Join us for the webinar: ArchivesSpace and Airtable for Improved Workflow Management, Wednesday, December 11, 2019, 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. The Archival Collections Management department at New York University Libraries recently implemented the cloud software Airtable for holistic workflow management to complement its use of ArchivesSpace as its system of record for archival holdings. This webinar, presented by Weatherly Stephan (Head of Archival Collections Management, NYU Libraries) and Rachel Searcy (Accessioning Archivist, NYU Libraries), will focus on the ways in which they use Airtable in conjunction with other systems to monitor backlogs, prioritize upcoming work, communicate the status of current projects to a broad group of stakeholders, and report statistics on their accessioning, arrangement and description, and other collections management activities. Register and learn more here.

The California State Library has begun work on a new website, Voices of the Golden State. This website will feature oral histories that recount California’s rich history and heritage. In focusing on California’s history, the ever-growing collection will especially highlight the state’s diversity. Additionally, it will be a platform through which oral history programs and archives can promote their work and collections. With this announcement, we hope you’ll consider contributing interviews to the site. To provide guidance to both potential contributors and users of the site, the Library developed a Statement on Diversity. Here’s an excerpt: 

As this page seeks to explore California’s rich diversity, we will strive to include interviewees of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, religious backgrounds, economic backgrounds, immigration status, abilities, as well as voices from all the geographic regions of the state. Because California is one of the largest economies in the world, these interviews will reveal the multitude of industries that exist in the state, and the experiences of those who have worked in these industries. Finally, the interviews will reflect the importance of civic involvement and political action in California’s history and how Californians from many backgrounds have meaningfully engaged in this work.

Information on how to contribute interviews will be available closer to the site’s launch later this fall. There will not be a limit on how many oral histories a program or archive can contribute, but submissions will be reviewed and featured on a schedule. The success of Voices of the Golden State will rely on contributing programs opening their oral history collections. We hope you’ll join us in this endeavor.

Allison K. Tracy-Taylor

Project Lead, Voices of the Golden State

California State Library

Read more from the Fall 2019 SCA Newsletter!

Summer already seems like a distant memory with the shorter days and cooler temperatures of fall upon us, but it was quite a busy time for the SCA Board and committees. Some exciting (and maybe not so exciting, but necessary) work was completed over the summer months and I would like to highlight some of that here. I’m happy to report that the SCA Task Force on Labor Issues in Archives has been fully formed with co-chairs Courtney Dean and George Thompson at the helm to work with the group on a two year project to assess the conditions of labor in the archival profession within the state of California. This task force will work to develop recommendations/guidelines surrounding best practices for labor in archives and also help to organize and facilitate discussions on labor issues amongst California archivists. 

The newly formed Ethics and Inclusion committee (EIC) is also getting ready to ramp up efforts this fall. Newly appointed co-chairs, Zayda Delgado and Eva Martinez, will lead this committee in support of promoting/developing a culture that values diversity, inclusion, and ethical behavior within SCA. The first step in this process will be to bring aboard committee members, so keep an eye out for the call for volunteers if you have an interest in helping to formulate SCA initiatives surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

The Program and Local Arrangements committees have been actively preparing for the upcoming Western Archivists Meeting, more commonly dubbed as WAM 2020. This is the joint meeting of the Society of California Archivists (SCA), Conference of Inter-Mountain Archivists (CIMA), Northwest Archivists (NWA), and Society of Rocky Mountain Archivists (SRMA) that occurs every five years. So please save the date for WAM 2020 which will be held in San Francisco, CA at The InterContinental hotel from April 21-25, 2020. As part of the early planning efforts, the Local Arrangements Committee has been hard at work researching a new online registration system for WAM 2020 as our current platform will be retired by the developer at the end of this year. After carefully reviewing the options, Cvent was selected as the successor to RegOnline and we believe this new system will provide some much needed enhancements to the registration process.

Finally, a reminder to all that October is American Archives Month where archivists throughout the country embrace the opportunity to make archives programs and the profession itself more visible to our communities. The annual #AskAnArchivist Day on Twitter will be held on October 2^nd this year, so join in this effort to help break down those barriers between archivists and the public. I also invite you to share any American Archives Month events that local institutions or groups are hosting with our Communications & Outreach Committee (admin@calarchivists.org) as they can help with promotion through the SCA website and our various social media channels. CA Archives are important to us all, so let’s show them some love and spread the word!

Eric Milenkiewicz

SCA President

Read more from the Fall 2019 SCA Newsletter!

The SCA Education Committee is pleased to announce the following workshop in Southern California: OpenRefine and International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF), Friday, December 13th, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Brown Learn Lab, Mary Norton Clapp Library, Occidental College. This 2-part workshop will introduce participants to OpenRefine in the morning session, and to the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) for archival materials in the afternoon. Register and learn more here.