Protect Committee Minutes

May 18, 2016 Meeting
March 16, 2016 Meeting
January 20, 2016 Meeting
December 16, 2015 Meeting
November 18, 2015 Meeting
October 21, 2015 Meeting
September 16, 2015 Meeting
August 19, 2015 Meeting
July 15, 2015 Meeting

 

Agenda and Minutes from Protect Committee Meeting, held May 18, 2016

Agenda

Minutes

Attendees: Dana and Eira

  • Documentation and advocacy can frame our various activities
  • Suspend for the time being collection of oral histories from archives disaster survivors pending more person-power
  • Maintaining the map could feed into future collection of oral histories — we know what happened when and where
    • Eira can develop a tutorial for how to help populate the map
  • Other low-key activities?
    • Keeping lines of communication open with RAAC’s Disaster Subcommittee — can Eira/anyone else at SAA get on their agenda if they are meeting during SAA?
    • Should we schedule per-meeting via Doodle to allow flexibility? Eira can check with Shannon and Rebecca to see if this would work better for them
    • Monitoring social media feeds of LAMs during major weather events (e.g. hurricanes, storms, floods, wildfires) headed to major population centers — are we doing this as advocacy or documenting events?
      1. We could also use the ProjectARCC twitter feed to contact LAMs and ask how they’re doing during/after a storm
    • Contact AIC (now the home of http://www.heritageemergency.org/initiatives/alliance-for-response/afr-home/) to see if there’s anything we can do to be helpful allies

 

Agenda and Minutes from Protect Committee Meeting, held March 16, 2016

Agenda

1. Collaboration with RAAC. Discuss timeline here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YEldJd_I_5RDtyYXTvqd50-OCDBx-R9jNUZwG6S17Wk/edit and list of potential first contacts:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KjCK7JEm8DJ3DwmNc9411tXCi81HPhDXY-jasAmTayU/edit?usp=sharing
2. What are the “5 Questions” we want to ask?
3. What is the home of our content?
4. Any other updates?

Minutes

Attendees:
Eira Tansey
Shannon Struble
Dana Gerber-Margie
Rebecca Fraimow

Disaster Stories project

– List of contacts – awards given through National Disaster Recovery Fund: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KjCK7JEm8DJ3DwmNc9411tXCi81HPhDXY-jasAmTayU/edit#gid=0. Will share with RAAC and between us, see if we have contacts at institutions. Identify members to make first contact with institutions to see if they will participate. Other RAAC contact someone Eira knows from New Orleans. Can help with contacting New Orleans institutions re: Katrina. Some Katrina fatigue, so need to be careful with approach.

– Rather than “disaster stories” maybe “disaster resilience stories” or “disaster survivor stories”?

– Five questions-style approach: 5-7 questions so not overload.

– See Project plan: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YEldJd_I_5RDtyYXTvqd50-OCDBx-R9jNUZwG6S17Wk/edit

– Share experiences but not act as a detailed plan; act as a warning for those who haven’t experienced disasters to be forewarned

– Final product: doesn’t have to be one-size-fits-all; can provide couple of options depending on needs of participant, i.e. talk on phone or interview at conference or write essay. Visualize content differently on website depending on media provided. Regardless of media, should be transcribed and accessible as plain text

– Next steps:

  • Talk to RAAC about contact list.
  • Figure out who will be first contact for whom.
  • Develop boilerplate joint letter from us and RAAC – short email as entry point – hopefully we’ll have people who know contacts
  • Note who will be attending regional archives meetings and crowdsource who interviews whom

News

– Article by Eira recently published: http://sspp.proquest.com/archives/vol11iss2/1509-019.tansey.html

– Ben Goldman and Eira talking about mapping sea level and climate change models to archives locations.

 

Agenda and Minutes from Protect Committee Meeting, held January 20, 2016

Agenda

1. Brief Introductions (5-10 minutes)
2. Frances – COSTEP presentation
3. Collaboration with RAAC (10-20 minutes). Discuss timeline here
4. Overall check-in on state of the committee (10 minutes)

Minutes

Attendees:
Eira Tansey
Frances Harrell
Shannon Struble
Andrea Hetley
Rebecca Fraimow

Frances Harrell – Preservation specialist at NEDCC

  • Overview of groups doing work in disaster preparedness. NEDCC founding organization of COSTEP. NEDCC provides training and consultation in preservation field, and disaster preparedness part of that.
  • Lori Foley w/ FEMA assigned to Smithsonian. Liaises with COSTEP groups and FEMA. Helped with putting together list of resources.
    • Ready.gov – outreach arm of FEMA. Helps in writing disaster plans, which are close to collection-specific plans.
    • FEMA.gov – agency website. Apply for assistance. Used most by emergency managers. Can’t come provide aid until requested by state. Usually have to hit floor of minimum damage assessments – cultural heritage sites should report damage to buildings and collections to emergency managers so included on damage reports and help hit minimum floor. ICS (incidents command system – plans based on this)
    • CoSA (Council of State Archivists) – help with dealing with emergency managers
    • NEDCC – preservation leaflets, 24hr disaster assistance hotline provides info, advice, and vendor numbers, dPlan – disaster plan template – going to be updated soon
    • National Heritage Responders – emergency response team that goes to sites to help with disaster recovery. Not sure how they decide where they go or how many responders they have – might be good place to help.
    • Heritage Emergency Heritage Task Force – recently closed – was a joint effort between FEMA and Heritage Preservation to help heritage sites specifically
    • National Center for Preservation Technology and Training – National Park Service-run – disaster response for structures and landscapes. Articles about climate change and national park responses
    • COSTEP MA – started by NEDCC and MA Board of Library Governors. Connect emergency managers and cultural resource managers so speaking same language and are part of recovery process. Helps make emergency managers aware of needs of cultural heritage institutions. COSTEP framework and starter kit to help other states establish same – done by individual states because all different. Board meetings with cultural heritage people interested in disaster response and emergency managers to foster relationships however that can happen.
    • Alliance for Response – city-level – like COSTEP – brings cultural heritage professionals and emergency managers together so that cultural heritage sites aare part of emergency response plans.
  • Questions for Frances:
    • Q: Does FEMA or other EM group make proactive efforts to connect with cultural heritage orgs or provide grants?
      • A: regional director has lot of control over what happens in region. Some motivated to connect proactively, like one for NE because lots of high-profile cultural heritage sites. Need person who gets it or has experience with cultural heritage orgs to be super successful with collaboration. Concerns with community resiliency, business continuity, etc and can fit libraries and archives into that broad, big-picture outlook. Hazard mitigation grant program – part of FEMA money to state – 5% to go to programs to reduce problems in next disaster.
    • Q: We as a committee have struggled to find our niche so that we don’t reinvent the wheel, but what are your thoughts on how we can be useful to the larger cultural heritage community?
      • A: hard to get mentoring and guidance in disaster recovery – usually learn when it happens. Some experts who come after happens, but otherwise not a lot of sharing of info and success stories. Good to have. Training in preparedness hard to find in places not on East Coast – basic awareness, hands-on recovery.

Collaboration with RAAC

  • Email from Mark Wolf – couldn’t make meeting
  • Timeline document – Eira working on this
  • Oral history projects with librarians and conservators similar to our projects
  • Need to prepare a short list of institutions or people who have gone through disaster and then set up interviews – SAA grant list – need permission – then figure out who, how, where, when? And bring in RAAC.
  • August to reach critical mass of interviews but flexible based on availability of us and RAAC

Check-in on the state of our committee and ProjectARCC

  • Progress of other committees? Talk to Casey about committees and whether we need to consolidate to rebuild momentum?
  • Biggest outcomes have come from web presence and tweet-ups. Build energy and discussion.
  • meeting to connect all committees to know what’s going on in the rest of the group and how we can help each other
  • Slow-down during holidays and January

 

Agenda and Minutes from Protect Committee Meeting, held December 16, 2015

Agenda

1. Brief Introductions (5 minutes)
2. Review of Rebecca Fraimow’s presentation recently at COSTEP (5 minutes)
3. Frances – COSTEP presentation (10 minutes)
4. Mark – Collaboration with RAAC (40 minutes)

Minutes

Attendees: Rebecca Fraimow, Eira Tansey, Shannon Struble, Dana Gerber-Margie, and Mark Wolfe from RAAC

Rebecca presented about ProjectARCC at the Massachusetts COSTEP meeting – approached afterward by Anita Uhlan and Mary Shanks, FEMA specialists on Environmental Historic Preservation and Environmental Protection (respectively), who are interested in our group.

Mark Wolfe – SUNY Albany – on board of NYAC and member of RAAC Disaster Recovery sub-committee – liaison with ProjectARCC

RAAC collaboration (see brainstorming doc from November’s meeting):
– Prepare articles for regional newsletters – MARAC, NEA
– Solicit stories/conduct interviews at regional meetings and put specific stories in regional newsletters to build regionally, then collect to put in national venue, such as Archival Outlook

Action Item:

– Eira to create a timeline and breakdown of steps to take for oral history project – will send to Protect committee and then Mark

 

Agenda and Minutes from Protect Committee Meeting, held November 18, 2015

Attendees: Eira, Dana, Shannon, Hanni

Agenda and Minutes:

  • Review of last month’s call
  • Introduction – Hanni is in her 2nd year of Masters and is working with many tribes in Arizona on archival work. Has been working with disaster preparation and wanted to get involved with ProjectARCC. There are significant wildfire risks in northern Arizona — for example, Navajo nation archives is in a high-risk area, but they also struggle with limited resourcing and staffing.
  • Quarterly Report – If no one has any changes, Dana can post
  • Working with RAAC
    • See the brainstorming doc here for more thoughts on this
    • Eira will draft an email to send to our contact in RAAC and run it by the group

 

Agenda and Minutes from Protect Committee Meeting, held October 21, 2015

Attendees: Eira, Shannon, Dana, Daria

Agenda:

  1. Review of work from last month’s call: Our blog post, Lost in the Stacks interview
  2. Introduction of Daria Labinsky and thoughts about how we can effectively work with her group
  3. Committee quarterly report
  4. Map of weather-related archival disasters
  5. News from South Carolina: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CRYkEjzU8AAFheP.jpg:large

Minutes:

Introductions

  1. Eira – Chair of the Protect committee, digital archivist records manager, Univ. of Cincinnati
  2. Dana – Audio archivist Wisconsin Historical Society – Newsletter about audio archives, Protect Committee and outreach coordinator
  3. Shannon – Our web coordinator for Protect committee, also on Reduce committee. Attended Simmons, works as an antiquarian bookseller.
  4. Daria – National Archives in St. Louis. Steering committee member of Regional Archival Association Consortium (RAAC) and chair of Disaster Planning and Recovery subcommittee – focusing on climate change for this year

Review

  1. Blog post written by Rebecca – listserv blast and Facebook post, but 50% less hits than previous posts
  2. Eira on Lost in the Stacks radio show, academic library show – plugged the group

Collaboration with Daria’s group

  1. Group excited about interviewing archivists affected by disasters.
  2. Disaster Planning and Recovery subcommittee meets next week and Daria hopes to assign someone to be a liaison with us. If not someone else, then she will liaise with us.
  3. Putting together list of names/contact info to contact for questionnaire:
    1. Nancy Beaumont from SAA shared info on archives that received disaster grants
    2. National Disaster Photo Rescue – Photo rescue group – posted photos on Facebook to help people find family photos in disaster areas – volunteers who train other volunteers to do same in their area
    3. Landscapes of Resilience – researching how new green spaces help communities heal after disasters
    4. Laura Poll – spoke at MARAC on how larger orgs can help smaller historical societies affected by disasters
    5. Brenda Gunn – award from SSA – started blog and fundraising campaign SSA Cares after Sandy hit and co-founded Nat’l Disaster Recovery Fund
    6. Randy Silverman – U. of Utah – called to Hawaii after hurricane hit Kauai – presentations with photos of hurricane damage
    7. Nancy Craft – worked on flood disaster cleanup – videos on how to clean various formats
  4. Figure out how often to meet and how meetings would run. Once liaison is in place, that person could talk with Eira about workplan so road plan for what to be done and when. Talk about what to do for beginning and then bring back to groups.

Committee Quarterly Report

ACTION ITEM: Eira to write draft of report and put in Google docs – get to Dana before next call – no precedent yet, so can use whatever format want – bullet points – members, mission, what we’re doing, what we’re not doing

Map of weather-related archival events

ACTION ITEM: Eira to create map of archival disasters caused by weather based on spreadsheet that can then be exported to Google Maps – sorted by type and by time, possibly with retroactive data – easier to pinpoint what has happened already rather than modeling – how to locate archives? Add when goes public and is reported – retroactive information now based on grants, articles, etc. With link to contact us and send story to be added to map.

S.C. Dept. of Natural Resources Heritage Trust seeking volunteers

  1. Bad flooding in S. Carolina, need volunteers to help digitally archive records impacted by flooding
  2. ACTION ITEM: Eira and Shannon to draft email to contact to be sent next week- bullet points on ways we can help them – ex. spreading info to our network of contacts, work with them to create a blog post about their efforts and needs – we’re happy to help over the long term – mention recovery fund

 

 

Agenda and Minutes from Protect Committee Meeting, held September 16, 2015

Attendees: Eira Tansey, Shannon Struble

Agenda:

  1. Previous business, COSTEP and brainstorming. Please review the COSTEP document to share your thoughts, and brainstorm some ideas related to outreach. See this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14g00PBHzLLXyovjcPjEVaL7poVsWff8EAHubF0AOzDM/edit?usp=sharing</>
  2. Allied contacts to reach out to
  3. What in-reach can we do? For example, a tweetup, blog posts, etc. Consider ways to recruit new members for the Protect Committee
  4. Any other business

Minutes:

  1. Kristen and Betts are stepping down from meetings for now but will continue to receive CC’ed emails.
  2. COSTEP document and reactions: Great and thorough resource. Is there a way we can act as an advocate for encouraging other archivists to implement/look at/use COSTEP? Also, the National Disaster Recovery Framework (http://www.fema.gov/national-disaster-recovery-framework). How do we encourage archivists to think about this type of thing, especially if they aren’t in areas that aren’t hot spots?
    1. How do we effectively integrate ourselves into this? Eira could follow up with Gregor re: COSTEP-Massachusetts, and Shannon will follow up with Frances Harrell.
    2. Eira will reach out to the Disaster Planning and Recovery Subcommittee of the Regional Archival Associations Consortium (via Daria) and see if they want to partner up with us on anything
  3. Post-disaster interviews: We would have to scope out this project a bit more — audience, confidentiality of answers, etc. Let’s run this general idea by Gregor and Daria and see if this is something they have further thoughts on.
  4. Allied orgs: Work with aforementioned groups for now
  5. Inreach: Perhaps a blog post about encouraging use of disaster preparedness resources — talk about COSTEP, workshops, and National Disaster Recovery Fund. Dana: When is there a good slot in the schedule?
  6. Other business: Eira will be on Lost in the Stacks soon — any relevant news stories she should be sure to mention? Take a look at Shannon’s essay she wrote which has some relevant things to say on the questions Eira will be answering. Eira will send around draft talking points to the committee to see if they have any feedback. Eira also put together a History Above Water proposal that was submitted yesterday.

 

 

 

Agenda and Minutes from Protect Committee Meeting, held August 19, 2015

  1. Review what we contributed to climate change syllabus
    1. Syllabus hasn’t been posted yet on the site — has been a little bit MIA; will probably be easier to pull things together after SAA
    2. Need to go back and add some explanatory sentences to the syllabus (Dana thinks she has a few of those); some lingering things to add
    3. This will be a living document — this will be updated periodically, can probably just hold tight until we hear more from Casey (or whoever is the final arbiter)
  2. Archives Disaster Response in a Box
    1. Can we figure out a scope for this? Make sure we’re not reinventing the wheel or duplicating efforts of COSTEP https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/costep
    2. Dana: agrees on not reinventing the wheel
    3. COSTEP: guide written for two audiences, one for archivists (here is what you need to know to coordinate with state/federal disaster management professionals), and one for disaster management people as to how to deal with archives, archivist will talk to you about vital records and what that means
    4. Eira suggests taking a look at what COSTEP has in it and what other disaster management resources have, follow up with contact, see if there’s any way we can be of assistance
    5. Dana: can we add onto it by adding the connecting to collections model, they have a listserve to connect to each other for any questions — say something happened this weekend, we would have a volunteer list of people who could come down and start helping. Don’t want to reinvent the wheel or add more work, so coordination is a really good thing for our committee
    6. Rebecca: agrees on cooperation/coordination, thinks that follow-up interviews should be first step before moving into planning Response In A Box
    7. Eira: reasonable to ask us all to read COSTEP?  (Dana and Rebecca agree that this is good homework, targeted resources, gets us on the same page of what’s out there; we can all come at it from climate change impact perspective)
  3. Other projects we discussed last time, for example follow-up interviews with those who weathered a disaster
    1. Tied into item 4!
  4. Contacts made with David Carmicheal and Brenda Gunn
    1. David Carmichael: State Archivist of Georgia, recently went to PA and is now State Archivist; Shannon Struble and Eira attended FEMA webinar in which David Carmichael talked about vital records, basic protocols, etc.; over 400 people in attendance, presumably the majority of those people were non-archivists & disaster response professionals
    2. Eira followed up, he is interested; quick summary of his suggestions:
      1. thought that the follow-up interviews idea was a really good one, one of the things that we might want to consider is that a lot of times when you do lessons-learned follow-up, people tend to focus on what they didn’t do & what went wrong, but might also want to talk about what went well & what they would do again. Good stories that illustrate the value of preparedness are hard to find
      2. doing mapping exercise to see where are archives that would be particularly affected by certain events, areas prone to hurricanes, etc., mapping that out; good long-term project, but for now focus on follow-up interviews
      3. (Sidenote: is Elevate working on something similar? Visualization of collections related to climate change, not collections at risk from climate change. List of collections that have already been impacted? Mapping vulnerable areas & areas that have been already affected? Dana: little bit scared of the coding for the mapping project, maybe we can learn something from the Elevate group; maybe work on gathering data for this, long-term project we can consider later)
    3. Brenda Gunn: very active in SSA (Society of Southwest Archivists), in 2005 when Katrina hit & Rita came soon after, put together emergency disaster relief fund, made a partnership with SAA; SAA Foundation took national control over the fund, now officially known as the National Disaster Recovery Fund for Archives (NDRFA). If an archive wants to apply for funds, it’s a pretty simple process, can apply for up to $2000, stopgap until insurance payments come through. Can we help with this?
      1. Help with promoting the fund, both to needy collections and to archivists who might support it
      2. She also thinks follow-up interviews are a great idea, think she can help us connect with people who might be willing to be interviewed
      3. SSA put up a blog called SSA Cares, a way for Louisiana archivists & people updated by Katrina to update everyone on how their repositories were doing. Not necessarily our job to put up something similar, but it’s an idea to have in our back pocket
  1. Updates from SAA
    1. presentation at Human Rights Archives Roundtable, interested in being partners, interested in having us talk to the International Archives Roundtable, but their agenda was too full; Eira will be following up with those parties
    2. The Regional Archives Consortium Disaster Planning Committee has decided to focus on climate change as their agenda for the next year: http://www2.archivists.org/groups/regional-archival-associations-consortium-raac/disaster-planning-and-recovery-subcommittee (first heard here: https://twitter.com/CaseyEDavis1/status/634136519519961088) — Eira will reach out to them about seeing what they’re doing so we can plan accordingly

ACTION ITEMS:

  1. Read the COSTEP document
  2. Start another (shared brainstorming) document to capture thoughts and notes about COSTEP (Eira start doc)
  3. First project: move forward with finding a way to start doing follow-up interviews, document with potential contacts of people we might know that have already faced a disaster somewhere and brainstorm questions; try and do this over the course of the month and figure out how to move on this a month from now (Rebecca start doc)
  4. Eira: Reach out to Human Rights Archives RT, International Archives RT, and Regional Archives Consortium

 

 

Minutes from Protect Committee Meeting, held July 15, 2015

Agenda:

  1. Introductions — who are you, why are you interested in this committee, what sorts of skills can you bring to our work (e.g., using GIS, video production, graphic design, etc)
  2. Defining our charge
    1. Designate a web liaison
  3. Brainstorming projects
    1. Climate change syllabus section for our committee
    2. ???
  4. Next steps
    1. Would someone volunteer to be minute-taker for the next meeting?

Actual next steps:

-Eira will convene with Shannon and Casey re: what goes on the website
-Eira will distribute Gdoc on climate change syllabus resources by next week so all can respond by July 31st
– brief summary of minutes for other groups
– send completed charge to Casey/group
– Google Doc of initial questions/brainstorm for “recovery in a box”
– Brainstorm doc for defining goals/actions?

The Protect committee educates the archival community about protecting archives in the context of climate change. As part of its mission, our committee operates in a spirit of reactive response to currently unfolding disasters and proactive advocacy to help archives prepare for future threats.

Meeting Notes

Attendees:

Eira Tansey
Dana Gerber-Marjie
Kristen Weischedel
Shannon Struble
Rebecca Fraimow

Introductions:

Eira, University of Cincinnati, lived in New Orleans, decided to start doing research on how climate change was going to affect repositories, how will this affect our profession; connected with Casey via Twitter

Dana, Wisconsin Historical Society, audio archivist, originally from California (drought), would like to move back so constant awareness of climate change, has always been aware of personal consumption and carbon footprint, this year decided to pursue disaster recovery and emergency management to feel more fulfilled career-wise, ProjectARCC bridges career goals and personal interests.  Skills in event planning and marketing, gets burnt out on them; is the blog and outreach coordinator already for ProjectARCC, a generalist, here to help

Kristen, student at Simmons, one of the co-chairs of ScoSAA (student chapter of Society of American Archivists), working on getting a panel together for the local community in collaboration with ProjectARCC to talk about disaster relief & climate change & disaster preparedness procedures

Shannon, does not work in a repository, graduated from Simmons with a dual degree in history and archives, works as an antiquarian bookseller in Boston; did project at Simmons for the preservation professor to talk about green/sustainable preservation, developed into essay on preservation which was then published in a book; joined ProjectARCC to stay involved in the archival community as well as continuing to work on sustainability/environmental issues; does graphic design, proficient in web stuff

(Can Shannon share her article or a link to the book? — yes, can send PDF of their article as well as information about the book, which was published by ALA)

Rebecca, works at WGBH, was a NDSR fellow, now an archivist at WGBH. Works closely with Casey. Has a lot of experience working with small community archives, co-founded a non-profit org called Transfer Collective to work with small community orgs with moving image holdings, involving educating them on transfer, preservation assessments, guidelines for preservation. Many of these orgs are particularly vulnerable to climate change because of their small resource base. Has also done work with WITNESS (archiving resources for human rights activists)  (Also, forgot to mention in her introduction, but has video editing skills as well)

General idea of what we are doing:

We’re the group of people talking about how climate change affects the integrity of our holdings in a material way

Threats that we have seen, such as hurricanes, etc.; threats that we will see in the future, like rising sea level

Discussing our mission statement:

How specific should we be?  Guidebook on general disaster management, or work with specific repositories in specific vulnerable areas and work with them to make documentation centered on their specific needs?

Current events in regard to disasters and archives?  If there’s an earthquake in California, focus on archives that were affected, make other archivists in the area aware of what’s going on and what the needs are; discuss the disaster recovery efforts that they took, database of what is needed and how it should be utilized; growing list of lessons learned from different disasters

Eira: we should be proactive as much as reactive; we can monitor, talk and follow up, but we also could play a valuable role in being proactive, figuring out how to help without reinventing the wheel.  Tons of disaster preparedness stuff out there already, so writing a guide might not be the best use of our time; rather than saying, ‘we will do things,’ say more of a statement about the spirit of our work

Kristen: To a certain extent, we play by ear, see what works and what doesn’t; likes the idea of current events because that’s not really out there yet

Dana: http://www.ted.com/talks/caitria_and_morgan_o_neill_how_to_step_up_in_the_face_of_disaster?language=en

TED talk called Recovery in a Box was really inspiring, two women reacting to a freak storm, realized that there was so much that could have already been in place to make things go more smoothly for people in the future; work with currently affected areas based on what we knew, make phone trees and be there to step in no matter what.  We could start to create our own recovery in a box for leveraging tools and technology to connect people.  In a perfect world, we would never have to be reactive.  Some of this is a feedback loop — if we are active on the reactive end, then we can turn that into our next proactive steps.  Kara’s work with Eyebeam during Hurricane Sandy, create pools of volunteers in various areas, maybe with vulnerable archives or geographies

Eira: At some point we have to decide on our projects, Recovery in a Box could be a great one.  Going back to how to phrase our mission statement, we don’t necessarily have to say all the things we’re going to do.

Pause for general agreement that the mission statement Eira wrote looks like it conveys what we’ve been discussing

Kristen: What tense do we want to put it in?  Let’s present tense it

Dana: Institutionally agnostic, not just archives but museums, cultural institutions?

Eira: Museums are really up on this stuff

Shannon: Most of the literature out there has to do with museums and zoos, they’re really thinking about interesting and innovative ways of doing their part.  Should part of education be not just educating institutions in areas that are likely to be affected, but the places that might have unexpected disasters.  Trying to get everybody to think about how their institution would be affected, not just places that are obviously affected

Eira: if there are any major reservations about the current charge, let her know in the next couple days; otherwise, we’ll forward this on to Casey and the rest of ProjectARCC.

Web liaison?  Person who’s responsible for communicating things on the website?  

Dana: web liaison would get access to the wordpress, would update the agenda or minutes.  Do we put the agenda/minutes on the website?  We do this for the big meetings, do we do it with the committee meetings?

Eira: We need someone to at least maintain the page — quarterly updates, etc.

Shannon is willing to be the web liaison!  

Kristen: might be updating things about disasters if they come up

Rebecca: so the rest of us have to be responsible for making sure the web liaison gets that information

Eira: as chair, will take a pass over everything that’s going up on the website, will give guidance on what should go up

Rebecca: should we have a quarterly blog post to talk about what our committee is doing?

General consensus that yes, we should

Dana: we should talk to Casey and other committee teams about the job of the web liaison and coordinating event postings, etc.  

Eira: idea floating around that we should put together a climate change syllabus on the website, Eira will be glad to contribute a few sentences about broad 101-type introductory resources, committee will be expected to put in a handful of resources specifically related to our charge; this will be a living document, updated on a regular basis.  Eira will start a document with some of the resources that she thinks are pertinent; is doing research on this subject, has an accepted abstract so now has to write a manuscript for a sustainability journal on the physical threats posed by climate change to American archives.  This is very under-documented internationally, so Eira is happy to start the bones of our suggestions and then distribute it so we can add onto it

We all agree with this too!  Due date: July 31st?  Casey would like to put them all up next month, sooner rather than later

Eira will try to get this to us within a week so that we then have a week to add a few things

Next projects:

Recovery in a box idea from Dana?  What might this look like?

Dana: Doesn’t have too much of a vision yet, but one of the things that these women were able to do that we might also be able to do would be not just disaster preparedness, but also set up technology tools to help people connect to each other and have the framework in place so that when a disaster is unfolding, we could place that framework in that institution’s lap if they so wanted it.  Set up coalitions around the country that would be the designators/designatees when there was a disaster so that you would have someone set up in Kentucky, someone in Massachusets, etc. to be the expert for their state & provide resources and tools so it wouldn’t always be on us.  Put agency into other people’s hands.  

Kristen: likes the idea of encouraging agency within local communities

Dana: creating Google doc templates for volunteer rosters, issues affecting the area, package/framework to a local person, to a community, to a community leader

Shannon: Is there a way to share knowledge in such a way that we’re not reinventing the wheel, but can connect people, stories, old-school forum kind of thing — something so that people know they’re not alone if something happens

“Connecting to Collections” grant work?

Dana: it’s happening in her institution, but she’s part of a large institution so it’s pretty siloed, helping to set up a listserv for people with questions and worries, have a community of people who can ask each other questions

http://www.imls.gov/collections/

http://www.connectingtocollections.org/

http://www.connectingtocollections.org/groups/connecting-to-collections-care-online-community/forum/

Eira: defining the scope?  We don’t want to replicate what’s out there.  Eira emailed director of SAA, disaster response funds, very small grants given to archives — either small community archives that don’t have a lot of insurance money, or money that can be used before insurance money comes in.  Data: who’s received stuff since Hurricane Katrina?  Most of the recipients have been either East Coast or Gulf Coast repositories affected by hurricanes.  Contact these repositories and ask them what they wish they would have had at the time? Use that as a guide to scope out what we can do.  If we talk to people who’ve suffered, that can help us define what we can do.  

Kristen: as we get larger, and get more feedback, we can do an ‘after disasters’ blog post or something that provides advice from people who were affected

Rebecca: collate responses from people who’ve been affected

Eira: anyone want to start guidelines for how we go forward, figure out what we need to do?  Maybe start reaching out to archives that were affected by Katrina?  

Shannon: pull together some questions to ask?  Figure out what information we’re hoping to get, draft up a survey to send?

Eira: survey might be situation-dependent, the personal touch might be better, but figuring out what we want to ask if really good

Rebecca: can start a question-brainstorming Google doc to send around for everyone to figure out questions

Next steps:

Eira will convene with Shannon and Casey to figure out the website; start a Google doc on climate change syllabus resources

All: will work on populating this by July 31st

Rebecca will start a question-brainstorming Google doc to get to work on our disaster response in a box

Eira will push the mission statement/scope/charge out to the rest of the group along with a summary of our meeting

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