SAA Council Approves A&D Certificate, Criteria for Advocacy Statements

With a wide-ranging agenda for its August 17-18 meeting held in conjunction with ARCHIVES 2015, the SAA Council:

• Approved a Committee on Education recommendation that SAA develop a certificate component for the new Arrangement and Description curriculum that was approved in May 2015.

• Approved a Standards Committee recommendation that the Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Description (TS-EAD), the Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Context-Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (TS-EAC-CPF), and the Schema Development Team (SDT) be combined into a single technical subcommittee, the Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS). The Council agreed that this change will help ensure greater integration and more efficient maintenance of the encoding standards that SAA maintains.

• Approved revisions in the Archives and Archivists List Terms of Participation that were recommended by a Council subgroup following an open comment period.

• Approved “A New Librarian of Congress: Qualities of a Successful Candidate,” which was developed by the CoSA/NAGARA/SAA Joint Working Group on Issues and Awareness.

• Adopted “SAA’s Criteria for Advocacy Statements,” which notes that, “SAA will take a position, make a statement, or take other action only on issues that are related directly to archives and archival functions.”

• Approved bylaws changes for the Electronic Records Section, Issues and Advocacy Roundtable, and Web Archiving Roundtable.

• Discussed two Council proposals that were vetted for member comment during the Annual Meeting: 1) a proposed dues increase that will be put before an online all-member referendum in November 2015 and 2) a Council working group proposal to modify the current governance structure for member affinity groups.

At its August 22 session (at which new Council members were seated), the Council voted to extend the member comment period on the Member Affinity Groups proposal from September 1 to September 15.