SAA Council Reviews Reports on Archival Salary Surveys, Adopts Operating Reserve Policy

October 17, 2019—During its October 14 conference call, the SAA Council:

• Adopted a new operating reserve policy to ensure that SAA builds and maintains adequate net assets to support the organization’s day-to-day operations, should extenuating circumstances arise.

• Considered a request from the Tragedy Response Initiative Task Force to fund a fall meeting to continue work from the Think Tank held at the 2019 Joint Annual Meeting, and decided to work with the task force to refine the estimated budget and consider alternative meeting dates.

• Reviewed reports from an ad hoc working group on archival salaries and the SAA Business Archives Section, both of which had conducted independent surveys about archival salaries and SAA job board policies. The Council will have an in-depth discussion of the reports at its December 2019 meeting, with the intention of deciding next steps to continue progress on this issue.

• Received a preliminary report on the costs and participation rates for live streaming of the 2019 Joint Annual Meeting in Austin. Executive Director Nancy Beaumont noted that 35 individuals purchased the live stream package and an additional 52 individuals purchased the on-demand recordings following the meeting. A complete written report will be submitted for the December 2019 Council meeting.

If you have questions or concerns about these Council actions, feel free to contact SAA President Meredith Evans (president@archivists.org) or Executive Director Nancy Beaumont (nbeaumont@archivists.org). Complete minutes from this conference call will be available on the SAA website soon.

The next meeting of the SAA Council will take place from Tuesday, December 3, through Thursday, December 5, in Chicago. If you’d like to have an item considered for inclusion on the agenda, submit it to Evans and/or Beaumont no later than Tuesday, November 5.