If you’re intrigued, head over the Archivists Reading Together blog and vote in the poll to choose the next book. And if you like, you can go back and see what we’ve said about the previous two books Dust and History’s Babel. 

Chris Paton is a professional genealogist and his pleas to archivists included a request for free wi-fi in archives, permission to take digital photos, longer opening hours and simpler user registration and photocopying policies. He also thought it was important for archives to make use of social media tools like Facebook and Twitter. Both Chris and Alan emphasized that although digitization is useful for accessibility, detailed online item-level cataloguing is even more so, especially in a time of financial constraints for researchers (and everyone else!), although they both recognized that this is much harder to get funding for than ‘sexy’ digital imaging projects.

As you can see this claim is being made from the perspective of an archives user. So I put the question to you, archivists, historians, researchers and users of archives: do you agree or not? Which is more important? I expect many of you will say that both are equally important, because of course, most people want it all. But most archives can’t afford to invest in everything so, for the purposes of this debate, which is more important, digitizing materials or providing item-level cataloging?

(And if there’s some nuance to this that we’re missing on this side of the Atlantic, please enlighten us.)

The tentative schedule is that I will kick off the campaign early in June, both by putting up the post asking for donations and starting to accept requests for funding. The process for applicants will be the same–all you need to do is send in your name and indicate if you will be registering as a student or regular SAA member. Anyone who needs some assistance with funding is welcome to apply. The deadline for applicants will be June 29, at which point I will see how much money we have and begin drawing names out of a hat, and keep going until we run out of money. Lucky winners will be notified on or about June 30/July 1, so that you will have time to register before the early bird deadline (July 5). Once I receive confirmation that you’ve registered, I’ll mail you a check to cover your registration for the meeting.

If anyone wants to mail me a check before June, I will happily accept it. I can email you my mailing address or if you’re an SAA member you can just look me up in the member database. I’m listed. In early June I’ll put up the post with a PayPal link, so if you’d rather do that, just wait for June. (Remember that since this is an informal effort your donation is NOT tax deductible. All you will get is a warm fuzzy feeling knowing you helped some of your colleagues and my everlasting gratitude.)

So expect to hear more about this in June. I’ll be trying to find every avenue I can think of in which to ask for donations, and I’m always happy to have people helping me to get the word out. We have been very lucky that in the past two years we’ve had one exceptionally generous door, but we can’t count on that again this year. Every donation helps.

In 2011 we had 94 generous people donate and funded 26 people. In 2012 we had 103 donors and 34 scholarship recipients. I sincerely hope the effort can continue to grow. I know the people who receive the assistance are truly grateful. So, if you need some help, get ready to throw your name in the hat and if you’re in a position to donate, please consider doing so when I start asking in June.

Note that this presentation contains more discussion about how I think we should scope “participatory archives,” including a refined definition (bold indicates the additions):

An organization, site or collection in which people other than the archives professionals contribute knowledge or resources resulting in increased appreciation and understanding of archival materials and archives, usually in an online environment. 

I hope this will be a useful addition to the discussion of this concept and why it matters for archives.

Next on my list: writing up a presentation I gave last fall!

My co-presenter Leo Mullen, a man with more experience dealing with organizational change than probably all the people who read this blog put together, observed: “You have to adjust the rate of change to meet the organization’s metabolism.”  Far be it from me to disagree with him, but let’s think about that another way. What can you do to speed up an organization’s metabolism? In many cases, that can’t be done, but if the organization in question is SAA, then I think it can.

I think SAA’s metabolism can be changed because in many ways it already has, and that change has been caused by members making it happen. Let’s say you think SAA doesn’t do enough to meet the needs of students and new archives professionals. You can drive that change by forming a new roundtable and then using it as a platform to fill those needs, as a group of SAA members did. Maybe you think the way the annual meeting works needs to be re-thought. That change can happen too, if you push for it (or at least you can get a task force formed; we’re still waiting to see the final results). Or maybe you’re a group of roundtable leaders who want to be able to communicate better with students. You can use commonly available tools to make that happen. My point is that none of those changes originated from “the top.” They came from members saying “we want more” and then making it happen.

And so I come to what you can do to continue that process. You can read and comment on two short documents now available for your feedback. First is the first draft of SAA’s new Strategic Plan, available here: http://www2.archivists.org/governance/strategic-priorities/draftFY2013-18. It won’t take you long to read, as this is just the highest levels. I think there’s a lot of good in this document. Since this document is the result of a collaborative consensus of the SAA Council  it’s not exactly the way I would want it to be, and I think in some places it could be more ambitious. Please read it and share your comments via the channels described on the website. (Note that commenting here on this blog is not a formal comment to SAA.) What do you think? Does it go far enough? Do you like what’s there? Anything missing? Anything that sticks in your craw? Note that the deadline is Tuesday, April 23. (Also note that you do not need to be an SAA member in order to comment. If you’re not a member, is there anything in that document that might make you want to join? Anything that would change your impression of SAA?)

And second, please similarly read and comment on the preliminary recommendations of SAA’s Communications Task Force, available here: http://offtherecord.archivists.org/2013/04/08/more-less-different-preliminary-recommendations-of-the-saa-communications-task-force/. There are just nine recommendations and I predict most of you will have something to say about them. Again, your feedback is important, whether you don’t like some of the recommendations or whether you love them all. This group needs your support and participation. I’ve heard a lot of bitching and moaning (and God knows I’ve done enough of it myself) about these topics, so here’s your chance to either praise this group for moving SAA in the right direction or tell them what you don’t want them to do. The deadline for comments on this is May 4. (And again, you don’t need to be an SAA member to provide feedback.)

But if you are an SAA member, remember that the organization is supposed to be there to meet your needs. So in theory you should be what drives that metabolism. If you want something more or something different then speak up and help make it happen.

• UK Archives Hub, Linking Lives
• From the LODLAM Summit 2013 Challenge, here is a list of the entries, some of which are archival, but as far as  I could see none where implementations by a specific repository
• Presented at the UKAD 13 conference, a presentation: Trenches to Triples: Linked Data markup to archive descriptions relating to the First World War
• Another UK project: Cumbria/KCL Step Change project (no link)

For my purposes I am looking for implementation at an institutional level, but if people want to post about less formal projects or other kinds of projects that might be interesting for everyone to look, please do.

… my hypothesis is that it is the easy and seemingly all-encompassing nature of information available on the web that has driven archivists to seek to provide online access to some level of information about all the holdings in their collections. My assumption is that prior to the Internet there was no assumption that such access would be possible, and that it was expected that there would be what we now call “hidden collections” which would have to be “discovered.”  (As opposed to today when archivists believe that our users expect that some level of intellectual access will be provided online for all materials, and that our users have an expectation that one easy search tool that reveals to them all the relevant materials across archives should be possible.)

My questions for you are:

• Did the kind of backlogs that exist today exist in the pre-Internet era? If so, were they considered as much of a problem then as they are now (when we hear so much discussion about the need to eliminate them)? 
• Do you agree that the primary driver in the current desire to describe all holdings at some level is the need to provide access to that information via the web? If not, what is?

Again, my thanks to you. You may think the answers to these questions are obvious, but I prefer to try to verify my assumptions. I’d rather look like an idiot by asking questions rather than by making incorrect statements. 

• Do you think it’s accurate to say that before the widespread use of the Internet historians and other researchers did not have an expectation that descriptions of all an archives’ holdings would be accessible via the available research tools?
• Was there an accepted expectation that discovering collections with relevant materials might involve several stages of discovery? If so, what were those stages? Looking in printed sources (like NUCMC), asking colleagues, following references in footnotes, contacting archivists?

As is probably clear from the questions, my hypothesis is that it is the easy and seemingly all-encompassing nature of information available on the web that has driven archivists to seek to provide online access to some level of information about all the holdings in their collections. My assumption is that prior to the Internet there was no assumption that such access would be possible, and that it was expected that there would be what we now call “hidden collections” which would have to be “discovered.”  (As opposed to today when archivists believe that our users expect that some level of intellectual access will be provided online for all materials, and that our users have an expectation that one easy search tool that reveals to them all the relevant materials across archives should be possible.)

Are my assumptions about research practices in the pre-Internet age accurate? Many thanks.

NOTE: There is a different question for archivists with experience in the pre-Internet era posed in the next post.

Candidates for President/Vice President:

• Kathleen Roe – SNAP interview
• Elizabeth Yakel – SNAP interview

Candidates for Council

• Lisa Mangiafico – SNAP interview
• Mark Myers - SNAP interview
• Timothy Pyatt – SNAP interview
• Helen Wong Smith
• Taronda Spencer
• John “Jac” Treanor

Candidates for Nominating Committee

• Wesley Chenault – SNAP interview
• Scott Grimwodd – SNAP interview
• Jennifer Jonnson – SNAP interview
• Lori Lindberg – SNAP interview
• Tom Rosko
• Amy Schindler -SNAP interview

I was on the Nominating Committee this past year, so I take part of the credit for putting together this slate of candidates. If you have any questions about the process, let me know and I’ll be happy to answer what I can. Voting closes on April 15.

• Who is doing the describing? (For example, students? Researchers? The public?)  
• What is being described? (People or subjects in the records? The level or unit that’s being described?)
• Why is description taking place in the way it is? Is there something different that’s driving the way you do description?
• How is the process taking place? (New processes? New tools?)
• How are descriptions being made available or shared? (Again, new tools? New collaborations?)

 And a reminder that what may not seem “new” to you may be new for many readers.  If you’re in doubt about whether you’re “innovative” enough, send me a message describing what you are doing and we can discuss it. Similarly if you’re not sure what I mean by “management,” get in touch. I’ve made the selections for the books on outreach and reference and I think there’s a great variety of projects in both. I think these books will be useful for practitioners at archives and special collections both big and small. Now let’s get some great content for the next two!