SAA / Visual Materials Section Mid-Winter meeting

February 4, 2005

University Park, Maryland

Laurie Baty's house

Notes by James Eason and Laurie Baty (you'll know where James ended and Laurie started!), with reference to notes made by Martha Mahard. (Some topical rearrangement has occurred with blatant disregard for the original order of discussion.)

In attendance:

Alexander, Arden               (Prints and Photographs, Library of Congress)

Appleman, Peggy               (DC Public Library)

Baty, Laurie                        (USHMM)

Bilderbak, Beth                  (Univ. So. Carolina)

Cohen, Stephen                  (Yale)

Eason, James                      (U.C. Berkeley)

Fletcher, Stephen                (Univ. No. Carolina)

Hayes, Katherine                (American Institute of Physics)

Kozbial, Ardys                 (U.C. San Diego)

Lindsay, Heather                (American Institute of Physics)

Mahard, Martha                 (Simmons, Harvard)

Martin, Mark                      (Louisiana State Univ.)

Moore, Heather                  (U.S. Senate Historical Office)

Sanderson, Diana Ruby  (Asheville School, Asheville, N.C.)     

Slate, John                          (Dallas City Archives)

Waldron, Shawn                 (Condé Nast Archives)

With special guest

Joel Wurl, SAA Council Liaison to VM (University of Minnesota, Immigration Research History Center, Minneapolis, MN)

 

Mark Martin convened this is 3^rd annual mid-winter with welcomes, introductions, and a major review of goals articulate over the past two years. Review topics:

Administrative reorganization:

·        some has been done towards consolidating our many committees into 3 basic committees with numerous working groups, but this is not reflected on the web-site yet. The 3 committees are more conceptual now, and remain to be actually created and populated. They will be "Administration", "Publishing", and "Education & Special Topics"

 

Views:

·        the newsletter has moved to online format and is getting a lot of positive feedback.

·        The need for a meeting of newsletter editors and publishing liaison was mentioned (Baty).

·        Indexing of back issues – ongoing project now at about 90%;  Steven Cohen will do the remaining 3 issues of #15;

·        Mark Martin talking about how to check and standardize names and terms; Katie Hayes suggested porting files to Access for easier manipulation.

·        Questions of how best to make it available when it goes online. 

·        Enlargement of the Views editorial team from One to a Team of members has been very successful. Stephen Fletcher and Shawn Waldron are working on exhibition lists and re: Views.

·        Baty is interested in getting to the point that we can actually plan whole year in advance.

 

Section Web site:

·        SAA may possibly want to host the VM Web site and newsletter – but they are concerned about space and persistence issues; frequency of access. We are concerned about maintaining a distinctive design and having control over content & updates. We do have the option to maintain control by not going over to them, and we won't pursue change in host server at this stage.

·        General Web site discussion included references to SAA's inclination to restrict current issue newsletter access to members, which the Section does not feel strongly about, and also the desire to have electronic elections (restricted to members, of course).  SAA must resolve technical issues on both of these fronts.

·        Mark Martin (Web weaver and Chair this year) needs more help with the site. A web committee should be formed, as discussed in previous years. Various m ember volunteers to take on editorial responsibility for parts of the Web site. Review and addition process needs to be formalized—perhaps a calendar for when to review and revise, etc. Good ideas come up, but we are not getting them implemented.

 

SAA leadership announcements list:

·        SAA has set up Section email reflectors that are for 1-way communication. The Chair may send out messages to the membership. 

·        Major business should be announced this way, and to the VisualMat listserve, but all discussion must happen on the VisualMat listserve. (Some members may not choose to join VisualMat, but they should get the announcements from the SAA distribution list. VisualMat also includes many non-Section-members.)

 

Annual SAA meeting:

·        We want to continue to have a speaker at the Section meeting.

·        We need to keep track of the sign-in list that goes around as we need to report on numbers to Council. Don't need an official list, but the chair needs to be responsible to for the count.

·        Book fair – Megan Friedel is willing to do it again, perhaps with Ellen Doon if she is willing once again. (There is some question whether she will be able to attend New Orleans, but hopes to.) Discussion of whether more exposure time or promotion is needed. Will brainstorm with Megan and Ellen.

·        Endorsements of VM Proposals for 2005 were submitted in fall, but Martin had not heard back about acceptances from the Program Committee.  The Chair reviews proposals submitted to the Chair for endorsement, with ad-hoc input solicited from willing colleagues. "Visual Materials on Parade" was very popular last year, but is not on the program for 2005. We will work to revive it for 2006.  Topics for future meetings and good VM sessions to develop were discussed. Some ever-popular topics were bounced around such as: more on born-digital collections, where we stand with the disappearance of film and traditional photography, and reformatting and storage issues for nitrate and acetate film negatives. Discussion deferred until Saturday.

 

VisualMat Listserv:

·        Activity has really picked up lately

·        Over 425 members

·        A couple of things Eason would like to do, including: quarterly reminders to reply to the entire list, not just the sender, and to set up an archive of the listserv.

·        Discussion followed of a new photo archivist list set up by a colleague who mistakenly thought VisualMat was just for cataloging issues. Members who are on both are encouraged to monitor and share posts with VisualMat. Layout of headings on Web site are a bit confusing and Martin will try to clarify that VisualMat is not just for VM Cataloging, but for all archival visual collections management issues.

 

Three-Year Plan:

• Eason to edit, after this meeting. Will include ListServe goals and other points raised in the course of the mid-winter meeting. Much of the following was raised as part of the Three-Year Plan review. [Web Weaver's note: to see the end result of this musing, please go the the revised 2005-2008 3-year plan.]

 

Finances.

·        T-shirt sales to raise money to defray cost of additional postage of newsletter that is now no longer being mailed. Want to continue this but may be contingent on what SAA says about fund-raising, which has been under discussion for some time. T-Shirt sales have always been good, but we only make about $100, and we'd like to formalize the finances and be able to direct any future profits to Section programs and goals.

·        Discussion of making a proposal to SAA Council about enabling fundraising and maintaining financial accounts for Sections. This deferred until Joel Wurl, our liaison, can be asked for updates on Saturday. (On Saturday we learned that SAA is willing to manage funds, and encourage fundraising. Communicate with Coucil first. Certainly must not approach potential sponsors or donors without clearing it first.)

·        Funds might be used for SAA meeting scholarship assistance to students, for supporting publication / image rights costs for VM-related publications, for putting on our own VM workshops, or for underwriting meeting space for mid-winter meetings if they have to become more formalized. Many other possibilities.

 

Mid-Winter Meetings:

·        Discussion: do we want to continue to have mid-winter meeting no later than March? Those present: a strong Yes.

·        It has been very productive.

·        There was an interest in moving it West for Jan./Feb 2006, and many present would be willing to travel for it. Eason and Kozbial will work on venues.

·        Valued characteristics of the meeting were discussed:

§         accomplishes "nuts & bolts" committee work

§         venue for increasing membership involvement. Gets more folks and newer members involved. (Don't want to limit to established "leadership".)

§         informality and social aspect valued: increases cohesion

§         low cost important

§         shared meals add a lot

§         critical mass of local attendees may be important, but not primary criterion. (Willingness to travel away from N.E. cities.)

§         good to coincide with Council's DC winter meeting, at least every few years (3^rd year?)

·        Eason to investigate "homey" and inexpensive venues in the San Francisco Bay Area. (Community center spaces with kitchens? Faculty club lounges? NPS facilities?  Last resort: formal conference rooms at a university.) Kozbial will assist with Southern California options. Goal: site found by May 15.

·        Sustainable model issue remains: big burden on the Chair, and it will probably have to grow and be formalized. (Funding implications.)

 

Publications:

·        Continue to review VM related books and publish them in Views

• Bibliography –Slate has gone back and culled titles from 10 yrs of Views
• Expanding bibliography to cover more subjects – yes done
• Soliciting for new articles to be published in Views
• Special VM issue of American Archivist? (Baty to pursue)

·        What about establishing a web-based peer-review visual materials journal – related to people needing to publish for tenure – Fletcher noted there are models out there for this – acceptance of online publishing has evolved since we last talked about this. (Discussion deferred.)

 

Working Groups:

• Bibliography – John Slate
• Several issues requiring feedback; passed out outline with revisions based on suggestions and feedback; also additional comments have come in from members. Current printout up to thirty pages. Format to be cleaned up. This is a real tangible product from our section; have discovered that there isn't anything comprehensive that tackles this range of topics. He thinks that it should still be 50% photography and not so comprehensive in every other field.
• Do we want Slate to continue? Yes by acclamation.
• Would like to divide out some of the sections for others to oversee
• Outline not set in stone but John asked that we read it for logic of structure: is it the kind of thing we want
• Copy editing in hand but substance issues needed
• Bibliographies will go at the beginning
• It was agreed that the style would stay with that originally used by Pearce-Moses, rather than switching to something more formal like Chicago or MLA
• For better searchability, it could be loaded to EndNote. Mahard volunteered to do this by August
• A question of whether this would cover visual ephemera or just photography.
• We are to send Slate suggestions. Mahard suggested that we use a form for suggestions on the Web site
• John will have a progress report at the annual meeting—may send out an early version; might post on the Web site as a work in progress ca. July 1 to allow for comments.
• Slate needs help on particular sections
• Bilderbak and Kozbial on Architecture
• History and general works – Eason – reference
• Discursive
• Aethetics criticism etc.  – keep it to things that would be helpful, not just because it is out there
• all for volunteers for specific areas
• This discussion lead to a discussion of criteria for selection
• juried articles
• added recommendations
• scope statement to go at the beginning
• Also discussed the use/inclusion of Web sites—linking to them (and resultant dead links issues; agreed to keep separate as "online resources."
• John will draft the front matter
• The question came up about a shorted, vetted list—the few essentials – as a preliminary part of the work – Sanderson will help; Stephen Fletcher also interested; should be done by Midwinter.
• Slate stated that the main thing is that the bibliography reflects what people want out of it—like the state-based guides section (John wants to develop this further). 
• There was additional discussion of the outline and definitions, the possibility of group discussions on a blog. John will keep deadlines and get things going.

 

Update on the revision of Administration of Photographic Collections:

• Martin announced that Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler had hoped to attend, but couldn't be here. Instead, she sent a message –"entire mss. is with the printer. Waiting for Teresa Brinati (Chicago office). Should be out late winter/early spring.

 

Advanced workshops:

• Kozbial talked about the ideas currently on the Web site and those under development. Note that the charge for this committee is specifically to propose "advanced" workshops.
• Based on 2004 Midwinter, Kozbial chaired committee of 5, gathering ideas, met in August; took list of 12 ideas to follow up on and is working with Solveig deSutter at SAA. Learned that the instructor needs to be the one to fill out the proposal. Mahard's proposal was submitted [note: and accepted for one of the New Orleans pre-conference workshops]. Topics not to be basic and to be geared toward our VM membership. An ideas page has been added to the Web page. The committee needs help finding instructors, thinking of avenues for presenting other than SAA, fundraising, future plan. Kozbial also mentioned that it was time to set up some policies and procedures (e.g., who vets the proposals, what do they need to see before SAA, etc.), what the committee's roleis, etc. She also will set up a calendar for what needs to be done when.
• We also discussed the politics of workshops in SAA.  Questions were raised about restrictions on the Sections and also expenses/funds. There is a sense that the regionals need access to the more advanced workshops at a smaller cost than those offered by SAA. Will SAA let us put workshops together to go out under the Section, or must they be SAA workshops?
• Following further discussion, there was a question regarding how instructors are vetted.
• Action items: Continue looking for instructors, developing topics; setting up policies and procedures; pursue question of sponsorship. The question came up of could there be a VM "pre-conference"? Suggested that we go through a dry run to see what is involved; Stephen Fletcher volunteered as a guinea pig but there was discussion about how advanced the proposed topic actually is.

 

Views

• Baty stated that the meeting had covered the basics of the newsletter.
• There are at least 5 people working on each issue.
• Being electronic has allowed for more illustrations and a larger number of pages.
• Hopes to work with the editorial team to rough out a plan for three issues at a time.
• Continue to work on index. Index editor still needed.
• Need to post editorial policy and specs for images.

 

Web site

• Martin stated that there needed to be working groups responsible for text; he would do coding. The "What's New" page might not be needed if we use the "new" icon.
• Other ideas discussed:
• Posting images from the city in which the next meeting will take place (no)
• Ellen and Stephen Cohen are willing to help edit for content. Katherine Hayes and Heather Lindsay (both AIP) also willing to help.
• Links to institutional sites of members.
• Make sure that the listserv doesn't appear to be just from VMCAR.
• In three-yr plan D3: various suggestions made about things that could be added:
• Announcements;
• faqs about the section…we agreed that FAQs for members – how to get involved etc would be desirable – Diana will work on this
• what about workshops outside of SAA?
• Case studies—way too ambitious so it was taken off the 3-yr plan for now (should revisit it on a regular basis)
• Internship information—agreed that this was more a listserv-type item – SAA has a job thing, as do others –we could link to job sites; re internships – start with jobs for now. Encourage VM members to submit links to their own sites.
• Eason suggested that having a list of past VM sessions and proposals that had been submitted but not accepted would be useful for future reference. Add to 3yr plan 1D3e – the Heathers will do

The Reader Project

• Baty reported that the project was to have started after April 04. She had posted a request to the listserv with no response so far.
• Action item: Baty to come up with a basic outline of thematic categories with descriptions, post on listserv with request for suggestions for April 1; Martin to send to a targeted list of specific people too.
• [Note: proposal submitted to SAA Pubs Board for their March meeting. The proposal concept was approved; the Pubs Board wants to see the final article selection before giving the project the complete go ahead.]

 

Other possible publication activities

• Peer-reviewed journal online.
• Investigate methods for peer-reviewed journal online. The question was asked whether we wanted to keep this on the three-year plan. Stephen Fletcher willing to help investigate and report back at next mid-winter or annual meeting
• Soliciting writings where members to contribute to Web site
• Special issue of American Archivist – with guest editor; revised 3DE of 3-yr plan. Action item: Baty to contact Phil Epphard about us putting together a dedicated issue.
• Sanderson had an idea about a mentoring/reader board – can we announce this on the list and ask for a response and then move forward. She will take on initiating this but we don't want to deluge the membership.
• Cohen asked about the possibility of a mentoring program and student chapters, whereby Section members would help with writing. Discussion ensued . No conclusions.

 

Sessions for 2006 in DC

• How to deal with "born digital"
• Appraisal  / Identification of visual materials – may be developing into a paper with Al Lewis
• Appraising modern collections – Kozbial mentioned that Advanced Workshop Group is looking at something along these lines – esp. non-photographic processes/ What are they, how do you appraise them, preservation issues –Baty suggested Luis Nadeau.
• Grant proposals – Slate thought it would be useful to have a workshop on how to formulate budgets based on collection size and volume etc. It could be a 2 hour hands on mini-workshop—basic nuts and bolts. He's willing to gather some information. We need to look for others, maybe someone from the granting institutions.

·        Eason suggested a session on "minimal level" cataloging,  prompted by and article by Mark Greene– how much can you get done in an hour; very current in text-based collections and would be worth looking at for VM; in Greene's article he talks about processing rates in the context of grant writing.

·        Arrangement and description?

·        Managing open and growing collections  - Sanderson suggested that the Section could do a case study of facing this kind of collection; there is a grey area between records management and collection development; all the politics involved – worth pursuing – Stephen Cohen and Sanderson will explore.

·        MARC vs EAD – All agreed an important topic; need someone to coordinate.

·        VM, MSS, Digital Data Structure and Content standards (DACS?)

·        Related institutions? Kindred organizations – like AMIA; dying/dead media – changes in technologies and implications for archives – being explored in Advanced Workshops (Stephen Cohen)

·        Nitrate session and the attendant problems; also issue of whether people need to be members or not to be speakers. Kozbial wants it to be an advanced workshop

 

It was suggested that someone review the VM-related sessions that appear on the program. Having such a list will be good for feedback and memory jogging. Assignments to do this would need to be done in advance; session chair to identify someone ahead of time; Eason thinks it should be more impartial—more of a summary than a review. It was suggested to look at how MARAC does this. Following discussion – it was agreed that a summary rather than a review would be better. No commentary unless a recommendation.

 

New session ideas

• "Born Digital"/or electronic. Stephen Fletcher volunteered to lead a session or write a proposal.

 

• Martin reminded the group that we need to incorporate other kinds of media rather than just photos;.
• "How do we USE the collections"– how are people using what we have and what is possible for the future; Eyes on the Prize, was brought up—the reproduction permissions have expired so they can't re-broadcast it; a non-theory session – lots of pictures; aimed at the it's not just pretty pictures thing; moving images stuff too; video related – Stephen Cohen; member screenings as a sessions?
• Large-scale collection reformatting; where are we with different approaches? Digital as an assessment tool?  Threats to collection in ground zero cities – how to deal with post-9/11 threats and how to save collections; European sources have been doing this for a long time.
• Creating revenue from the archive; cash cow in the archive? (Stephen Cohen)
• "Ethics of Controlling Use" Peter Hurtle and the ethics of charging use fees for things that are in the public domain. What does that imply – what about trying to control how our images are used – what about taking Hirtle's argument into this area – needs to be pursued – maybe an article – Eason will take this idea on.
• "Research on Parade." Kozbial asked if there were ideas from last year's that could be expanded?

 

Following lunch, the group issued and signed a formal greeting to Sue Kriegsman.

 

New Orleans Meeting

• Tour– various ideas and digressions bandied about, including the Public Library
• Speakers: potentially find a photographer like the LA session – Sanderson thought of a photographer who did New Orleans churches working for an architect; Martin suggested a slide show related to areas? New Orleans then and now?
• Martin and Eason will poll the membership about where they would like to eat for the VM section dinner
• Mahard will send Martin some readings set in New Orleans to posting on the "What's New" page (WPA writer's guide recommended by Slate)

 

Outreach Committee

• It was agreed that the committee needed a new name. Following considerable discussion replete with suggestions (what it is concerned with: standards, preservation, digital issues, professional programs, advance workshops and possible names: Professional development, Section Support, Professional Enrichment) it was agreed to be renamed the EDUCATION AND SPECIAL TOPICS Committee.
• James asked about the three-committee structure—what does it do. Discussion ensued.

 

VMCAR and Description Section.

• Collaborative effort to review Cataloging Cultural Objects (CCO). Eason suggested a formal response from the Section. We might want to look at his response and maybe Helena Zinkham's to begin to formulate our response. The question was asked how does this (i.e., CCO) work for realia? Need to look for someone who does this and how does this relate to AACR3's forthcoming revision. Brad Westbrook – Technical SubCommittee For Descriptive Standards would like to have a liaison from VMCAR officially. Discussion ensued. Results: VM CAR needs to have some discussion over AACR3 – Action item: Mahard will contact Zinkham about this.

 

Meeting adjourned.