Council Adopts Advocacy Issue Briefs, FY15 Budget

SAA’s strategic Goal 1 was front and center at the Council’s May 22-24 meeting in Chicago, at which it approved issue briefs prepared by the Committee on Advocacy and Public Policy on the Presidential Records Act, the Freedom of Information Act, Orphan Works, and Section 108 of the Copyright Act—the latter two drafted by the Intellectual Property Working Group—that provide background and explain in detail SAA’s position on these subjects. (View SAA’s Advocacy Agenda here.) 

"These briefs help put 'meat on the bones' of SAA’s Advocacy Agenda and serve as a wonderful resource for SAA members who want to learn more about these issues," says SAA President Danna Bell.  "We look to CAPP to continue development of issue briefs for our use in advocating on behalf of archives and archivists."

On the operations side, the Council adopted a budget for FY 2015 that projects a net gain of $46,700. "This budget represents a realistic work plan for the Society that places appropriate emphasis on maintaining operations at a sustainable level while addressing SAA’s strategic priorities," says SAA Treasurer Mark Duffy. "The organization’s ability to succeed in key areas of advocacy, education, knowledge dissemination, and member services is highly dependent on staying current with communication technology and information management systems.  Unlike most other strategic priorities, large technology investments cannot be accommodated within normal operating budgets," he continues. "The FY15 budget will allow our staff to plan appropriately to meet member service expectations."

As a way of supporting a long-standing SAA policy on child care at the Annual Meeting, the Council included in the budget $6,000 to assist members with child care costs associated with attendance at the Annual Meeting.  SAA is collecting information about interest in child care services via the registration form and will be in touch with interested individuals before the conference.

In other actions, the Council:

• Approved a Committee on Education recommendation to proceed with development of an Arrangement and Description curriculum that provides a comprehensive continuing education path in this core area of archives management.
• Approved a Standards Committee recommendation that its "Procedures for Review and Approval of an SAA-Developed Standard" be revised to include a procedure for  "fast tracking" Council development of best practices documents (as has been done for Best Practices for Internships and Best Practices for Volunteers in Archives). In these cases, a subgroup of the Council functions as the standard development and review team and the standards approval process proceeds from there.
• Adopted a motion to suspend section and roundtable endorsements of session proposals for the 2015 Annual Meeting.  Done in the spirit of the Annual Meeting Task Force report, the action was taken "to allow the Program Committee to explore alternative ways to bring broad member input into the session development process."  According to the support statement, "Administering the endorsement process consumes Program Committee and staff time that needs to be focused on exploring new options for direct member input on annual meeting program sessions."
• Adopted revised descriptions for the Committee on Ethics and Professional Conduct, the Diversity Committee, and the Journal Editorial Board to more accurately reflect current practice.
• Adopted a Records Retention Policy and Schedule for SAA.
• Reviewed a draft code of conduct policy for SAA meetings and online spaces and agreed to seek member comment on it, with a deadline of June 19.
• Elected Tanya Zanish-Belcher to serve as the Executive Committee member who will represent the councilors on the Executive Committee in the coming year and selected second-year Council members Geof Huth and Michelle Light to serve on the 2014-2015 Nominating Committee.

Minutes of the May 22-24 Council meeting will be published within 60 days and made available on the SAA website at: http://www2.archivists.org/groups/saa-council/may-22-24-2014-council-meeting.

The next meeting of the SAA Council will take place Monday, August 11, and Tuesday, August 12, in conjunction with the Joint Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.  To suggest agenda items, contact SAA President Danna Bell (dbellr@att.net) or Executive Director Nancy Beaumont (nbeaumont@archivists.org).  Agenda items are due four weeks in advance of the meeting, or by July 14.