Society of American Archivists - UT Student Chapter

Society of American Archivists
University of Texas at Austin Student Chapter

03 March 2006 MEETING REPORT

Meeting opened at 12:10 pm

In attendance:
Sarah Quigley
Hope Rider
Sidney Tibbetts
Gabby Redwine
Javier Garza
Ed Sevcik
Clifford Allen
Grace Coy
Julie McGarey

Topic: Spring Activities
Vote on religious archives tour or forum

Sarah asked people to vote on whether they'd prefer to tour a religious archives or invite representatives from the local religious archives to take part in a panel/forum. Two people voted for the forum and three for the tour.

Sidney proposed that we do both a tour and a forum.

Ed suggested that if we decided to do just a forum, a Board member could tour one of the archives in advance and take photos to supplement the forum.

It was decided that Sarah would contact the three archives to gauge interest in a forum and, if possible, settle on a day. April 6 or 7 were mentioned as dates that would fall before the final madness of the semester. Sarah will also ask if any of the archives would be open to receiving visitors during evening hours.

Topic: Archives Week 2006
Date

Events/Speakers/Topics

Dr. Gracy is excited about Nancy Zimmelman's appointment to the California State Archives--she is the first woman to lead the California State Archives--and wants her to come speak at UT. The group discussed the ways in which she might or might not fit into the Archives Week theme.

Some of Sarah's interests/ideas with regard to topics for Archives Week include collecting issues, how the GLBT community has been reflected in collections of archives, and how the GLBT community has been reflected in the archives profession.

Ed asked whether Archives Week is going to focus on collections or on professional issues.

Sarah raised the possibility of doing both. The keynote speech could focus on collecting in underrepresented communities, while the panel could consist of archivists talking about the profession. She also pointed out that we need to be specific about what we mean by "gender" and make sure to keep the theme inclusive (e.g., not focus only on women, not lump together sexuality and gender).

Suggestions:
-focus on one specific GLBT archives rather than on GLBT collections that are a part of larger, more general archives.
-address how archivists react to social/political change (e.g., changing classifications of GLBT records, from "deviant" or criminal to more commonly accepted)
-archives devoted to sports, the history and effects of Title IX, etc.
-military archives and the issue of gender in the military
-look at the gender lines represented within an archives of African-American history (who was documenting the history, in what form, and which side of the gender line did the task of memory/documentation fall on). Explore the possible curatorial aspect to this topic--women documenting lives in non-paper ways, such as quilts, stories, etc.
-how archives/collections have intercepted materials from poor people or people belonging to relatively undocumented cultures. What makes people give heirlooms to an archives rather than continue to use them or pass them down?

Outside Events

iSchool Week
SASI meeting this Wednesday (3/8) at 4:30 at the Spiderhouse. They will be talking about iSchool week, so one of the SAA board members should try to go.

E-Records Forum
The E-Records Forum will be held at the Pickle Research Campus on April 27-8. Dr. Galloway is asking for volunteers to help out in exchange for free admission. There will be a session on the digital preservation of audio tapes from the collection at the LBJ library.

Gender Symposium Event
There will be a UT Gender Symposium meeting this Friday (3/3) at 3 p.m. in Mezes 1.306. Leslie Reagan from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will be presenting a talk entitled "When abortion was a crime: women, medicine, and law in the U.S., 1867-1973."

Other Events
There are two upcoming Gender and Technology talks. On 3/8, Karen Riggs will be speaking from 12-1 in SZB, and on 3/30 Mizuko Ito will be speaking at the LBJ school from 6-7:30.

The Humanities Institute will be sponsoring a talk at 7:30 on Wednesday, 3/22, by James Clifford. The title is "Remembering Indigenous Futures," and the talk will be in the Art Auditorium (ART 1.102).

ARMA Shred Day will be on 4/22 from 8-2.

Other

Poster Session
The group discussed whether to try to put together a poster for the SAA meeting and decided not to.

Alumni/Membership List
Sarah and Sidney will work on updating the SAA alumni/membership lists.

Funding Sources
Discussion of funding sources was postponed until the next meeting.

The next meeting will take place after Spring Break, on Friday, 3/24, from 12-1. Sarah will confirm the room and send out an announcement as soon as possible.

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Society of American Archivists - University of Texas at Austin Student Chapter
E-mail: saa@ischool.utexas.edu