Don't forget, voting for next year's RAO leadership team will close in one week. Election information was distributed to members earlier this month via e-mail. To learn more about the candidates, and discover what's new with RAO, check out our Summer 2014 Newsletter (available online from our webpage):

http://www2.archivists.org/groups/reference-access-and-outreach-section

Included in this issue is information about the wonderful program in store for you at the Marketplace of Ideas III during our annual business meeting at SAA.

Wanted:Hot Topics and Cool Demos

The 2014 RAO Program Committee seeks Hot Topics and Cool Demonstrations for provocative conversation and deep thinking at the SAA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.   On Thursday, August 14, 2014 from 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm, RAO will host its third annual Marketplace of Ideas and seeks purveyors of hot topics and cool demonstrations to sell their wares to a savvy audience of RAO archivists.

What is an RAO Hot Topic?
An RAO hot topic is an issue, a concern, an idea that has sparked recent attention in RAO circles.  It can be something that seems novel or cutting-edge; it can be an enduring issue that is garnering new attention or approaches. 

What Makes an RAO Hot Topic HOT?
An RAO hot topic can be provocative and even fractious; it can also be surprising and funny. Above all else, a hot topic should engender passion, engagement and excitement.   

What is an RAO Cool Demo?
An RAO Cool Demonstration is a presentation of an approach or technique that has enhanced services, simplified processes, or transformed workflows and approaches. It could be a simple fix or adaptation, or a reinvention of the wheel.

What Makes an RAO Cool Demo COOL?
An RAO Cool Demo should be widely applicable to RAO archivists and simple enough to explain in a low-tech manner in a short period of time.  Think of it as an app that works without a mobile device.

Make a Proposal…
Applying to purvey hotness and coolness is simple and easy:

1.       Draft a brief description of the demonstration or hot topic and explain how and/or why it relates to reference, access, or outreach archivists and their work. 

2.       Come up with a working title.

3.       Determine who will lead the demo or moderate the discussion (this may be you, so talk to yourself).

4.       Please go to this Google form [link] to complete the online proposal application.

5.    Deadline to apply is May 15, 2014.

 

 

 

Annual Meeting - DC2010

Wow, where does the time go? It’s been two weeks since we wrapped things up at the DC2010 meeting, so it’s about time to share with everyone what happened at the annual section meeting.
First, a big thank you to all the members who attended the section meeting on Friday afternoon. The true value of the section comes from everyone adding their voice and participating. Because of that spirit of involvement, we had some great discussions, and we look forward to a productive year.

Following a warm welcome from our outgoing chair Amy Schindler, we were visited by Christie Peterson, a member of the program committee for the 2011 annual meeting in Chicago. Christie shared with the group the plans for the coming year and how to craft and submit your proposals for sessions. Please see the SAA website for the most up-to-date details. The deadline for submissions to the 2011 program committee is October 1; all those interested in submitting proposals to the RAO Steering Committee for possible endorsement should forward a copy of their proposals along to RAO chair Jim Gerencser by October 1 as well.

Next, Doris Malkmus shared information about the ongoing efforts of the National History Day Committee. This topic generated a healthy discussion about valuable resources, possible collaborators and other stakeholders, and personal experiences. The report of the committee is available at the SAA RAO website, and those interested in sharing their knowledge and ideas with the group are encouraged to contact Doris or co-chair Shawn Hayes.

Shannon Bowen-Maier then took the stage to update everyone on the work of the Reference and Processing Collaboration working group, which was created in response to the results of work done by the 2007 MPLP Task Force. The report of the working group is available at the SAA RAO website, and again, all those interested in sharing their ideas with the group are encouraged to contact Shannon or co-chair Dan Santamaria.

Information about the RAO Internship Program was next conveyed by Amy Schindler. Two RAO interns - Benjamin Bromley and Jessica Miller - were selected among the pool of candidates who applied last year. Receiving positive feedback from both Ben and Jessica on their experiences, as well as from the RAO Steering Committee about the value of the interns’ contributions, RAO will again be advertising for interns to participate in activities of the section this year. Expect an announcement on September 1.

Kate Theimer offered a report about the pilot 23 Things for Archivists project, which took place during the winter and early spring. A copy of the report can be found at the SAA RAO website. Comments from participants in the project were generally quite positive, and plans are underway for how best to offer this or a similar program in the future.

Jill Severn provided a quick update on the Skills Survey and encouraged everyone to take the time to fill out this survey in the coming weeks. She and Jessica Miller will be assessing the information they’ve gathered through the survey beginning in the fall.

Following brief remarks by Jim Gerencser, the section then split up into five discussion groups on the following topics: a) How do the R, the A, and the O relate to one another, as well as to other functions like description and acquisition?; b) What should the RAO Section be doing in the short and long term?; c) RAO: Headed for divorce, or stronger than ever?; d) How do we define “citizen archivist,” what is the role of the “citizen archivist,” and how do we work with them?; and, e) How can we develop skills for teaching undergraduates and other audiences about primary sources? After about 30 minutes of lively discussion, brief reports were shared regarding each group’s ideas. These reports will be shared on the RAO Blog in the coming days and weeks.

SAA Council Liaison Brenda Lawson shared information about the current activities of Council, particularly with regard to the proposed dues increase and other items that are up for vote at the annual business meeting.

Todd Kosmerick made an announcement about the availability of ARL SPEC Kit 317 on Special Collections Engagement.

Jennifer Schaffner shared some interesting initial findings from a survey conducted by RLG/OCLC Research. More detailed information about this survey will be forthcoming.

Nancy Melley made a pitch for everyone to have a look at the grants being offered by NHPRC and encouraged anyone interested to contact her or her NHPRC colleagues with questions about these programs.

The meeting ended with Amy Schindler passing the mantle of leadership – in this case, an 8-track tape of REO Speedwagon – to incoming chair Jim Gerencser, and Jim thanked Amy for her very active and successful year as chair of RAO.

Agenda for 2010 RAO Meeting

The almost surely final agenda for the Reference, Access, and Outreach Section's (RAO) annual meeting on Friday, August 13th at 1pm is available on the section's SAA page. The major change is the addition of the small-group discussion topics and a call for suggestions either in advance in the comments section or at the meeting.

Discussion topics will include:

1. How do reference, access, and outreach relate? Further, how do they relate to their archival neighbors such as description and collection development?

2. What would you like to see the section doing in the short and long-term? Are there new initiatives, projects, or deliverables you believe the section should undertake?

3. RAO: Headed for divorce or stronger than ever? They've been together over 30 years! The Gore's have ended their relationship, should R, A, and O move on as well "following a process of long and careful consideration"?

4-5. Attendee choice(s). Taking inspiration from the THATCamp movement, and since we won't have another THATCamp Austin 2009 organized to coincide with this year's meeting, we're taking suggestions for small-group discussion topics. How this will work: To propose a topic in advance, suggest a discussion topic in the comments here by 11pm on Thursday, August 12th. Discussion topic suggestions will also be accepted at the meeting when anyone who has an area or topic of interest will have 1 minute to suggest a topic for discussion. After all suggestions are shared, the room will vote and the 1-2 discussion topics with the most support will break out for discussion groups of their own (along with #1-3 above). The only topical requirement is that your suggestion should relate to reference, access, and/or outreach in some way. Want to talk further about an interesting session from earlier in the meeting or begin brainstorming for a future session proposal? This is another place to have those conversations. We're looking forward to your suggestions!

Visit the RAO News blog for background on the 2010 discussion groups or to get a sense of the discussions at RAO's 2009 meeting when the topics were mission, MPLP, NHD, metrics/user studies, Web 2.0, and advocacy. Each discussion group will briefly report to the larger group and fuller notes will be shared after the meeting.

Guest Blogger: Questions Not Answers

Guest blogger Susan McElrath answered the call (well, an email message) and agreed to share her thoughts on the discussion of RAO's mission in advance of the section's annual meeting. Susan is the Team Leader, Special Collections and University Archivist at American University and a past-chair of RAO.

The Reference, Access, and Outreach Section encourages you to attend the upcoming section meeting at the 2010 annual meeting. We will be breaking into discussion groups to discuss our mission. How do we define reference, access, and outreach? How do they interconnect? What do we want to do?

I have been asked to share some initial thoughts to get the dialog started. As I am not a member of RAO’s Steering Committee, my comments and questions should not be taken as the “official” opinion of our leadership. In thinking through what to write, I realized that questions not answers would be most beneficial. Some of these questions might be worth discussing during the section meeting.

Of the three, reference seems the most straight forward. But is the concept of reference changing? What is the role of the reading room and archivist? Is it possible for Archives to do reference via chat? Is there a role for text messaging? What web 2.0 tools should we be adopting? How many of you are already blogging, tweeting, and creating wikis? There have been numerous sessions at SAA on this topic. Are there recommendations/standards that RAO can share with its members? Should we be evaluating these tools – are they worth the time spent?

In Jan Blodgett’s February 19 posting to the RAO blog, she asked the question “A is for???” Are we talking about physical and/or intellectual access? Is our emphasis on addressing barriers to access (legal, ethical, descriptive)? Are we more interested in access policies – how we make collections available? How does this overlap with the work of the Description section? What about digitization? Are we more interested in the search interface, the selection criteria, the determination of what metadata to share, or all of the above?

Outreach potentially covers a broad territory including exhibits, education, and public relations. SAA is now an active partner on this front with the Archives Week PR kit, its elevator speech contest, and its support of NHD. Should we be doing more? Do we need to redefine RAO’s role in light of this positive change? SAA’s focus is on external audiences but what about internal audiences? Does this form of outreach require a different approach? Is this something we want to explore? Do we consider advocacy a part of outreach? Would we want to work with the Issues & Advocacy Roundtable?

In recent memory, RAO has emphasized outreach with projects relating to Archives Week and National History Day. Do we want to continue this trend? Are there new issues that we should address?

Would it be worthwhile to look at SAA’s publications and workshops to see what additional topics might be of interest? Several years ago RAO proposed a workshop on exhibits which was accepted and continues to be extremely popular.

My apologies for the somewhat disjointed posting. I hope that this provides some food for thought. I look forward to talking through these issues with many of you in DC in August.

RAO's Involvement in SAA's Annual Meeting

I have been asked a few times about the section's role in the Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists, so I thought it might be helpful to share this for anyone else out there who is wondering just how much (or little, as the case may be) the RAO Section as an entity has to do with SAA's Annual Meeting.

I'll begin the year at the end of SAA's annual meeting. The deadline for session and workshop proposals for the following year's annual meeting is usually several weeks to a couple months after the end of the annual meeting and one component of the session and workshop consideration by that year's program committee is endorsements by sections and roundtables.

All sections and roundtables are given the opportunity to endorse a couple session and workshop proposals by the program committee. The endorsement does not guarantee that the proposal will be accepted and appear in the program you should have received from SAA by now, but it generally means that the proposal will receive consideration by the program committee (i.e. it won't be rejected in the first round). So while RAO may think a session proposal should be in the program, ultimately that decision is up to the program committee. Proposals are forwarded to sections and roundtables for endorsement not by the program committee, but by the individuals organizing the sessions. The Steering Committee rates and votes on their favorite proposals. RAO sends in their endorsed sessions to the program committee (usually in October) and that's the last we hear of sessions until the preliminary program comes out to members in the spring.

Some section and roundtable steering committees will propose and endorse their own proposal(s) "from the section/roundtable" in addition to endorsing sessions from other members of SAA. This has not been the recent tradition for RAO. In recent years, RAO has left a bit of time for members to discussion possible session topics and specific proposals during the section meeting and/or encouraged such discussion on the section's listserv.

RAO's next direct contact with the annual meeting comes in February/March when SAA sets a deadline for the description of the section meeting that appears in the program. We're putting those 50 (or fewer) words together about 6 months before the annual meeting, so we don't have a great deal of space to tell you about what will be happening at the meeting. It is also at this time that the section steering committee learns when our meeting will be and has a chance to try to switch with another section for an alternate time slot if desired.

The RAO Steering Committee sets the agenda for our annual meeting during the larger SAA annual meeting, the business portion of which does not vary a great deal year to year. The program portion of the annual meeting is where the section does have a good bit of freedom. We decide if there will be a panel, paper presentations, small group discussions, or another format on topics of interest to the section's membership.

The section's annual meeting is generally finalized in the summer, so while there is a draft agenda for the section meeting available now, keep in mind that final changes will come in the weeks ahead.

A Draft Agenda for RAO's 2010 Annual Meeting

This is a draft agenda for the Reference, Access, and Outreach Section's Annual Meeting to be held on Friday, August 13, 2010 from 1-3pm.

I. Welcome and News from the Chair

II. Updates from Council Liaison Brenda Lawson and 2011 Program Committee

III. Reports & Ongoing Projects

A. National History Day Committee

B. Reference & Processing Collaboration Group

C. RAO Internship Pilot Project

D. 23 Things for Archivists Pilot Project

E. Skills Survey

F. Communications Liaison

G. Election Results

H.

IV. Jessica Lacher-Feldman, Keynote

V. Break-out Discussions

VI. Other Business

Be there or...I'll beat you up? (I'm thinking we're archivists, so there's no need to encourage some of us to be more square than we already are.)

This post will be updated in the weeks leading up to DC2010.

Update 7/8/10: Unfortunately, this first update is not better news. Jessica Lacher-Feldman will not be able to give a keynote talk at the RAO annual meeting.

Update 8/5/10: The almost-final agenda, including discussion topics and a call for attendee-generated topics, is now available.

Life As We Know It

Last winter the RAO Steering Committee discussed goals and planning for the section beginning at a draft document. While the conversation included goals that seem to show up in the planning documents for so many organizations - improving and varying communication, increasing member involvement, etc. - one issue that was a sticking point for many of us was the question of the section's mission. We came to a consensus that there is a need to define and relate RAO's three component interests to each other as well as other sections.

At the same time, Steering Committee members had received positive responses from members that the break-out small group discussions during the 2009 annual meeting were worthwhile and an attractive alternative to the usual conference session of presenters talking at the audience and planned a similar opportunity for the 2010 annual meeting. The Steering Committee agreed that at this year's annual meeting a part of the afternoon's agenda will be small group discussions about the R, A, and O. Keynote remarks from Jessica Lacher-Feldman from the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library at The University of Alabama will precede the discussion and we look forward to what she has to say about what reference, access, and outreach mean to archives today to begin our in-person conversation. Update 7/8/10: Unfortunately, Jessica Lacher-Feldman will not be able to give a keynote talk at the RAO annual meeting.

We hope these discussions will give members the opportunity to interact with folks they wouldn't otherwise as well as get us thinking and talking about how the R, A, and O do or should function together within the section's mission and priorities. Frankly, I think a case could be made that the RAO Section might be better as - or simply acknowledge the fact that it has become - the OR Section.

Does an RAO still make sense? Did the archivists who organized the Reference, Access and Photo-Duplication Policies Committee (which makes me think RAO members with a sense of the section's roots may be passionate about RLG's "Capture & Release": Digital Cameras in the Reading Room report) have it right? Can a single section really lay claim to these distinct, yet related functions? Why is it that SAA has an RAO? Is it time to consider the OR (Outreach & Reference) Section? (If a DA (Description & Access) Section came to SAA, would another group step up and form a MA section or roundtable?)

Leading up to the annual meeting on Friday, August 13th at 1pm we hope to share a few posts with thoughts from other archivists on the R, A, and O. These may take the form of what reference, access, and outreach mean to archivists today, the relationships and intersections of the three, the section's mission, and probably more. RAO's webmaster Jan Blodgett shared some of her thoughts back in February and whether you will be in DC in August or not, I encourage you to share your thoughts there or elsewhere on this blog in the weeks ahead.

Advocacy break out session notes

Here now for your reading pleasure are notes from the last, but certainly not least, break out session during the RAO meeting at SAA in Austin. The topics for the other break out groups were National History Day, Web 2.0, MPLP, metrics & user studies, and the mission of RAO. We hope you'll take a look and share your comments either here on the blog, via the RAO listserv, or with the Steering Committee privately if you prefer.

Advocacy: things RAO can do, things RAO should be involved in, areas we can contribute.

Notetaker: Arlene Schmuland

Suggestion of another topic of potential interest to RAO: Archivists as educators engaged in instructional activities. Provide training which includes learning theories, pedagogy, etc. Maybe a Toolkit. Teach people presentation skills, marketing, how to conduct workshops. (Noted that the Train the Trainer workshop offered by SAA is good, but would have been better if been archives-specific).

Regarding SAA’s request for feedback on Strategic priorities.

Some thoughts about feedback to GAWG. They’re collecting stories, but they need to turn around and provide those back: provide administrators with those stories. Provide a way to get past the basic statistical reporting to the stories behind. Maybe a YouTube page with video recorded stories? Feeds into GAWG and provides wide accessibility.

Create some sort of a webring to highlight organizations or projects.

Identify potential public awareness opportunities. e.g. the Jameson award. In need of greater PR or perhaps we shouldn’t be doing it. Need to push, not wait passively for people to come to us.

SAA is getting better about using Facebook (wonderful).

Develop some sort of RSS feed for changes to website?

Would it be possible to get volunteers for Brian who can help do the tech work? He’s doing huge amounts on his own and is there any of the work that could be handed off to others in order to speed up the project (conversion to Drupal content management system) as a whole? Can Brian come to us and ask us for help? Is there something RAO can do specifically to assist Brian with this or SAA with this?

RAO: blog/newsletter. Come up with a story about what the section is doing & working on? Highlight success stories! Seek them out. Our access portion of our work is important. What people do because of our work is the important part—not the work we do itself. We can sell what we do by what use is being made of it.

Promote repository diversity in the membership: deliberately seek out leadership opportunities for non-academics, and their stories.

We like the 3a task force charge. Yes!

RAO has front line people who know those stories better than anybody else. Let’s build a repository of those stories. And non-archivists talking about archives focusing on the product, the outcome.

National History Day break out session notes

Notes From RAO Discussion on National History Day

Notetaker: Danna Bell-Russel

Determine best ways to contact teachers for example locating the social studies coordinators in a school district.

Determine if there is a system for National History Day and work through that system. Also determine which states do not have a National History Day system and help them to develop that system.

We should see if we can work with the National Council for the Social Studies on the state and national level to determine ways to provide information on how to access primary sources in archives. Also get the regional archives groups involved.

Suggest that state and regional organizations provide prizes and get that information on the RAO website.

Find a way to funnel funds to provide support to students who want to travel to visit other repositories or need assistance to travel to the national competition.

Use research funds (funds to support researchers) for National History Day when available.

Advocacy to support funding for National History Day.

Show how National History Day helps students.

Show National History Day as part of a larger activity to help support teachers.

Approach teachers and students separately – use a two pronged approach. But need to approach both teachers and students.

Getting people who were involved in National History Day who are now archivists to talk about their experience and how it may have helped them to become archivists.

Link to the National History Day website and have a reciprocal link with resources on training to use archives and information on archives.

Develop a synonym list for users.

Should we develop an NHD wiki.

Bringing in students. For example in Mississippi they are working with high school students and are beginning to bring in middle school students with teachers helping out.

Set up hours when school is closed such as evenings and weekends. Open on certain Saturdays and coordinate with teachers at schools in area to get the word out.

Develop liaisons between archives and state National History Day programs. Minnesota did this. Can help with having someone who can go out and do programs.

Need to show teachers that learning does take place in National History Day. Directly focus on testing and how we can have a presence while also supporting standards.

Advocacy and cooperation are important.

Determine list of small steps, medium steps and large steps repositories and SAA can take to get involved. These might include putting articles in Archival Outlook, developing brochures, serving as a judge, waving fees for archives use for students participating in National History Day, developing workshops.

Determine what needs to be added to RAO page.

Website where students and teachers learn about archives and archivists. Perhaps career information on becoming an archivist.

Create a website for teachers. Perhaps set up a separate website with resources for teachers. Possible that teachers would not come to the SAA website for assistance because they don’t think information of interest would be there.

Use SAA glossary as a springboard to provide information on archival terminology.

Crosslink between SAA/NHD/NCSS.

Web 2.0 break out session discussion notes

Notes from Web 2.0 breakout session, RAO section meeting, Friday, August 14, 2009
Matt Pierce, Utah Valley Real Estate, Kathy Marquis, Albany County Public Library (WY)

Attendees ranged from archivists curious about the applications of Web 2.0, but unfamiliar with how to use or create them, to Kate Theimer, who is writing a book on the topic. Many of us used Facebook, Twitter, personal and work blogs, and other social networking sites in our personal lives, but fewer had yet implemented them on behalf of our workplaces. Some members had been encouraged to explore these venues by their administrations. However, others worked in shops (many were government archvists) where access to all social networking sites was blocked.

We each spoke about an aspect of Web 2.0 which we are currently using – and also one which we’d like to explore further. In the latter category, members said they would like to know how to use Web 2.0 to communicate between departments in their institution, mount sound recordings online, keep up with freshmen at their university who are already engaged in this technology, and determine if creating a blog would be worth staff time to keep updated.

Kathy Marquis began by posing a question of the group. She asked Shelley Sweeney, Archivist at the University of Manitoba to recount her experiences when the University Archives mounted a video, created from historic still photographs of séances in the UA, on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0HncGNBCqY). She found a local film student who was willing to write music for the film, and the video went viral. Ultimately, they have had 94,000 hits. We asked: would you consider these people users of your archives? The answers in the group of about ten people were varied. Some said yes, they would mention this user group in their annual report. Others wouldn’t consider them users, strictly speaking, but would mention the whole phenomenon as outreach.

We talked about the website 23 Things for Libraries (http://sjlibrary23.blogspot.com) which is a self-paced set of lessons about 23 applications of Web 2.0. You learn about one, such as blogging, and then you start your own blog. Then you move on to another Thing, like Flickr for sharing photographs, and you create an account – and go back and blog about your experience. Kate mentioned that this program was meant to be a group experience, so you learn from others as you try out new Things. We all agreed that this would be a wonderful way for RAO to help its members: a subgroup of RAO is working on “23 Things for Archivists,” using archival sites as examples. When it is ready, it would be helpful to members if we attempted to try the Things together and contribute to the RAO blog about our experiences and questions.

We talked about the time implications for keeping blogs and other sites updated, to maintain user interest. Blogging, depending on technique, may be hard to catch on. A good idea is to seed it with interesting content from our collections. One example is “A View to Hugh” (http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/morton), the Hugh Morton archive in North Carolina which uses his writing in a way that draws an audience. Another famous example is a blog showcasing the letters of a World War I soldier (http://wwar1.blogspot.com). This was done by a private individual, using his grandfather’s letters home. He released them over time, corresponding to the current month and day, as the letters were dated. Readers were on the edge of their seats, wondering if the young soldier lived through the war. Kate mentioned that Cornell University recently published an update of Peter Hirtle’s very useful chart for determining if you are in copyright compliance when allowing publication, or mounting items on the Internet, from your collections (http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm).

Some archival blogs are about processing decisions, what it’s like to work in an archives. The Polar Bear collection at the Bentley Historical Society (http://polarbears.si.umich.edu) is interactive and encourages researcher questions. This led to comments about the value of wikis for capturing commonly asked questions and their answers, for the public to search. Other wikis are for internal use and make policies and internal finding aids accessible to all staff via the web. Montana State Historical Society maintains a very useful wiki (http://montanahistorywiki.pbworks.com) on state history. There is the option to restrict access to these applications, even though they are on the web, so that they can be used internally.

We discussed installing a chat widget from Meebo.com - http://www.meebo.com/about - (a free device.) There is an option to leave a message when the staffer is offline, but it’s hard to remember to turn it off. Nova Scotia archives sends out “tweets” about the province on Twitter, reminding them of the value of their archives.

The group also requested that the RAO section consider placing something on our website which clarifies that we believe that exploring Web 2.0 applications is a valuable way to communicate with our researchers – as well as keeping us current on the newer technology updates. They would also like to see lists of good examples (don’t have to be the absolute best, just helpful, creative, unique, etc.), again to encourage resistant administrators not to be afraid of these techniques and to let archivists explore them outreach purposes.

MPLP Group Discussion Notes

Here are the notes from the MPLP group discussion at the Reference, Access, and Outreach Section's annual meeting. The notes from the RAO mission discussion and metrics and user studies groups are available with more yet to come. We hope those in attendance as well as those who could not attend will share further thoughts, suggestions, and reflections on topics of interest in the comments or by contacting a member of the RAO Steering Committee directly.

Notes from MPLP Discussion, Notetaker: Gregory Kocken

During the Summer of 2008 the MPLP Task Force, created by the RAO section of SAA, queried members of the RAO section about their concerns regarding the impact on public services by MPLP processing techniques. Many of the respondents to this survey suggested they would appreciate more guidance from the RAO section concerning MPLP. Based upon the survey’s findings, the RAO empowered the MPLP task force to devise an MPLP Best Practices Guide. The proposal for such a guide was presented at this meeting, and the ensuing discussion focused on how such a guide should be prepared and what content RAO section members would appreciate finding in the guide.

• Several group attendees suggested they would need the guide to be endorsed by SAA in order to legitimize these practices and approaches with their directors/managers.
• Other sections and voices from within SAA need to be represented in the guide.
• In order to make the guide available to the largest number of people, the guide should be made available in a free, online format.
• The guide should recommend transparency in our processing techniques with the public. In other words, when MPLP techniques are used the public should be notified in the finding aid.
• The guide should be compliant with what has already been written in DACS (Describing Archives: A Content Standard).
• The guide should recommend a procedure (or procedures) for public services staff to communicate processing issues with technical services/processing staff.
• The guide should recommend a way for technical services/processing staff to note private/sensitive materials in the creation of finding aids.
• The guide should recommend ways in which public services staff can communicate collection information with technical services/processing staff so this can be incorporated into finding aids.
• The guide should establish how public services staff (or another archivist) can identify what collections require further processing

Several group members also expressed concern about the theory behind MPLP. If MPLP is designed to facilitate access by making more collections available to researchers, but public services staff ultimately spends more time working with researchers, are we then depriving other researchers access to collections?

Finally, it was recommended that any guide be honest about identifying perceived problems with MPLP.

Metrics and User Studies Group Discussion Notes

The Reference, Access, and Outreach Section's annual meeting included breakout sessions for members to discuss issues of interest or concern to them. This is the second post sharing notes from those discussions. The notes from the RAO mission discussion are available with the others to follow.We hope those in attendance as well as those who could not attend will share further thoughts, suggestions, and reflections on topics of interest in the comments or by contacting a member of the RAO Steering Committee directly. This feedback will then be used by the Steering Committee in formulating the section's agenda and priorities as we move forward. If you have any thoughts on the small group discussion format or the annual meeting, feel free to share your thoughts here or with a member of RAO's Steering Committee.

Notes from Metrics and User Studies Discussion, Notetaker: Amy Schindler

The group began by introducing ourselves, sharing our interests in the area as well as what our repositories are currently doing in the area of metrics and/or user studies. Responses included:

• collecting stats, not doing anything with them
• collecting basic reference stats, particularly interested in web stats
• collect lots of statistics, but really to justify their existence, haven't used to answer questions about doing better
• do collect stats, but not happy with how and what they're collecting. Would like better metrics; have begun doing usability testing on home page directed at most likely users and hope to expand
• just implemented a circulation system and can now assemble stats, don't have good website info; using statistics for security purposes
• have been developing projects for researchers, consortium study report on subject-based access; wondering how to do valid statistical research as an information professional

Participants discussed how time and money often drive the process and that there is a need to justify and produce for activities.

Discussion of what kind of statistics repositories collect - has there been a recent survey?

Mention was made that Paul Conway's article included a form that has provided some guidance.

The Archival Metrics website was brought up - no one in the group is using the user survey toolkits available from AM at this time. The profession is in need of an update from the research team.

The fear by resource allocators that knowing numbers may cause allocation questions was discussed.

Question: How are we tracking email?

• Central email account, by hand, access db tracking
• any staff may receive & handle email inquiry, track via paper printout
  
• stats based on hashmarks
• in spreadsheets with other reference statistics
  

Question: What tools are there to track reference interactions and other statistics?

• Questionpoint
• We need to tools to track "traditional" and online, including 2.0/social media, interactions
• Aeon from Atlas (some attendees were not familiar with this product and no one had seen it demonstrated)

Some of the needs and further questions for RAO to work on from the group:

• Need for consistency in statistics: people day & people hours, etc.
  
• Knowing what is out there as far as products, databases, tools, etc. for collecting data and
  
• What numbers are we keeping?
• What are we doing with those numbers (and other information)? Sending to boss only? Do they make it further up the chain? And then using them in more interesting ways.
• Impacts of collection-level surveys on determining what will be processed further
• A clearinghouse of user studies should be better shared including not just the studies, but also further follow-up
• Training for post-grad archivists on user studies, research statistics; How to do qualitative & quantitative research? Research methodology courses available/appropriate for archivists?

RAO Mission Discussion Group

The Reference, Access, and Outreach Section's annual meeting included breakout sessions for members to discuss issues of interest or concern to them. This is the first post sharing notes from those discussions. We hope those in attendance as well as those who could not attend will share further thoughts, suggestions, and reflections on these topics in the comments. This feedback will then be used by the Steering Committee in formulating the section's agenda and priorities as we move forward. If you have any thoughts on the small group discussion format or the annual meeting, feel free to share your thoughts here or with a member of RAO's Steering Committee.

Notes from RAO Mission Discussion, Notetaker: Jan Blodgett

Members of the discussion group made the following suggestions

General issues and concerns

RAO should broaden its focus to encompass all three aspects - Reference, Access and Outreach.- we need to find ways to support and explore both practice and philosophy for all.

Current activities around National History Day and MPLP are good but limited- don=t interest all members.

There is an interest in more focus on the theoretical underpinnings and philosophies of reference and outreach (a recognition of a dearth of new writings on archival reference)

Concern was expressed around the trend in libraries, particularly academic libraries, to eliminate reference departments . Archives were seen as still very much needing traditional reference services, user education - a need for staff presence and meditation for users.

2.0 - we need to be able to step back and look at Web 2.0 activities to evaluate - thinking in terms of research questions such as why are we doing this, what are the rationales, how do people learn best, etc.

Dealing with old perception as reference being objective - of not doing any interpretation - that anyone familiar with finding aids can do reference. There is a tendency within the archival profession to see working with materials as core and with users as ancillary - how can we change that and highlight core skills for reference? Can we find ways to help processing archivists right better finding aids/more meaningful descriptions based on reference experiences? Can we educate our colleagues on how the role of interacting with endusers is now critical?

How can we identify and define a training process for reference that shows that there is a body of knowledge that undergirds reference work?

What do we know about intergenerational learning?

One task of access work is keeping content within a context

Need more discussion and sessions on exhibits - why we do them, how to do them

There is a concern about the vagueness of RAO meetings -are we too broad - should we divide the group or retain a general public services pervue

Outreach and Advocacy are different - we need to be clearer about the distinctions (promoting institutions vs profession).

What is Access - how does it fit with descriptive practices

Is there a conflation of access and outreach with online finding aids?

Potential collaboration with other sections

Privacy and confidentiality & Security - we could be adding user needs to balance their discussions

Electronic Records - how to do reference with electronic records as those collections grow (developing skills with datasets and propriatary data formats, teaching users how to access)

Museum archivists & Congressional Papers roundtable -helping with artifacts, idea of recordness of objects, exhibits, public programming

AASLH and AAM - joint meetings or speakers from or workshop B ask Council for help on being collaborative

Membership - have RAO members willing to answer questions - not necessarily as long term mentors but open to taking questions from newbies

Ideas for Projects to consider

Would like to see more on how reference archivists are dealing with changes in different types of repositories.

Developing or encouraging a reference immersion program similar to ones done by librarians.

Pre-Conference workshop on reference/user instruction

Session or pre-conference workshop on working with diverse users - how to serve and how to attract into profession (include in diversity people with a range of research experience, age groups, etc), consider what barriers we create

Provide a place for examples of online tutorials, case studies (less formal than Interactive Archivist) - a wiki?

Developing tools for assessing new ways of reference - or continuous assessment as we encounter new technologies

Come up with a fun slogan ala Macho Archivists for RAO archivists

Develop a mission statement with goals for the next few years attached to give steering committee guidance, outline to follow.

Guidelines for reproduction & financial issues (publisher contracts)

Have a pre-conference get together for RAO members - visit repositories or have meal together