Tiah’s SAA Report

Though we only got one day of fog, it was quite nice to be back in my old stomping ground. I met up with lots of people I had worked with and gone to grad school with; catching up is always a treat. I also walked, walked, walked up and down those famous SF hills– again, a great treat!

Wednesday night I met 4 of the members of my online study group for last year’s Certified Archivist exam– nice to put faces to names, lots of emails & chat sessions, and reams of notes. We were also asked to speak at the CA certification forum. It was quite interesting meeting those who designed the test!

Of course, the stand-out of Thursday was my own session… Finding Aids 2.0 was the general topic, with my own talk looking at how social software tools are likely to change the relationship between the archivist and user. You can view the text for it (Archives for the People and by the People: Exploring the Dynamic, Interactive, and Changing Nature of the Relationship Between Archivist and User in a Web 2.0 World) on the SAA conference site. Rumor has it there were over 500 people there!

RAO Section meeting: For the most part, this was a standard business meeting… But one thing that was quite interesting was hearing the results of the MPLP Basic Processing Satisfaction Survey. As expected, the respondents varied, collections varied, and satisfaction varied; however, there was more confirmation that the profession is moving towards this model of processing.

Manuscript Section meeting: 3 excellent presentations by Kate Theimer, Stephen Fletcher, and Paul Hedges.
Since they have a great synopsis of the session, please look at the SAA wiki.

Erika and I were honored to honor Monique at the Awards Ceremony where we clapped loudly when she received one of the two 2008 Howard T. Pinkett Minority Student Awards.

Another stand-out for me was the session I attended Saturday morning on the redesign of the Online Archive of California (OAC). Here is the Session Description from SAA Site. Tuesday of the following week I had a chance to meet with Rachel Hu, their user experience expert, and tour the California Digital Library in downtown Oakland.

Finally, Erika and I capped off the conference with a great lunch in ChinaTown and the session “A California Feast: Documenting the Wine and Food Revolution.” It was a wonderful capstone and a REALLY interesting session featuring Darryl Morrison, Victor Geraci, Cecilia Chiang, and Darrell Corti. For those who are interested, here is the Session Description from SAA Site.