NDSA:Meeting Minutes 8/29/14

NDSA CWG brainstorming

• Christie Moffatt
• Abbie Grotke
• Glen McAninch
• Joshua Sternfeld
• Libby Smigel

Abbie gave a brief runthrough of how we approach agendas for past meetings - last year we focused on National Agenda content areas and member presentations, which were very well attended and appreciated by attendees. (But we did that all year). Is there other work we could be accomplishing during meetings, areas we could be discussing as a group? Ideas for Content Matters posts?

We then started brainstorming ideas for topics/work to focus on together, as outcome/follow on to DP14 discussion. Talked about exploring relationship/interactions between content creators and preservation specialists - depending on content that relationship may change. Journalistic/media/news content - news creators not thinking about preservation issues, would benefit from hearing from NDSA community.

Libby discussed dance companies and folk traditions - primary reason for them to exist, create new things and put on stage. Oral transmission for both forms. These are usually underfunded, statements about archivist-artist matrix, partnership. Could be common to journalist issue. There may be takeaways from SAA preservation/records manager, archivist connection. Records management pushes organizations have other missions in their mission to get more organized. Maybe there’s a parallel, work across disciplines. Strategies for living archives.

NDSA guidance for content creators… whatever we do has to be easy. Helping them articulate the benefit of preservation. Economic benefit, cultural benefit. How that will help them sustain their mission. Get the management people to buy in.

For upcoming meeting - we could have discussions around this topic, what guidance have people been providing to content creators, if anything, what would be helpful as guidance.

The case studies we've already created could be a good foundation for setting up something more in depth, next steps.

Libby suggested we tap into Theater library association (not currently members) - trust issues around this. Need to be sensitive about this. Libby could reach out to them. Share their stories.

TRUST - could explode another area ripe for discussion, would take some focus (indigenous communities, etc.)

For further discussion on this topic, we talked about getting a list of top 5-10 problematic or difficult content creator/ archivist relationships, such as:

• Performing arts,
• journalism
• indigenous/ native communities
• university faculty

Where really important content but not focused energy on how to preserve that content. See where there are patterns.

Underlying theme: Better thought going into thought going in to day to day content creation and management of files, etc. More responsibility on the part of content creators. If we can help hash out issues of trust, file management, would be valuable.

Funders like finding solutions that help out more than one field.

What are the 5 things we want to know? Talked about creating a checklist of areas that we want covered with whoever we talk to.

What are our commonalities/difficulties? Get a framework for what we expect when we reach out to these creators.

Glen - we have some patterns, established by law relationship, which is different from cultural heritage but has some commonalities. Portal emphasizes the model - designated communities. Both creators and users. Has to take in both approaches.

We could spend a few months of our CWG meetings getting examples, hearing what’s worked and not worked.

This is not necessarily technological - there are tricky social, cultural, political actors that enter the equation. No one in NDSA is looking at these sorts of relationships. Maybe that is the CWG role. We can address areas not being addressed by other working groups. Spend some time going thru models where relationships might be useful to broader community. How do we communicate format standards to content creators? Karen Cariani says they get all sorts of formats. they have to sort thru and normalize. if they had talked to them first, would it be different? How can we meet in the middle? meeting needs of creators and archivists.

Other meeting topic ideas:

Glen suggested hearing from the new Council of State Archivists PERTTS portal (Program For Electronic Records Training, Tools, and Standards; http://rc.statearchivists.org/PERTTS/Default.aspx ) if the creators of the portal are amenable to giving a web presentation in the next couple of months. This is a portal for state archivists, establishes framework for putting resources in, model of preservation that it holistic. A presentation that deals with an holistic approach, model would be useful. Metrics oriented.

Abbie floated an idea about having a few of our monthly meetings “hosted” meetings by our various Content teams… but more open ended discussion may not be as useful - if there was a practical thing to solve or do during the meeting this could be useful. Could throw it out to team leads to see if they want to use the hour.

Regarding the Cultural heritage DP14 session, are there projects that came out of it, or things that could be considered? Too early to say, Josh says.

Libby mentioned that every 10 years, the dance heritage leadership forum brings together archivists, artists, gives us the 10 yr strategic plan. Results in 2010, field felt most important things were access to information and technologies that can access. Worries about technology, copyrights. Potential speakers may be drawn from that… for future CWG meetings.

Also discussed a session on how you set standards for formats / file creation. Hear from members on how they've done this, how successful it's been. Glen talked about "good, better and best formats." Getting it out there, and make content creators more aware. Library of Congress has released preferred format standards. Abbie could get a speaker to talk about how it's going. - get various examples of recommended formats or on format registries and how they are trying to recognize different formats, get transition tools.

For upcoming meeting:

For next meeting, to spark ideas will discuss with members the idea of getting a list of top 5-10 problematic or difficult content creator/ archivist relationships: Performing arts, state archives, news content, indigenous native communities, university faculty, filmmakers (particularly independent. Come with other stories, ideas.