PLASC Meeting Minutes: 2020 May 13

Public Library Archives & Special Collections Section Meeting Minutes

Society of American Archivists

May 13, 2020, 3:00pm EST

Agenda

Check-in

Notetaker (notetaking doc)

Approve April 8, 2020 meeting minutes

Updates

Chair, Angela Stanley 

• Not a whole lot to update; will address elections and annual meeting plans later in the meeting.

Newsletter, Patricia Delara 

• more submissions than ever! Considering transitioning to Canva for future / larger issues. Will share out by the end of the week. Draft newsletter

Social Media, Dylan Gaffney and Derek Mosley

• Haven’t done much during this time of Covid-19

• Would like to find new libraries to follow and share

Website, Johanna Russ

• Updated website with meeting minutes for last few months

Survey Working Group, Catherine Oseas & Heather Lanctot

Old Business

Elections & Vacant Positions

Elected: Vice Chair, Secretary

Appointed: Two At-Large Members, Webmaster 

Survey question review

• Heather will reach out to SAA Committee on Research, Data, and Assessment (Paul and Jennifer) for guidance on the survey

• Add PLA survey questions into survey

• FInalize survey and possibly put into Google Forms or some other software

• Possibly distribute in June

Leave survey as-is, but include header info identifying what date should be used to respond to questions. Add a section using Challenges questions from PLA survey, giving credit.

From Felicia Owens at SAA: “There have been a few other sections that have conducted surveys recently, but all of them have developed and disseminated the surveys on their own, using Survey Monkey or Qualtrics (if they had access to an institutional subscription). The best example would be the Women Archivists Section, which conducted a salary survey in 2017. They conducted the survey on their own and then sought SAA support (successfully!) to hire a firm to analyze and report on the results. This may be a good model for PLASC to follow.

I encourage you to reach out to the SAA Committee on Research, Data, and Assessment, which was formed this year to help advise SAA groups on conducting surveys of this nature (among other duties). The current chairs are Paul Conway (pconway@umich.edu) and Jennifer King (jennifer.gunter.king@emory.edu).”

Online Section Meeting format

Reimagining PLASC Happy Hour

New Business

Section Leaders page on microsite

Action Items

Adjourn