PLASC Meeting Minutes 2022 April 20

Public Library Archives & Special Collections Section Meeting

Society of American Archivists

April 20, 2022, 1pm PST

Minutes

Present: Heather Lanctot, Laura Carroll, Catherine Oseas, Johanna Russ

Motion to approve minutes from March 23, 2022 as written. Moved for approval by Matthew. Seconded by Jo. Approved unanimously.

Updates

Chair, Heather Lanctot..

Vice Chair, Laura Carroll

Website, Johanna Russ

Outreach, Laura Carroll

Agenda

Newsletter - (Laura). Possible launch after this meeting. Several posts already published with more to come. Welcome post will be at the top. We have the option for grouping of topics (by Series), which can be useful in putting calls out for submissions. Tags also still to be done. Parameters could be helpful for encouraging submissions, as opposed to an outcall. Heather suggested we could wait to establish a series until we have more content on the site, and see what categories or topics come up. We can start with an open call, publicize and promote through twitter and listservs. Matthew suggests publishing and promoting in early may to avoid the vacations, meetings etc. later in the month. Discussion of how we solicit submissions, does not have to be quarterly like the old newsletter, could coincide with events like women's history month, etc. (show us what your library is doing for black history month, etc.). Goal to start pushing out the blog in early May, with our first request for materials to Pride for June. Calls for candidates for next section elections is another topic to start promoting to ensure the sustainability of the section. Johanna will submit the next Meet the Archivist. Dylan will submit his article about collaborative projects.. 

• Welcome post

• Review and approve to launch

• Content from PLASC Committee members

  • New assignments for next newsletter

Resources page on Microsite - (Matthew & All)

• Introduction for website - (Matthew) - Matthew will add a brief one or two sentence description of each category or heading.

• Resources - (All). Are there any resources for open source platforms that libraries can use (may be entirely covered by Collection management System Collection)? All should contribute their known regional assets to categories where they might be useful. Specific categories could be requested via listservs and submissions. 

• Website layout - (Jo). Somewhat limited by the microsite system. Diverse Sexuality & Gender page given as an example with landing page, links to categories and each category page headed with an anchor link back to the list of resource categories. Perhaps change link to say Resources Page (eliminating word list). Jo will play around with it and the group can take a look next month. 

Twitter - (Dylan)

• Questions for polls - running slightly low as many of the Covid questions seem slightly out of date or will need to be adjusted. New ideas can be put in shared doc emailed to 

• Other content ideas - Once the blog is public we can have regular posts highlighting new content and soliciting submissions. Possible guest hosting SAA instagram if we have enough visual content

• Microsite resources to highlight

SAA Section Meeting Speakers/Format - Catherine & Heather

• Invisible Histories Project - Catherine. IHP folks available in August but not the week of our meeting, so Catherine can talk about the Repository side of things. 

• Call for listserv for lightning talks - Heather. Laura has a local collaboration which seems very appropriate and is encouraged to apply. Add call for supplemental materials to form (website, brochures, retc.). Call for lightning talks to be put on website so that we can share it out to social media (or can be done with screenshot). . 

Action Items

Adjourn