In Other Actions, the SAA Council....

At its August 12-13 meeting in New Orleans, the SAA Council adopted “Principles and Priorities for Continuously Improving the SAA Annual Meeting,” reviewed the extensive report of the Communications Task Force and directed staff to implement its recommendations as feasible, and honored (posthumously) the outstanding contributions to the profession and SAA of Taronda Spencer.

In other actions, the Council:

• Agreed to create a new Advocacy and Public Policy Committee and charged a small group to develop a committee description for Council review and approval in early September.
• Approved revised Standards Committee procedures.
• Adopted a revised description of the Program Committee that stresses the importance of innovating, per the “Principles and Priorities for Continuously Improving the SAA Annual Meeting.”
• Affirmed the Council’s support for the International Council on Archives and its Section on Professional Associations (ICA SPA).
• Adopted a revised charge for the SAA/Academy of Certified Archivists representative to the ICA SPA.
• On the matter of external representatives:  discontinued SAA’s representation to the Association of Information and Image Management; deferred discussion of SAA’s representation to the ICA Experts Group on Archival Description (formerly ICA Committee on Best Practices and Standards) and the ARMA International RIM Review Group until after the Annual Meeting; and asked the Standards Committee to draft a combined charge for SAA’s representative(s) to the MARC Advisory Committee and the ALA Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access, for Council review and online discussion.

To view meeting materials, see http://www2.archivists.org/groups/saa-council/august-12-13-2013-council-meeting-agenda.  Minutes of the meeting will be available via the SAA website within 60 days.

The next meeting of the Council will take place in Chicago in late January; the date will be announced as soon as it is determined.  Proposed agenda items are due 4 weeks before the meeting start date, and may be sent to SAA President Danna Bell-Russel (dbellr[at]att.net), Executive Director Nancy Beaumont (nbeaumont[at]archivists.org) or, for SAA component groups, your Council liaison (see http://saa.archivists.org/4DCGI/committees/Roles.html?Action=Show_Comm_Roles&CommCode=SAA**A-COUNCIL&Name=Officers&Status=Active&).  Please note that all SAA members are welcome to attend SAA Council meetings.