2011-2012 Highlights
- Completed a revision of the RMRT resume guide. The guide, which was put together originally in 2008, was in need of some revision, and now includes specific advice for tailoring resumes to NARA and other Federal Government Jobs.
- Hosted Lisa Schmidt, Michigan State University, at annual meeting to discuss Spartan Archive electronic records management system.
- With the Government Records Section, co-hosted Paul Wester and Arian Ravanbakhsh presentation at annual meeting to discuss Presidential Electronic Records memorandum/directive.
- Completed and disseminated two issues of The Records Manager, the Roundtable’s newsletter.
- Administered a membership survey to determine partial demographic makeup of Roundtable membership and better respond to desires of membership. Analysis is ongoing.
Ongoing projects/activities:
- Functional Thesaurus Working Group: Review of the Functional Thesaurus is ongoing; hoping to submit version with corrections to the Publications Committee during this fiscal year.
- Mentoring and Resume Review databases—formally restarted these programs intended to allow experienced members to help new archivists/records managers on their way up. New for this year, we are maintaining the database in the cloud for better continuity of operations in the event the primary administrator is inaccessible.
- Education Committee: The RMRT continues to explore ways in which we can bring educational opportunities to its membership, whether through collaboration with outside groups or through creation of original material.
New projects/activities:
- Student Liaison and speaker database: we assigned a Steering Committee member as Student Chapter Liaison to keep up to date with student concerns and to promote Records Management as a professional option for ARM students. In conjunction with this, we started a Speaker Database to better connect student chapters and local records management professionals.
- External Organization contact: We assigned a Steering Committee member to reach out to other Records Management and related professional organizations to explore collaboration and educational opportunities. This is not an official liaison position, since we do not speak for SAA as a whole, but more of an informal understanding/line of communication with these groups.
- Collaborated with LART on a handbook for Records Managers in small or one-person shops.
2007-2009 RMRT Highlights
- Completed a comprehensive bibliography of published resources on records and information management. See Record Management Roundtable resources page.
- Conducted a survey of Record Management Roundtable membership. The RMRT Steering Committee is actively implementing the ideas of the RMRT membership. For results, see Record Management Roundtable resources page.
- Implemented a Records Management Roundtable mentor/mentee program. The program now has seven mentor/mentee relationships.
- Received approval from SAA Council to raise funds for travel awards for RMRT members to attend the RMRT meeting at SAA annual meeting.
- SAA approval received for two 2009 annual meeting session proposals endorsed by RMRT: “Seeing the Forest from the Trees: Environmental Sustainability and Archives,” Chair, Terry Baxter and “ Herding Your Cats: Implementing Sustainable Museum Records Management, Chair, Sarah Demb.
- SAA approval received for a joint RMRT/AMRT Working Group 2009 annual meeting session proposal: “Strategies for Accommodating People with Physical Impairments and Disabilities in Archives,” Chair Daria D'Arienzo RMRT.
- Developed a two day preconference course for the 2009 SAA conference entitled “Records Management for Archivists.”
- Helped seven students with their resumes through our Resume Builders program.
- Expanded membership, as of November 2008, RMRT reached 282 members.
Suggestions or Comments for the Steering Committee, please e-mail the RMRT Chair: Brad Houston (houstobn [AT] uwm.edu).
