Good Morning Everyone,

As a former AAO Board Member, I commend the current Board for the work that they have put forth this year. Being on the AAO Board is no easy task and certainly this year with many of the financial hardships the Association is facing their tasks have been made no less easier. The question of raising membership fees and maintaining services is certainly a challenge and membership response and action is greatly appreciated and needed during this time. With that said, I read with great interest the results of the survey put forth by the Board and would like to share some of my comments and insights with you. Mostly the Association can only be a success when the membership allows it to be (and I’m not talking about membership fees here).

For example, I was disappointed to see so many negative comments regarding the Professional Development Committee and its programming. I sat on the PDC for several years and I know from hands-on experience that the PDC has asked the membership repeatedly for feedback and suggestions in terms of the workshops offered and every time the PDC has received little response to go on. In addition, there is a cost to running these workshops; location, catering, instructor fees and office fees associated with registering, not to mention the volunteer time the Committee puts in during the year to put these workshops in place. It would be nice to hold more workshops and in a variety of locations but it is often hard to do so and it is hard to appease everyone as to the topic and where they are held. Ideally the Committee would hold more workshops in places such as Toronto but the cost of securing a suitable location is often well beyond what is budgeted and this has certainly become more of an issue since NADP funding was lost. The Committee is always looking for sites to hold workshops and if your site is able to do so I’d highly recommend contacting a member of the PDC to offer your services. It may not be a monetary contribution but providing a space is one way that you can help the Association at this time.

This also goes for Chapter events. I’m currently on the Executive of SWOC (which is a large geographic area) and we are always looking for places to go and archives to visit. However, most don’t offer and when we do travel outside of London it is usually (but not always) London area members that are attending those events. Over the last few years SWOC events have been poorly attended (including our 2012 AGM held in Goderich) and we’ve had to cancel events  due to lack of interest. I understand it’s often hard to give up your time on weekends or in the evenings (and especially if it means travelling) but again the Association can only survive if we take an active part in it. If you are able to host a chapter event or have an idea for a possible event please let your Chapter executives know. In addition, to the suggestions I’ve already made there are a number of other ways we can all take part, whether it’s providing a monetary donation or providing your time and energy to one of the Association’s many Interest Groups, Chapters, Committees or on the Board itself. The Association is a great resource for archives across the province through its services and programs and let’s work together to make it enticing to new (and current) members and to any potential financial benefactors out there. 

Overall, only a small part of our membership took part in this survey  and obviously the questions put forth regarding the membership increase and maintaining services and programming are extremely important. I certainly have barely scratched the surface in my email in terms of what can and needs to be accomplished in order for the Association to succeed. However, I hope that everyone will be able to attend the AGM in Ottawa this spring to discuss the proposal the Board put forth as well as the overall state of the Association since the funding cuts. If you are not able to attend I hope that you make your opinions known to the Board and are willing/able to vote by proxy on any resolutions put forth by the Board.  The future of the Association is not only dependent on monetary funding but on the general interest and input of its membership. I would hate to think that Suzanne is right and the AAO has outlived its usefulness.

Liz

Liz Mayville, Assistant Archivist 

County of Oxford Archives
Governor's House, County Square,
82 Light Street.   P.O. Box 1614,
Woodstock, Ontario.  N4S 7Y3

Phone:    519-539-9800 ext 3075
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-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for discussion for the Archives Assoc. of Ontario [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Suzanne Dubeau
Sent: February-27-13 4:29 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Recent AAO Survey - comment about Archeion

Dear colleagues...

In an earlier posting today from the AAO about a proposal to increase membership fees, there was a reference to the recent survey that was done.

As someone who's been involved with Archeion since the beginning, I would like to answer one comment made about Archeion. The respondent said:

+++++++
Archives Advisor services offer little of value to established archives so a parttime service seems appropriate. Increased access to the Preservation Advisor would increase satisfaction. Not sure why we need a provincial descriptive database -- could this be done directly at a national level?
++++++

The short answer is, no, descriptions cannot be done directly at the 
national level.

The reason why we need a provincial descriptive database (i.e., 
Archeion) is because ArchivesCanada is built on a distributed network 
model of capturing descriptions. Provinces provide the aggregation 
service to collect descriptions in their jurisdictions to the best of 
their capabilities and with the resources they have, and what their 
provincial associations determined would be most useful to their 
institutional members. The provincial aggregators are responsible for 
uploading these to the national database, otherwise known as 
ArchivesCanada.

ArchivesCanada was never designed to accept descriptions from individual 
institutions. Nor should it be. Imagine the overhead that would be 
required to manage accepting input from thousands of institutions, of 
widely varying levels of expertise and technology, instead of 10 
provinces, 3 territories, and select national institutions who have at 
least some standardization in place and can submit their descriptions in 
bulk.

It should also be noted that while ArchivesCanada is a creature of the 
Canadian Council of Archives - also under tremendous threat thanks to 
the cancellation of the NADP programme - the information technology 
support for it was historically provided by Library & Archives Canada, 
when the staff there were given the resources to provide support at 
all.  In fact, in most cases, provinces were way ahead of LAC in making 
their "union list" of descriptions available, and if we had waited for 
LAC we wouldn't be where we are now. ArchivesCanada has been a 
collaborative effort from day 1, as most things in the overall Canadian 
archival system have been until recently.

I also found this comment (and others like it) very interesting and 
frustrating because Archeion is a service that is provided essentially 
FREE OF CHARGE  to all institutional members of the AAO.  For their 
miniscule membership investment, and the cost of an Internet connection, 
AAO institutional members get a robust data capture interface; a search 
engine; a server to host their descriptions (many AAO members have 
little IT capability at all); a standards-based description using 
current best practices; expert advice in the form of a paid, albeit 
part-time, Archeion coordinator; a way to publicize their holdings to 
the world at minimal cost. Most of Archeion was conceived, designed, 
established, and kept alive by a small group of volunteers, yet the AAO 
membership still begrudges paying a little more for some dedicated 
continuity.

All AAO services are now at risk because the archival community does not 
appear willing and/or able to pay for staff to do things. Volunteerism 
is great but if we want ongoing, sustainable programs, we have to step 
up with time and/or dollars.

Respectfully,
Suzanne

** These opinions are my own, and not my institution's. **




-- 

Suzanne Dubeau, MISt
Acting Head, Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections
York University, 305 Scott Library, 4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Tel:  416.736.5442	Fax:  416.650.8039