- More detailed account of survey is available in latest issue of MAS Newsletter
Barbara Beaucar, Associate Archivist, The Barnes Foundation
- A Year in Review
- Barnes has a new logo inspired by an archival document, note from Dr. Barnes to staff, instructing them on where to place a piece on a wall ensemble
- A new building. The Barnes finally moved art collection to new building in Philadelphia, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien became one of the heaviest users of the archives ever while recreating the original space in the new building.
- Art library was moved to the lower level lobby.
- Architects pitched idea: a gallery and a garden, a garden and a gallery
- New library wraps around an inner garden.
- Clancy-Cullen Moving and Storage moved the art library from Merion to Philadelphia
- New shelving installed in Barnes archives
- Publications: archival documents supplied for research, images, and support
- Exhibition: the inaugural exhibition in the new building includes many archival documents
- PBS documentary about the Barnes Foundation aired on August 3 and featured Katy Rawdon
- Archive has been re-opened to researchers as of this summer.
Brian Wilson, Digital Processing Archivist, The Henry Ford
- Henry Ford improvements in archival access
- Archival description -- hard copy inventories and finding aids
- OCR/PDF Scanning
- 1,000 finding aids and inventories are full-text searchable for staff
- Scanning photographer negative logs
- Set of 227 cited Henry Ford quotations
- Flickr initiative – collection of auto racing images
- New touch screen interactive kiosks at Henry Ford Museum
- Social media: institutional blog, Facebook, Twitter
- Revision of copyright statement for online materials (CC licensing and a formal takedown policy)
- Digital preservation policy
- 5 terabytes of video and audio files
- Archival description within CMS System
- Feel fee to contact Brian Wilson (brianw@thehenryford.org) with any questions.
Jim Moske, Managing Archivist, Office of the Senior Vice President, Secretary and General Counsel/Archives, Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Collection Digitization and Collaboration with Curatorial Staff to Preserve Records
- Watson library is digitizing rare and unique holdings (view of CONTENTdm-powered digital collections homepage from Watson)
- Digitized first complete manuscript collection: Henry G. Marquand Papers – went live in spring 2012
- Now digitizing: Havemeyer Family Papers on art collecting. Currently in the process of scanning
- The Cloisters Museum is now launching another digitization project as well
- Curatorial departments maintain archival collections separately from the archives, and the archivists have taken an increasingly proactive role in advising departments how to process, house, and preserve these materials.
- Created new policies and forms for acquisition of archival materials across the institution
- About to begin work on the personal papers of Robert Lehman
- Contact Jim Moske (james.moske@metmuseum.org) with questions
Jonathan Lill, Project Archivist, Museum of Modern Art
- PS1 founded in 1971 by Alana Heis
- Received processing grant in 2008. It is reaching its conclusion now, and it is expected to be open to the public in November 2012
- Exhibition resource tells researchers what types of files are available by exhibition
- Processing and description was completed in January 2012
- New oral history program launched by Jeanmarie Theobalds
Announcements
Francine Snyder, Museum Archives Working Group Progress
- The working group mission was to create a museum archives standards and best practices resource guide
- SAA standards portal was launched (http://www2.archivists.org/standards)
- Museum Archive guidelines are one of the endorsed standards in this portal
- MAS guidelines has its own page, and includes a set of related resources
- Created page on MAS website that provides a link to download resources from the guide
- Project team is listed on the site
- Everyone is encouraged to review the resources and provide feedback on the tool.
Tamara Davis, Peabody Essex Library, Salem, MA
- Symposium on September 20-21 for Art Museums and Libraries and their archives
- Follow up on a symposium held two years ago
- Copies of brochures available if you’re interested and available at the front of the room
Sarah Demb, Museum of London,
- Records Management for Museums and Galleries: An Introduction
- Not available at the conference bookstore but it WILL be available through SAA online
Michelle Elligot, MoMA
- Session tomorrow morning on electronic records in museum environments
Jessica, LACMA
- Completed a grant project in June and since hired as a permanent employee at LACMA
Susan Anderson, PMA
- Bernadette Callery passed away three weeks ago. If you knew Bernadette and would like to sign a card, we plan to send it to her husband, Joseph Newcomer. [Card was sent 2012]
Session brainstorming / Social
How successful have the lightning round sessions been, and is that something we’d like to put together for this group? Has anyone attended them?
- Leanda thinks they’ve been very successful, and the Program Committee is interested in more lightning sessions for 2013.
Suggested topic: using archival documents in museum exhibitions. How do we do it?
- Katy says we endorsed two sessions that were discussed last year and both are happening in 2012, sessions planned for tomorrow. The Program Committee seems to find museum archives-related sessions of enough interest to SAA that they happen.
Suggested topic: grant writing session – it would be helpful if practicing archivists in the field could talk about the ins and outs of their experience.
Suggested topic: small independent art spaces that are processing their records or considering their records. Art centers in New Orleans have a really unique relationship with the community, and that might be interesting given the location next year
- Possible synergy with Performing Arts Roundtable?
- A second and third woman express interest in this suggestion. Jazz Fest organization just got funded to establish an archive so this is also timely.
Suggested topic: Relationships between archives and collections
- EMU CMS – Henry Ford Museum, Smithsonian, etc.
- Barbara Matthews, American Museum of Natural History introduces herself. Discusses her work and collaborations with other institutions such as Yale. Reinforces interest in EMU CMS
- Clarification: CMS – EMU, MINISIS, TMS, etc. A broad session about collections management systems that people are using. What kinds of challenges/successes are we having using different systems?
- Katy mentions being approached by Gallery Systems who makes TMS about creating an archives module for TMS.
Suggested topic: Session specifically focused on natural history and science museums
Suggested topic from: Heidi Abby, PSU. Looking at environmental sustainability for libraries, museums, and archives. Our section blends well with this initiative because of the museum component. There is a current checklist for environmentally sustainable exhibits
Yayoi Tsutsui, the archivist who presented on the Japanese recovery initiatives at last year’s Pecha Kucha, thanks the MAS group for their support
Final announcement: Mario Ramirez: War Booty (Displaced archives project), a seed project at its very beginnings. Comprehensive directory of displaced objects with descriptions. Looking to collaborate with other groups. Allow individuals to locate objects that were removed and use them. Not intended as a repatriation project – more of an initiative to locate objects. Mario is available at mario.hugo.ramirez@gmail.com, and you can contact him with questions.
Leanda thanks everyone for coming, invites everyone to post to the Museum Archives Listserv.
