PLASC Meeting Minutes 2019 July 26

Public Library Archives and Special Collections (PLASC)
Section of the Society of American Archivists

Meeting Minutes

Teleconference (WebEx)

Hosted by Library of Congress 

July 26, 2019, 1:30pm ET

Election results

• Chair - Angela Stanley, Georgia HomePlace

• Co-Chair - Derek Mosley, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History

• Secretary - Dylan Gaffney, Forbes Library

• At-Large - Johanna Russ, Chicago Public Library

• Does anyone else want to stay on steering committee (at-large)?

  • Patricia Delara

  • Heather Lanctot

Resources

• Anything left to do with bookmark and elevator speech?

  • Suzanne will add to the microsite

Newsletter

• Add section meeting and election info - aim to send out week of 07/29/2019

• Final review

• How can we transition?

• Patricia will add in and Heather will review

Annual meeting

• Section business - Year in review and election

  • This year - resources, twitter, newsletter

  • Next year - research gap analysis, collaboration with other sections/organizations, session proposal (s)?

• PLASC section lightning talks - presentations from Denver, DC, AMIA, CAW

• Sessions will be recorded, but only free to attendees

  • $99 for members, or $150 for non-members

• Lauren and Angela will look for public library related-speakers at annual to share in the inaugural newsletter

Transition

• Lauren has started a document on the Google Drive

  • Includes important dates and deadlines

• There was no transition document previously

• Suzanne will add information about the microsite, e.g., adding new and updated content, social media links

Reflection on PLASC 2018-2019

• What went well?

  • Committee was able to create resources that we just talked about in the last year - small achievements but tangible

  • Meeting regularly - scheduling them and fitting them into our schedules!

  • Broad contribution - everyone willing to give of their ideas and time

  • Google drive - establishing record-keeping and transition

• What could be better?

  • Delineated roles

  • Angela brought up the idea of creating more space for Public Library Archives; would connecting more between organizations be better?

  • Lauren expressed that the section meeting could be improved – 

    • Frustrating that there’s a small number of public library archivists that can make it to annual 

    • Could it be webinar or webcast, would it help serve our membership better in that format?

  • Microsite – Patricia don’t want it to be connected to SAA website in order to reach a larger audience rather than  being exclusive. Lauren said this was why we wanted to create newsletter to send out over listserv and Twitter to reach more people

  • Patricia expressed that a reliance on SAA microsite limits usefulness of newsletter

  • Frustration with functionality or with SAA

• Next year?

  • Gap analysis

    • Te need to know more about public library archives and special collections; 

      • community of practice: what are we missing from the public library archives perspective

      • leaning on colleagues for asking questions to get what they need

    • Also conduct a gap analysis for ourselves as section – how can we be of more use? How can we give colleagues what they need?

  • Collaboration with other sections/organizations 

  • Annual meeting proposal(s)

  • Funds

    • Lauren pointed out that $200 is available to every section for specific purposes, e.g. webex, printing, speakers

    • SAA Foundation can also give out additional money to sections

Calls to Action

• Lauren will email Petrina to check if she is still our section Council rep and introduce to Angela as incoming Chair

• Lauren will email bios of new leadership to steering committee 

  • Suzanne will post to microsite

• Patricia brought up the idea of having a blog hosted separately from the microsite.

  • Lauren thought once the newsletter gain traction, the committee can assess whether the section can go in the direction of blog eventually.

  • Heather recommended seeing how the newsletter pans out first