PLASC Meeting Minutes 2021 February 16

Public Library Archives & Special Collections Section Meeting

Society of American Archivists

February 16, 2021, 4pm EST

Minutes

Present: Angela Stanley, Patricia Delara, Johanna Russ, Laura Carroll, Heather Lanctot, Petrina Jackson, Catherine Oseas, Dylan Gaffney

Previous Minutes:

Approve January 19, 2020 meeting minutes. No changes, moved, approved.

Updates

Chair, Angela Stanley

• Society of Georgia Archivists issued a statement on COVID vaccine eligibility for librarians and archivists.

Vice Chair & Newsletter Editor, Patricia Delara

• Will put a call out for newsletter submissions at the end of this month. Should we put a call out for anyone interested in newsletter editing, either general call or within the group. Heather and Johanna willing to contribute.

Website, Johanna Russ

• No updates

Secretary & Social Media Coordinator, Dylan Gaffney

• Increase twitter posts before poll posts start to maximize engagement 

Survey Working Group, Catherine Oseas & Heather Lanctot

• Awaiting data analysis. Angela, Heather and Catherine will collaborate on survey report and data analysis.

Outreach, Laura Carroll

• Developed twitter poll questions for public outreach

Old Business

Finalizing Twitter poll questions. Short paragraph intro to preface each poll. Twitter invites informal language, so we can be casual. Discussion on wording and usefulness of each possible question.  First poll question starting next Wednesday and repeating weekly thereafter. We can edit and adjust questions as we go.

Survey report & deriving metrics for advocacy (2018 example / slides)

New Business

Finalize SAA Advocacy Petition

Discussion arose from advocacy taking place to encourage that library workers be moved to Section 1B. As a division of SAA, we can not issue our own public statement. Instead, we have developed a form to encourage SAA to take action. Issue has not come up previously at SAA Council, perhaps due to a lack of representation by public libraries. Discussion of whether we should include this issue in twitter poll questions, ask if we should, as public facing and library workers, be included in 1B, and whether individual institutions are advocating for their workers. We will finalize petition and notice will be sent out before submitting tomorrow, 2/17.

Action Items

• Angela will follow up with Heather and Catherine on survey report

• Laura will send announcement over listserv

• Dylan will begin sharing surveys on Wednesdays

Meeting adjourned at 4:46PM.