1. Enhance “Archival Outlook”
2. Sharpen “In the Loop”
3. The SAA website: tweak now, overhaul soon
4. Consider an official SAA blog
5. Emphasize aggregation of relevant content
6. Use social media to build on the success of Off the Record
7. Make more extensive use of blogs for the SAA Conference
8. SAA’s Twitter use – more than a broadcast channel
9. LinkedIn carry on without expending resources; Flickr and Facebook, low cost reevaluation.

Exert your rights as a member. Let us know what you think. Do it here on this page, or here, or by taking this quickie survey. Thanks for your help.

Here’s something you already know: all archives—including yours–hold unlimited fascinating possibilities for research. Here’s something you may not realize: right now is when you can help SAA showcase the exciting work people accomplish by using archives.

From East Coast to West, and from the Midwest to points South, the five contestants in this year’s I Found It In The Archives! national competition learned first-hand that archives yield unexpected surprises and discoveries:

• New Albany, Ohio, resident Doug Tracy describes how a visit to the Ohio Historical Society led him to uncover long-lost details about his ancestors.
• Misty Hurley used the East Texas Research Center to learn more about Nacogdoches and its citizens through studying funeral home logbooks.
• Charlotte Farmer of Redding, California, illustrates how archival documents from the Shasta Historical Society helped preserve the memory of Noor, a champion racehorse who was trained by the famous Charles “Seabiscuit” Howard.
• Brianna Barnard of Laurel, Mississippi, stumbled on a letter from Helen Keller while working at the University of Southern Mississippi, School of Library and Information Science.
• Naomi Marrow’s quest to learn a man’s life story after she spotted his headstone on her daily walk past the Bruton Parish Cemetery in Williamsburg, Virginia, led her to the Earl Gregg Swem Library of the College of William & Mary.

Read more about their stories of discovery and pick your favorite. But don’t stop there. The I Found It! campaign is all about using your networks to spread the word about the contest—and, in the process, exposing even more people to the amazing questions that can be answered in archives.

Please use your social media channels to encourage people beyond the archives sector to vote, and don’t forget to use #FoundArch in your tweets.

Voting ends May 15. The winner of the national competition scores a trip to the SAA/CoSA Joint Annual Meeting in New Orleans this August.

This is the third year SAA is hosting the I Found It In The Archives! campaign as a complement to American Archives Month. Help make it the best year ever. Spread the word!

–Teresa Brinati, SAA Director of Publications

So what have we been up to, and what’s in store? In short: your dedicated, hard-working Council started in earnest last fall when we closely examined the data from the 2012 member survey (the data are very much reflected in our draft plan), then spent 1.5 days in January at which we worked with an excellent consultant (Kathy Henrichs), and we’ve been slaving over an evolving draft ever since. This stuff ain’t easy. How to say something meaningful about near-future directions without just spouting organization-o-babble? Our work won’t be finished until next summer after the Annual Meeting in New Orleans in August, but this is an important moment for you to weigh in on the high-level outline of the plan.

Please, oh please, take a look at what we’ve done so far and send feedback: via a comment right here on this page, or on the SAA website page where the document is posted, or submit the comment form, or send a direct message to me, or speak up on the Archives and Archivists listserv, or however you please. Just do it, please! (Did I say “please”? enough times? )

Many thanks in advance for helping us chart the best course for your professional organization’s future.

****************

A few months back, my SAA Council pal Kate Theimer wrote an Off the Record guest post analyzing the verbatim comments received as part of the 2012 SAA Member Survey (of which synopses are available here and here). Here’s what she had to say about SAA communications:

 “Based on their comments, many SAA members want more or different modes of communication, both with SAA as an organization and with each other … it does not come as a surprise that there was no widespread agreement on whether members wanted more or less communication from SAA, or whether they preferred email, print, or … social networking. This is perhaps an indication that the organization needs to allow members to tailor for themselves how they want to receive information.”

 Kate’s comment brought to mind the old saw about the two archivists stranded on a desert island. (Each formed their own professional association.) If there is a grain of truth to every stereotype, and in this case I think there is, then we have to wonder: how does SAA develop the capacity to satisfy a diverse membership’s appetite for communications–at once “more,” “less” and “different”–particularly when there is no consensus as to what those terms mean?

SAA President Jackie Dooley appointed the  Communications Task Force last August to draft recommendations  on “practical ways to enhance SAA’s communications with a focus on three areas: intended audiences, content/messages, and tools/channels.”  Since then, the Task Force members–Dara Baker (chair), Eira Tansey, Brad Houston, and I (doubling as the group’s liaison to Council)–have become intimately familiar with the full range of SAA’s print and online communications. We’ve conducted a communications audit, drafted environmental scans, and immersed ourselves in a heap of data, reports, and published literature about SAA’s and other professional organizations’ communications modes and channels. After working through all of this information, we drafted a set of preliminary recommendations, and now we are soliciting your review and comment.

Please take a look at our recommendations on the Task Force’s website. If you are engaged, concerned, opinionated, or even remotely interested in improving your professional organization’s communications, then this is your opportunity to weigh in. Your feedback will help us fill in gaps and set priorities in the next iteration of recommendations, which is due to the Council in May. You could have real impact in helping SAA communicate with its membership as effectively as possible. Our work is ongoing in tandem with updating SAA’s current strategic plan and preparing the 2013/2014 budget, so the timing is perfect.

Please share your thoughts in whatever way you feel comfortable. You can post comments below, here via the comment feature (at the very bottom of the page), take a quickie survey to express your preferences, send us an email at ctf@archivists.org, or join the conversation on Twitter (hashtag #saactf).

The deadline is May 4 2013, so don’t delay!

On behalf of the entire Task Force, many thanks for your help.

–Beth Kaplan

It took less than ten minutes to read through the five (only five? really?) entries. Each little essay is less than 500 words (or so) long. They’re fun to read. I had an immediate favorite. Vote cast. Boom. On to the next thing on the to-do list.

But sheesh: only five entries? Most of you out there work with students and scholars and community members who make exciting/interesting/cool (life changing! titillating!) discoveries in your collections every day. This contest should have a zillion entries! Would your library/archives director totally groove on (yes, I lived through the 60s)  knowing that one of your users’ big discoveries won a national essay contest? You bet s/he would. Those bigshots live for audience-friendly publicity.

So, now you have three exceptionally modest assignments:

1. Vote in the SAA elections (only two more weeks before it’s too late).
2. Vote for your favorite I Found It story.
3. Vow to get at least one story submitted from your archives next year. How hard can it be? You love all that researcher excitement. Just get one of them to spend 30 minutes writing it up.

Yes, I’m a tad relentless. But look on the positive side: only four more months left in my presidency! (Not that I’m counting. It’s fun!)

Not so impressive is it? Help improve our sorry collective voting record and help get out the vote! Especially your own. Thanks to this year’s Nominating Committee, the slate of candidates is both excellent and varied in terms of background, expertise, and all other meaningful variables. And if you want to hear more from them, take a look at the statements from some of the candidates that have been appearing on the SNAP blog (this link is to the latest of these posts–cruise around the blog for earlier ones).

Vote by April 15th, or forever forfeit your right to kvetch about anything the successful candidates do during their terms in office.

Note: The voter participation table was published on page 15 of the May/June 2012 issue of Archival Outlook.

Rebecca Goldman (of Derangement/Description and SNAP fame) and I had a brief tweet chat this afternoon:

Hence this post, with thanks to Rebecca for the nudge.

So: all you experienced archivists out there … your colleagues who are getting started in our profession need you! Do you remember what it was like to be in grad school, or newly on the job market, and wishing you knew how to navigate your way forward? So much to think and fret about …. putting together an effective resumé, determining which jobs to apply for, tailoring a cover letter, doing interview prep, making decisions about how to get involved in professional activities beyond your day job, getting over the possible intimidation factor the first time you attend a professional conference, and on and on. Aaarrgh.

SAA’s mentoring program is your opportunity to give back. Doing it well takes a certain amount of time, but a whole lot less than a lot of other worthwhile professional activities, and with really tangible payoff. Step one: Volunteer. (Your name and email are automatically entered into the form!) Step two: Await an assignment, then get in touch with your new pal with alacrity. Be friendly and welcoming. Ask how you can help, what they’re interested in talking about; nudge them along if they’re not sure what to ask for. Steps 3+: Make it up as you go along. Have a phone chat early in the friendship; email will probably work much of the time from there forward. Exchange messages once a month and offer up some useful advice–or just encouragement–each time you’re in contact. Be friendly and welcoming. Meet up at the Annual Meeting. Buy lunch for your new pal (you can afford it better than s/he can, and it’ll make your mentee loooove you immediately).

Can you honestly say you don’t have time for that? Can you appreciate how much it will mean to your mentorship pal that you, an SAA member who is a really talented and knowledgeable archivist–and perhaps has published in the archival literature (and whose stuff they’ve read in grad school), or speaks at Annual Meetings, or is in a leadership position, or is an SAA Fellow (Listen up, Fellows!! Oh, you’re retired? All the better), or is a reputable participant in Archives listserv discussions, etc etc etc–is eager to take the time to help them launch their career? Can you appreciate that? Admit it. When you were new at all this, you longed for access to the people who clearly know what they’re doing.

Here’s that link for volunteering again. Do it now, or you probably won’t. Inundate us with mentor volunteer forms! Be aware that the program generally has more volunteers who need a mentor than volunteers to be mentors. Hmm. What does that say about all of us experienced archivists out there?

It’s been too many years since I did it myself, but I’m gonna sign up again the minute I’m done with this SAA President gig. Yep, I am.

Thank you, Peter!

You may have seen SAA’s discussion statement about the Belfast Project at Boston College that has drawn lots of concern from archivists and historians over the past two years. The Oral History Section also has posted a lot of useful information. Today we hear from Frank Boles, SAA past president and chair of our Government Affairs Working Group, who led the work to develop our statement. He and his merry band of GAWGers always do excellent research and thinking before they send a document to Council, and this one is no exception.

*********************

Virginia Raymond has asked whether “One of these things is not like the others …. spouse, priest, oral historian, psychiatrist, attorney.” This grouping of professions stems from her discussion of a legal case involving the Boston College Library, which was subpoenaed on May 11, 2011 by a Federal District Court to surrender closed oral histories the court believed relevant to a murder investigation in Northern Ireland. Many appeals have ensued, and a request to review the case is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. At the heart of the case is a simple question: how much confidentiality can an archivist legally guarantee to a donor, such as a donor of an oral history?

I have heard some archivists argue that an “archival privilege” of confidentiality exists, or should exist, to shield an archives from a hostile court’s order. They assert that, like spouses sharing the daily intimacy of life, a priest counseling a penitent, a psychiatrist caring for a patient, or a lawyer talking to a client, an archivist’s relationship to a donor is such that a legally sustainable sphere of privacy should extend to any material donated with donor-imposed restrictions on use.

The case raises two questions: Do U.S. courts currently recognize an absolute or almost absolute legal right to confidentiality for scholars or archivists? And if they do not recognize such a right, should they?

The short answer to the first question is no. Two federal district judges and the First Circuit Court of Appeals have explicitly found that such a right does not exist. Although the Supreme Court may take up the case, for the time being the honest answer to a potential donor is that in most, if not all, instances, an archives would be required to surrender material subpoenaed by a court.

As for the second question, I noted above that some archivists believe that a legal right of archival privilege is needed. They have recommended that if the Boston College case is heard by the Supreme Court, SAA should file an amicus brief asserting such a privilege. Their justification is that if society wants donors to give honest, unaltered records regarding controversial subjects for eventual historical use, archivists need a mechanism to ensure confidentiality.  No archivist wants to see a donor end up in federal prison. If legally recognized, archival privilege would make it possible to close a collection against any unwanted inquiry, regardless of the source. While this may seem a reasonable argument, it asserts, in effect, that the needs of future research always transcend the societal needs of the present. Not all archivists would agree.

I have been asked if the profession really believes that archivists should withhold essential legal evidence found in a closed collection no matter what. Should the nature of the case matter? What if a collection contained proof of the widespread release of dangerous chemicals that would justify medical claims of those injured? Would the obligation to confidentiality apply if an archivist knew there was proof that someone had been convicted in error? If an innocent person is given a death sentence, does the bond of confidentiality still hold?  Is history always more important than justice?

Such examples clearly are extreme, but the claim of an absolute right to honor and protect donor-imposed restrictions creates an absolute obligation with difficult ethical implications.  Before arguing before a court that a legal right to archival privilege exists, SAA would need to determine whether there is consensus within the profession, how that consensus might be balanced against competing legal and ethical demands, and what the appropriate processes would be for resolving differences of opinion.

In the end, we should recognize how easy it is to for any of us to rise up in indignation; moving beyond to encourage thoughtful and productive conversation requires more resolve. Action movies aren’t made about people who ask for thoughtful conversation. I look forward to a professional conversation to discuss a slight variant on the question posed by Ms. Raymond: spouse, priest, archivist, psychiatrist, attorney–do they really go together?

The university has set up a working group charged to “identify and research the immediate issues related to the transfer and bring these before University System Chancellor Hank Huckaby. The group will focus on the transition issues; long-term planning will be addressed if the transfer is completed.”

The leaderships of CoSA, NAGARA, and SAA met the other day to discuss offering some input to the working group, and each society plans to submit a letter highlighting issues that we feel are important for them to consider.

If you have thoughts about things I should mention in my letter, please get in touch as soon as you can.

And, particularly if you live in Georgia, get out there and make your voice heard!