Off the Record

Celebrating the Inaugural American Archivist Online Supplement

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Danna C. Bell | Leave a comment

This post was written by Bill Landis, member of Council and editor of the first American Archivist Online Supplement.

The American Archivist Online Supplement to Volume 74 celebrates SAA’s 75th anniversary by capturing selected content from nine sessions offered at the 2011 SAA Annual Meeting in Chicago. As the guest editor of this inaugural supplement issue, I was pleased to experiment with SAA in the publishing of an electronic-only issue of The American Archivist that featured additional reviewed and copyedited articles as they were completed (rather than waiting for all to be ready simultaneously). The publication of this supplement represents: Continue reading →

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Posted in American Archivist, Communication and SAA

A Time for Giving (and no this is not quite what you think)

Posted on December 19, 2013 by Danna C. Bell | Leave a comment

Take a moment and look at these three images and answer the question provided below.

Which of these photographs are of the same person?

What did you see that helped you answer the question? What prior knowledge did you use? What questions did you ask yourself? What clues tipped you off?

These are all skills that students need to gain and use to survive in today’s classrooms and in our busy world. They need to know how to observe; how to question; how to incorporate what they already know; how to analyze and think critically. Continue reading →

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Posted in Advocacy, Disaster recovery, K-12 Education

Tagged K-12 Education, Primary Sources

From the Desk of the Vice President – Getting Involved in SAA

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Danna C. Bell | Leave a comment

It is with great pleasure that I present a few words from Kathleen Roe, SAA’s Vice President. She is at the beginning of the appointments process, probably the most difficult responsibility of the Vice President.

We both have been asked how to get involved in SAA. Following up on my comments from last week, is her outstanding response. I hope you will respond to her call for comments and questions. Continue reading →

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Posted in Communication and SAA, Member Needs, Member Satisfaction

Tagged Appointments, Member Satisfaction

Supporting Our Colleagues

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Danna C. Bell | 2 comments

November is an interesting month for me. It’s a time when I am reminded of what I have and when I also am reminded that it is just as important to share what I have as it is to receive.

I am grateful for all I have received this month including help with packing and moving to a new home, birthday greetings from far and wide, time with two of the newest members of the Bell family and two amazing birthday cakes from outstanding home bakers. I am always beyond overwhelmed by the support of family, friends and professional colleagues and thankful for all love and caring that surrounds me. Continue reading →

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Posted in Member Needs

Tagged Collegiality

Archivists, Archives and Adventure at the ARL Meeting

Posted on November 13, 2013 by Danna C. Bell | 2 comments

Many SAA members may know the Association of Research Libraries from its co-sponsorship of the new Mosaic Scholarship program. However there is much more going on within ARL. There are 125 member libraries in the association and their focus is to strengthen research libraries so that they can support the literary, educational and scientific needs of their institutions. It was very interesting to meet the leaders of these institutions as well as the participants in this year’s ARL Leadership Fellows Program, which looks to develop future leaders for research libraries. Continue reading →

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Posted in Communication and SAA, Strategic priorities

Riding the Wave of Digital Information

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Danna C. Bell | 1 comment

One of the keynote speakers at the recent ARL membership meeting was Ingrid Parent, the University Librarian at the University of British Columbia and a past president of IFLA. Her focus was the evolving information environment which was the theme of her IFLA Trend Report, “Riding the Tide or Caught in the Waves: Navigating the Evolving Information Environment.” As I read her report I was stunned by one statistic: “In 2010, the quantity of information transmitted globally exceeded one zettabyte for the first time, and is expected to double every two years.” I can’t even imagine how much information that is or even how we as archivists will be able to deal with that much digital information. Continue reading →

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Posted in Born-digital records, Digital Collections

Archivists and Cultural Heritage: Unexpected Synergies

Posted on October 22, 2013 by Danna C. Bell | Leave a comment

Just before my unexpected October vacation I was given the great honor to serve as the keynote speaker for the Cultural Heritage Symposium held at the Library of Congress. There were an impressive array of attendees and speakers, many of them leaders in their field and all of them enthusiastic about cultural heritage.

The theme for my talk was building bridges and I spent quite a bit of time talking about issues relating to acquiring and providing access to cultural heritage materials. I also talked about the impact of outsiders coming in to collect and document tangible and intangible cultural heritage. One of the quotes I used came from Brien Brothman who noted in an article that Plato may have been correct when he warned us that writing may destroy memory for recording sanctions forgetfulness. (That is such a provocative quote to me.) Continue reading →

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Posted in Communication and SAA, Member Needs

Tagged Cultural heritage

The Government Shutdown from an Archives Point of View

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Danna C. Bell | 3 comments

In upcoming Off the Record blog posts I will post about my speech and attendance at the Cultural Heritage Symposium that took place at the Library of Congress, my trip to Ohio including presentations at the Society of Ohio Archivists conference and at Miami University and my interactions with members of the Association of Research Librarians at their recent conference. Continue reading →

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Posted in Advocacy, Member Needs

Tagged Advocacy

A Special Announcement from the Program Committee Co-Chairs for the 2014 Joint Conference

Posted on September 25, 2013 by Danna C. Bell | 4 comments

Hello all,

Your pleas have been heard!!! Here is a special announcement from the 2014 Program Committee as well as some answers to some of the more frequently asked questions about session proposals.

As the co-chairs of the 2014 Program Committee, we were asked to prepare a blog post before the session proposal due date. First: we need to let you know that the deadline has been extended to midnight, CDT, October 7! In pondering what we might write, it seemed that a promo piece asking people to submit sessions wouldn’t be all that useful (you know we want you to submit proposals, right?) so we decided to prepare a FAQ. In no particular order, here are some of the questions we’ve been fielding—and answers we’ve been giving!—as proposals have started to come in. Many kudos to René Mueller of the SAA staff for doing most of the heavy lifting on the writing; we’ve stolen a lot of her answers. If you have other questions that aren’t answered here, you can reach the three of us at conference@archivists.org. –Jami (COSA), Rachel (NAGARA), and Arlene (SAA). Continue reading →

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Posted in Annual Meeting

Tagged Annual Meeting, Member Needs