PLASC Meeting Minutes 2022 March 23

Public Library Archives & Special Collections Section Meeting

Society of American Archivists

March 23, 2022, 1pm PST

Minutes

Present: Heather Lanctot, Johanna Russ, Matthew Peek, Laura Carroll

General round-robin discussion about how members are doing. Discussion of promotion to management and new roles. 

Motion to approve minutes from February 16, 2022 as written. Moved, seconded, approved.

Updates

Chair, Heather Lanctot
Read updates from SAA Council via Jasmine:

-Discussed allocating funds designated in the fiscal year 2022 budget to support the initial priorities outlined in the new Work Plan on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (III.B.). The Council will continue discussion via email to determine a final plan as soon as possible. (V.A.)

-Continued review of feedback on the new Strategic Plan Dashboard submitted during the open comment period in February; the final version will be approved soon by online vote . Many thanks to all who provided feedback on the draft! (V.C.)

-The SAA Election has gone live: https://www2.archivists.org/governance/election/2022. Please vote and spread the word to folks to vote in our incoming SAA election.

-The A*Census II Archives Administrators survey is now live: https://www2.archivists.org/news/2022/take-the-acensus-ii-archives-administrators-survey-now. If you are an administrator at your organization, please take the survey; if not, please share it with your administrator.

Vice Chair, Laura Carroll
No report.

Website, Johanna Russ
Updated microsite with past minutes.

Outreach, Laura Carroll
See below for discussion on blog for Laura’s report.

Agenda

Newsletter - Laura

• Update on Blog layout progress
  -Jo will try to get a higher resolution logo from SAA for the header.
  -Discussion on workflow for how to solicit, review, and post new content. Should the call for more content be specific or general? Specific ideas: Exhibits? Transition story–any transition? Share a photo–dogs in the collection/your reading room, etc.? The blog also must include instructions for how to submit and that if you have an idea outside of these categories, please reach out.
  -Laura will add a welcome post to appear at the top of the blog when it launches.
  -Aim to launch at next meeting.
  -Laura will populate About and Contact sections and will include a link back to the microsite.

• Content from PLASC Committee members

  • New assignments for next newsletter - nothing assigned at this time.

Twitter - Dylan

• Questions for polls

• Other content ideas

• Dylan was unable to attend the meeting.

Resources page on Microsite - Matthew & All

• General discussion of resource findings:

• Matthew was trying to find good examples that public library staff would have time to read. Also tried to find geographic representation, but couldn’t find all regions.

• Many noted that it was hard to find anything specific to public libraries.

• Some expressed concern about how long links will be live. We could download PDFs and keep as documents on microsite.

• Some of the categories overlap. We could use SAA dictionary definitions to designate.

• For management category, we might need to be more specific about what we want it to be.

• The goal is for up to 10 resources per categories at some point. We won’t have that many to start. Preamble should explain that it’s an evolving list and will encourage membership to suggest resources.

• Next steps: Jo will play around with website to see how it will display. Matthew will draft intro to the page. All committee members will search around the categories where we couldn’t find much. Also need to think about sharing individual resources as tweets. 

SAA Section Meeting Speakers/Format - Catherine 

• Update on Invisible Histories Project Workshop
  Catherine was not at this meeting, but had offered last time to do the original talk she had planned on this project. Concern was expressed because of IHP’s unresponsiveness. Heather will ask Catherine about adding additional speakers that could present alongside IHP or without IHP if IHP can’t participate. Potential themes:

• “Projects with External Partners” ?

• “Community Collecting” ?

• “Increased Access” ?

• “Archives/Partner as ‘Trust Bridge’” ?

• After hearing back from Catherine, Heather will work on a call out to the listserv for successful case studies in this vein. The goal will be to share different ways in which these types of projects have been successful to find what will be sustainable for different size institutions and budgets. This call will be reviewed at the next meeting.

• July 11-August 12 is the window for the annual Section meeting. We will aim for earlier in the window to avoid committee members’ vacations. We chose the 1pm Central time slot. Wednesday is preferred. Will try for 7/13 or 7/20.

Action Items

Adjourn