For those interested in my continued internet-access welfare,today I’m at the Starbucks down the street from the hotel. I didn’t pay the $14.95 for today;I decided to make use of some free hours that I had on a Starbucks rewards card. We’ll see if I get tired of that quickly,I guess.
Yesterday’s Issues and Advocacy Roundtable was an interesting exchange of ideas and suggestions,and turned out to be more dynamic than I had anticipated. I’m glad that I decided to go. The meeting started with the suggestion of Kate Theimer and Peter Gunther for the group to choose one or two issues where the group can really make a difference and lead in the profession. Cindy Smolovik gave a short pitch for the Austin 2009 SAA conference,and then we were off to the races. One of the two early suggestions was to focus on sustainability–not only in professional practices,like physical resources and buildings,but also the sustainability of the archival field. The perennial discussion of the greying of the profession,happening at the administrative and upper levels in most fields,was a big topic of discussion. I hope to hear more about this in Austin,hopefully including more fresh ideas about how to educate and move newer archivists into fields of increasing responsibility before all of that hard-won knowledge walks out the door in retirement.
The other initial topic was health care for archivists who are in jobs that don’t provide benefits or security–project archivists,those at small local historical societies,etc. This discussion started slowly,but as the conversation segued into salary levels and hiring practices,it became apparent that this hits close to home for many archivists,mostly at the beginning of their careers. Of course salary is always going to be a hot topic,but I don’t think that anyone anticipated such a vehement discussion. Along the way,there was some talk about the accreditation proposal that was sent to SAA Council on Saturday,and will be discussed by Mark Greene with other information professionals at a meeting this fall. [Did anyone catch the name/purpose of that summit?]
By the close of the session,the somewhat- amorphous topic proposed was to focus on these issues of salary,healthcare,living wages for archivists. The steering committee (that includes yours truly) will be meeting again to discuss these thoughts and try to figure out how to wrap our collective arms around the various problems. I anticipate that I’ll be talking more about that here and elsewhere–feel free to add your thoughts,email me directly,or catch me at the conference.
I’m planning to talk about the sessions and my own thoughts/conclusions in a later post. Just as a precursor to that discussion,here’s where I’ve beeen and where I intend to go today. I went to Revealing Collections at the Web’s Surface (Zentall/Zinkham) this morning,and I’m planning to go to Digital Dilemmas:Dealing with Born-Digital Surrogate Audio and Visual Collections (Sacerdote/Frost) later today,and the Simmons alumni and Society of Southwest Archivists parties tonight. I hope to see/meet more new people this afternoon!
[...] first thought is related to my post about the Issues and Advocacy roundtable at SAA,and to today’s post over at Archives Next. A friend posted this on Twitter ages ago,[...]