Society of Georgia Archivists

Society of Georgia Archivists
Executive Board Meeting
Columbus Marriott Hotel and Conference Center
7 November 2007

PRESENT: Jill Severn, Elizabeth Barr, Muriel McDowell Jackson, Frances Overcash, Reagan Grimsley, Renna Tuten, Abby Griner, Nora Lewis, Jody Lloyd Thompson, Sara Saunders, Christine de Catanzaro, Morna Gerrard, Luciana Spracher, Elizabeth Russey, Marie Force

CALL TO ORDER: President Jill Severn called the meeting to order at 7:09 p.m.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES: The minutes had been distributed by email prior to the meeting. The Board approved the minutes unanimously.

OFFICERS' REPORTS

Treasurer:
Treasurer Elizabeth Barr submitted a written report and a 2007 budget through October. Total cash on hand is $42,909.18. Total income to date is $18,333.80, or 84% of the amount budgeted. Total expenditures are only $8,349.08, or 38% of the amount budgeted, because most expenses of the pre-conference workshop and annual meeting have not yet come in.

Discussion followed about the monies for the two new workshop scholarship. It was decided to keep the funds in two separate accounts—one for each scholarship. Barr will let the new treasurer know.

Archivist: Archivist Muriel McDowell Jackson submitted a written report. Jackson reported the $60 budgeted for archival supplies was not spent. She received papers from Michael Nagy, her predecessor, and Valerie Frey, past president. She received a request for photographs. The next scheduled deposit of SGA materials at the Georgia Archives is 2009. Jackson and Severn asked out-going officers to gather and submit records for the archives.

Administrative Assistant:
Administrative Assistant Frances Overcash submitted a written report. Current 2007 membership stands at 226 with 48 new members. Overall 2007 scholarship fund gifts totals $663 (unchanged since April). Overcash processed 90 registrations for the Annual Meeting and 29 registrations for the Pre-Conference Workshop.

Jill Severn inquired how many people became SGA members in order to get the member rate for the Annual Meeting. Frances Overcash will investigate and report back.

President:
President Jill Severn submitted a written report. She is planning a meeting in November or December with leaders from GHRAB, GAMG, GRA and GLA to discuss collaboration. Also planning to contact other archival organizations adjacent to Georgia in Alabama and South Carolina (SALA and SCAA) to set up a separate meeting to discuss improving communication and collaboration.

Severn continued working with subscription manager and Provenance editor to resolve issues related to retrospective printing of Provenance. Missing issues of 2006 Provenance have been reprinted. Arranged to receive residual artwork for select back issues of Provenance from printer. Will transfer to Provenance editor for appropriate disposition.

Severn also prepared certificates for all SGA scholarship recipients, and posted scholarship survey, annual meeting evaluation and committee volunteer survey on SurveyMonkey.

PUBLICATIONS REPORTS
Provenance:

Editor Reagan Grimsley submitted a written report. Quarterly activities included:

Gathered content for 2007 issues. Expected publication date February 2008.
Received resignation of Susan Hoffius as managing editor. Currently seeking a new managing editor.
Jill Severn and Jody Thompson coordinated reprinting of 2006 edition.
Provenance will begin appearing in EBSCO databases in Spring 2008.
2006 Gracy award winner is to be decided by November 9, 2007.
Need to fill 4 board positions this year. List of candidates to be discussed at Provenance board of directs meeting, November 9, 2007.
Microfilming tabled due to back issues needed. Expect to complete project in 2008.

Jill Severn asked Grimsley to check with Muriel McDowell Jackson for list of Provenance issues and quantity held in the SGA archives.

Discussion followed about the managing editor position. Grimsley noted that editorial positions are usually advertised by word-of-mouth and the newsletter. Susan Hoffius will work through the current issue of Provenance (until February). Following decisions reached:

Grimsley will make an announcement about the open position at tomorrow’s business meeting.
Grimsley will consult with Susan Hoffius and write up a job description for the position and beginning early December post it in a variety of formats (newsletter, listserv, e-mail). Promotion by word-of-mouth will also continue.
If no interest by January 2008 SGA board meeting, will open up a discussion about the position including changing it to a paid position.

Muriel McDowell Jackson announced that her copy of the SGA archives inventory showed Provenance microfilm, vol. 1-13, deposits made in 2004 and 2005. Believe dates are 1983-1995. Not sure if the archives has paper copies. She will verify dates, formats and quantity of archived Provenance copies and report back.

Newsletter
Renna Tuten submitted a written report. Tuten reported that the Fall 2007 issue of the newsletter (volume 39, number 3) was posted on the SGA website in October. Nora Lewis of the Georgia Historical Society is the new Membership Spotlight columnist. Tuten is currently contacting archival vendors to solicit advertisements.

Tuten is starting to look for someone to fill the position of assistant newsletter editor. Severn asked her to advertise the position in the SGA newsletter.

Website:
Website Editor Abby Griner submitted a written report. Griner posted information about the annual meeting and two new workshop scholarships to the website. She is considering how to present publication Shelter from the Stormy Blast online. She is investigating ways to generate SGA images for the website and planning a survey to gather suggestions on ways to improve the site.

Suggestion made to form a subcommittee for creating photos. Goal is to avoid photo production becoming burdensome for one person. Severn will ask the membership committee chair to take on the issue of forming a subcommittee. Archiving of the photographs also needs more discussion. The issue was tabled until next board meeting.

Listserv:
Listserv Manager Nora Galler submitted a written report. Galler reported that she sought permission from Jill Severn and Abby Griner to delete access to the SGA member listserv through the SGA website due to non-members self-subscribing to the list. Abby Griner removed the list info from the website.

Subscriptions Manager:
Subscriptions Manager Jody Thompson submitted a written report. Thompson reported only four claims this quarter related to Provenance, with seven renewals. There were 69 subscribers to Provenance for 2007. The Summer issue of the newsletter (vol. 39, no. 3) to was mailed to institutional subscribers and subscription vendors on October 9, 2007. Thompson is working with president and Provenance editor to resolve microfilming and printing issues.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Archives Month Liaison:
Georgia Archives Month Co-Chair Sara Saunders was present and submitted a written report. The committee met August 10, 2007, at Valerie Frey’s house in Jonesboro to prepare the mailing of flyers, posters and cover letters. Less packets were mailed out this year because duplicates were eliminated from the mailing list. 31 events listed on the activities website. Have found two potential co-chairs for the 2008 committee.

Issues for 2008:

Find an easier way to stamp the packets—postage was a big issue this year because U.S. Postal Service raised rates from approximately .87 cents to $1.14 per packet.
Investigate Georgia Archives Month becoming a part of SGA. SGA could serve as a repository for funds and help in getting GAM launched each year.

Education Committee:
Education Committee Chair Christine de Catanzaro submitted a written report. De Catanzaro reported on the second 2007 workshop, “Building Sustainable Digital Collections” conducted by Toby Graham and Sheila McAlister earlier in the day at Columbus State University. Went well with 29 participants. A sheet was circulated for future workshop suggestions, but de Catanzaro is thinking a survey of all SGA members by SurveyMonkey is needed in the future. Jill Severn advised board members to be careful and space out surveys so we don’t bother members.

Preliminary plans were made for SGA’s first mini-workshop in January 2008. Solinet will lend “virtual” facilities for 14 online attendees and presenter Kara McClurken for free. Workshop topic is “Disaster Preparedness” and duration will be an hour or 90 minutes. This mini-workshop will fill the current early year workshop gap while new committee members get oriented. Elizabeth Russey asked if this is an ongoing arrangement with Solinet. De Catanzaro replied it was just a one-time arrangement.

De Catanzaro worked with Scholarship Committee Chair Luciana Spracher to establish and name two workshop scholarships.

De Catanzaro recommended a substantial increase in the Education Committee’s budget for 2008 to accommodate increasing presenter fees, more frequent workshops and maintain high standards of workshops. Elizabeth Russey agreed that $200 was too low for pre-conference meeting space and needs to go up next year.

Membership:
Membership Committee Chair Morna Gerrard submitted a written report. Quarterly activities included:

Sent a SurveyMonkey survey to 262 ex-SGA members to determine why they are no longer members and what would encourage them to rejoin. Waiting for responses.
Subcommittee to explore migrating PDF version of SGA directory to HTML-based format met August 17, 2007. List of needs was e-mailed to the Board with no negative responses. Will continue work on this project.
New membership brochure printed under budget (1000 - $483.11).
Outreach to archival students:
Mailing of cover letter and brochure to faculty of archival programs is in progress. Renna Tuten compiled list of people to target and contacted many of them with positive results.
SGA/SLA second joint social on August 9, 2007 at Apres Diem in Midtown. Not big turnout. Luciana Spracher suggested maybe other committee members could hold SGA regional or local get-togethers outside Atlanta.
Social and office hours held at 2007 SAA. Ordered mechanical pencils as give-away items (500 - $340). Need to think about time of SGA happy hour at SAA to gain more attendees. To be considered for 2008.

Scholarship:
Scholarship Committee Chair Luciana Spracher submitted a written report. Spracher reported quarterly activities including:

Larry Gulley Scholarship recipient is Audrey Cook, a public history student at The University of West Georgia.
Scholarship Committee’s work with Education Committee to establish two new workshop scholarships.

Spracher made suggestions for 2008:

Find new ways to raise awareness and promote SGA scholarships in order to increase the number of applicants.
Clarify who is responsible for the Annual Scholarship Auction in the Board’s written responsibilities to avoid confusion (Scholarship Committee, Annual Meeting Directors, at the discretion of President?). It is not mentioned in the Handbook.
Start planning the auction earlier in the year.

Jill Severn recognized Luciana Spracher and Education Committee Chair Christine de Catanzaro for their “tremendous job” soliciting feedback from members and committees and putting together the workshop scholarships.

Nominating:
Nominating Committee Chair Valerie Frey was not present but she submitted a written report.

The results of the SGA elections were: Christine de Catanzaro—vice president/president-elect, Jamal Brooker—treasurer, Teresa Berk—director, Wesley Chenault and Chris Paton—nominating committee. Voting by SurveyMonkey went very well.

Suggestions for next year included sending candidates a template for their biographical information to fill our and return electronically. SurveyMonkey formatting limits number of characters per page to 4000. Recommended that candidates who are running against one other person be granted 1500 characters. Those running against 3 other people (Nominating Committee) be granted 900 characters. Recommended fields: Education, Employment/Archival Experience, Presentations and Publications, Professional Organization Participation, SGA Participation.

Jill Severn passed along Valerie Frey’s thanks to everyone at the Board meeting who stood as a candidate in the SGA elections.

2007 Annual Meeting:
Second Year Director Tamara Livingston was not present but submitted a written report presented by First Year Director Elizabeth Russey and Local Arrangements Committee Member Reagan Grimsley.

As of November 1, 2007, 73 people had registered for the conference, with total registration income $5,965 (3 registration payments not yet received).
Meeting vendors and sponsors, donating a total $2,750, are Walter Hopkins, Metal Edge, Hollinger Corporation, Columbus State University Libraries and Chattahoochee Valley Regional Library System.
Conference printing and publicity costs as of November 1, 2007: $1,036.97. Note that this figure does not include the approximately 20 hours Tamara Livingston spent designing registration forms.

Livingston recommended that SGA invest in professional design to create a SGA logo in digital format that can be scaled up for posters and templates to create a consistent look for all our conference forms, brochures, publicity and overhead (as we have for the website and newsletter).

First Year Director Elizabeth Russey submitted a written report:

Estimated total program costs $11,000.
Local/hotel arrangements total costs $6,500.
Needed more volunteers for annual meeting committees.

Recommendations for 2008:

Increase budget for local arrangements to match current market.
Add budget item to around $1500 for printing of brochure and design of SGA logo.
Set committee membership limits to avoid having some committees with memberships that are too high. SAA has caps.
Keep conference fees level in 2008. We are at the cap of what we can ask for conference fees compared to other regional organizations. Recommend the Board not address this issue until 2009.

General agreement from the Board with Russey’s recommendations. Jill Severn suggested that if committee chairs have members wanting to join a full committee, ask those members if they are willing to join another committee. Reagan Grimsley suggested instead of raising conference fees, think about raising membership rates by $5. Severn said she thought membership fees were last raised in 2000/2001, and noted that if membership fees are raised we need to explain to the members why we are raising rates and continue to work to keep annual meeting costs low. Elizabeth Barr noted it is not a bad thing to have part of the annual meeting funding come out of the general budget: speakers are educational, especially for those who cannot go to SAA, and the annual meeting brings new members.

OLD BUSINESS

Online Directory Move from a Database to HTML:
Jill Severn reported that she and Abby Griner decided to move the directory into Word format for now. This change will make it easier for the Education and Membership Committee Chairs to make updates.

SGA Disaster Preparedness Committee:
Valerie Frey was not present but submitted a written report presented by Jill Severn. Publication Shelter from the Stormy Blast: A Guide to Disaster Recovery Resources for Georgia and the Southeast was updated. Severn congratulated the committee members—“it was a huge undertaking.” Both contributing organizations ARCHE and Solinet are fine with SGA serving as the host for Shelter as long as they can post links to it from their websites.

Frey recommended adding to the SGA Handbook that one of the president’s duties will be to appoint a person(s) to update Shelter annually as needed (mainly updating links), but every few years there should be a more in-depth search for additional information. There was agreement from the Board with Frey’s recommendation.

Frey noted that once Shelter is launched and a system for regular updates in place, the SGA Disaster Preparedness Committee can be disbanded. The new disaster preparedness committee HERA (Heritage Emergency Response Alliance) can fill its place.

Elizabeth Russey made a motion that SGA host and maintain Shelter from the Stormy Blast: A Guide to Disaster Recovery Resources for Georgia and the Southeast on the SGA website in PDF format. Muriel McDowell Jackson seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.

Provenance Back Issues, Microfilming and EBSCO Relationship:

Thompson noted that copies of 1993 issue of Provenance are particularly needed.

A subcommittee will be formed with members Reagan Grimsley, Muriel McDowell Jackson, Jill Severn and Jody Thompson. The subcommittee will meet before December 25, 2007 at the Georgia State Archives to examine Provenance holdings in the SGA archives.

SGA Minutes/Handbook/Bylaw Reconciliation Project:
Project currently on hold.

NEW BUSINESS

Budget Updates:
Elizabeth Barr requested that all committee chairs and those responsible for budgets prepare an estimate of 2008 expenses and send them to her by December 15th. Barr will put all the pieces together into one budget.

Update on Managing Editor Vacancy:
Previously discussed under Provenance Report.

2008 Education Workshops:
As discussed under Education Committee Report, Solinet will host SGA’s first mini-workshop in January 2008.

Muriel McDowell Jackson suggested advertising mini-workshop on library lists. Jackson recently sat in on a regional library meeting and more libraries are now required to prepare a disaster plan.

Attendance to the mini-workshop is limited because of online format, but de Catanzano will discuss possibilities of expanding attendance with Kara McClurken and send a proposal to the Board for a vote if any changes made.

2008 Annual Meeting Location:
The Board reviewed Elizabeth Russey’s report on annual meeting site estimates from Callaway Gardens (Pine Mountain), the University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education (Athens) and Kennesaw State University. After general discussion, Athens was preferred for its all-inclusive package at a single-venue and good local SGA member support.

Elizabeth Russey made a motion to have the 2008 SGA Annual Meeting in Athens. Elizabeth Barr seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.

There are no November dates available at UGA’s Center for Continuing Education, so meeting would be held in October at that site. Elizabeth Russey will investigate the Classic Center in Athens as an alternative site and send proposals to the Board by e-mail for review and voting.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
No announcements were made.

ADJOURNMENT
There being no other business the meeting was adjourned at 9:15 p.m.

ADDENDUM TO MINUTES
The following items of business were proposed by e-mail on January 17, 2008. SGA Board members voted on these items by e-mail, and all motions passed unanimously:

1. Morna Gerrard made a motion that the Board endorse the PAHR (Partnership for the American Historical Record) Bill, which seeks to increase federal support for state and local archival records held by state and local government, historical societies, libraries, and related organizations.
2. Elizabeth Russey made a motion for approval to place a $500 deposit with the Classic Center in Athens to reserve the SGA 2008 Annual Meeting space. The total cost of the space, minus a/v, catering, and the reception, will be $2357.10.

Respectfully submitted on January 24, 2008,

Marie Force
SGA Secretary