Meeting Minutes: August 22, 2003, Los Angeles, CA

Co-chairs: Kate Colligan and Ellen Swain

SAA Annual Conference, August 22, 2003, 4:45-6:15pm

Present:

Valerie Brown, Kate Colligan (co-chair), Kathie Burger Johnson, Sarah Keen (webmaster), Regina Lark (speaker), Janice Ruth, Meagan Sniffin-Marinoff (SAA Council liaison), Ellen Swain (co-chair), and Tanya Zanish-Belcher.

Program:

The Women's Collections Roundtable (WCRT) met on August 22, 2003 from 4:45pm-6:15pm at the SAA Annual Conference in Los Angeles, CA.

Following Co-chair Kate Colligan's welcome, Co-chair Ellen Swain introduced speaker Dr. Regina Lark, graduate advisor for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women and UCLA Women's Studies Program. Lark's presentation, entitled "Striking Gold at the National Archives: My Search for Japanese War Brides," outlined her research findings and described her quest for archival and other sources.

After Lark's presentation, attendees introduced themselves and made announcements concerning upcoming events and other projects. Tanya Zanish-Belcher provided background information about the WCRT on-line membership directory, which was complied in the early 1990's as a networking means for all interested in women's collections and history. Attendees considered whether to update this resource or to connect to and utilize Loyola University's mapping project which provides much of the same information and is up to date.

Colligan discussed the need to change administration of the WCRT listserv. Currently the listserv set up requires Colligan to subscribe and unsubscribe participants manually. To eliminate this time consuming process, the RT co-chairs will look into a "self-subscribing" listserv option.

Valerie Brown updated attendees on Loyola University's "mapping the world" project concerning women's history repositories and collections. To date, eighty repositories are included in the resource. Brown also reported on the recent meeting of the National Council for Research on Women, a group comprised of professionals from women's centers and organizations across the country. The meeting stressed the need for archivists and librarians to collaborate and become aware of what each group is doing in the field. Attendees discussed a possible joint meeting between the American Library Association and SAA librarians and archivists on women's collections.

Webmaster Sarah Keen mentioned recent changes to all SAA websites. Keen has added a new rotating photograph attraction to the WCRT site. She implored attendees to send, via email attachment, photographs from their institutions to add to the rotation. Attendees discussed content for the website, including: a membership list, meeting minutes,
announcements and events (with the option to submit online), internet resources on women's history/collections, information on grants and fellowships, and a possible link to Loyola's mapping project.

The group ended the meeting by discussing session proposals for SAA 2004 in Boston. Colligan encouraged attendees to use the WCRT listserv to continue to exchange ideas before the October proposal deadline. She also encouraged submitters to contact the co-chairs for WCRT endorsements. Last year, WCRT endorsed four proposals.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:15pm. Members of the WCRT, Women Archivists Roundtable and Women's Caucus met for dinner after the meeting.

Submitted by Ellen Swain.